After many months of planning the website first went online to a priviledged few in December of 2008 when the "bare bones" of the site first took shape; there were many small changes to the site, and the way it can be administered at this time which have subsequently resulted in its ease on the eye to all visitors ultimately.

Having decided on the basic layout and how each of the menus, sections and categories would be displayed, the raw site was displayed to members of the Supporters' Association committee for feedback and various changes were made that will ulitmately make it be the sister site to www.groudleglenrailway.com in 2009 at which time administration of both sites is proposed to be taken on-island to ease update.  This project however proved fruitless and the other site remains sparsly updated.

Not only was it decided to give a history of the I.o.M.S.R.S.A. as a group, but the ambitious task of detailing the history of the whole railway network from 1873 to date was embarked upon, this being (we believe) the most copious online resource on the Isle of Man Railway to our knowledge, to date.  Sections were added accordingly.

Once the sections were complete and the committee happy with the content the domain was fully registered as www.iomsrsa.com with the alternate suffix of .co.uk also being registered as a fallback if needs be.  Then, offline, as text documents many of the articles that are now online were completed by the web administrator.

What followed in January of 2009 was the first "roll out" of the site, complete with articled sections (with necessary "to be completed" and "in progress" banners where required) and we aimed for a launch to the general public in February to coincide with the winter/spring issue of Manx Steam Railway News by the association.