Fleet No.:      F.28

Builders:       Metropolitan Carriage & Wagon Co., Ltd.

Year:              1897

Status:           Withdrawn 1992

This is the second of two large bogie vans, known as the “Empress Vans” as they date from 1897 (Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee); both have survived through into the twenty-first century when much of the other non-passenger stock (and indeed a sizeable chunk of the carriages) have been lost.  Seeing regular use in connection with the railway's Luggage In Advance service between Douglas Station and Port St. Mary it was also used regularly in conjunction with T.T. ambulance trains for many years, being a familar sight stored in the sidings at St. John's between duties.  Stored in the open air for many years, F.28 fared somewhat better than F.27 being used well into the nationalisation of the railway, and even receiving the plastic stick-on lettering and repainting in 1981.  It was repainted into purple lake livery in 1991 at which point the brake ducket was replaced with a square version as the accompanying photograph illustrates; at this time it also  received a fleet name and numbering which sister F.27 still lacks.   Today it is stored inside the carriage shed at Douglas Station being used to store the seats, lamps and ancillary parts of the partially-completed ex-County Donegal railcars.  The weight it has carried latterly has resulted in a distinctive sag in the body, it being a timber-framed vehicle.  The lower view shows the detail inside the Douglas-end lookout ducket in January 2012.