Cattle Dock
Cattle Dock
As part of the goods yard there was an exterior loading platform, the majority of which remains today served by one of two sidings; this was shortened during renovations in 1993 to provide further car parking. Upon this platform stood the cattle dock, a timber palisade pen for holding livestock prior to onward shipment by rail. The Friends Of... have scale drawings of this and are hopeful to install a replica at some point in the future.
siding which served the dock was also shortened in 1994, having originally extended to approximately the site of the rear door to the booking office; it was shortened in 1980 as far as the goods shed and was used until 1991 to display the railway's breakdown crane prior to its removal from the site and moving to Union Mills. The siding was lifted for drainage work in 2020 and has yet to be reinstated, it is presently stored in panels in the yard.
The loading platform and grassed area which once was fitted with the dock at the station, served by the rear siding.
Santon Station also had a substantial cattle dock; today the siding and part of the platform remain, the dock has disappeared.
The dock at the south-western end of the yard at Port St. Mary Station, the small stone platform for which remains today.
A rake of drop-side wagons stand in the rear siding beside the site of the cattle dock which stood to the right in this view.
The platform and dock at Kirk Michael Station on the north line illustrates the palisade design of all these similar docks.
One the Peel Line there was a similar dock at Crosby Station which also had an advertisement hoarding similar to ours.