Ownership
The first section of the line, from the northern end of the promenade at Douglas to Groudle Glen, opened in 1893, the line reaching Laxey in 1894 (the mountain railway was established the following year and starts from Laxey Station within the same environs) and finally Ramsey in 1899. The first section of the line was built by a company titled Douglas Bay Estates Ltd., and by 1894 the tramway had been acquired by the Douglas & Laxey Electric Tramway Co. Ltd. which changed its name to the Isle of Man Tramways & Electric Power Co. Ltd. (I.o.M.T.&.E.P.) in the same year. The I.o.M.T.&.E.P. went into liquidation in 1900 as a consequence of a banking collapse. The tramway was sold by the liquidator to the newly formed Manx Electric Railway Co. Ltd., which took over the services in 1902. By the late 1950s the Manx Electric Railway Co. Ltd. was itself in financial difficulties, and in 1957 the company and its assets were acquired by the Isle of Man Government (they carried out a similar move two decades later to save the Isle of Man Railway) at which point a nationalisation livery of green and white was applied to some trams and trailers for a limited time though this was unpopular and later dropped. A government Board was formed to manage the line and the Snaefell Mountain Railway, and still does so after various changes of title from the original Manx Electric Railway Board later becoming the Isle Of Man Passenger Transport Board, and it is now operated under the banner heading of Isle Of Man Heritage Railways (the word heritage being added in 2009). This is a division of the Department of Community, Culture & Leisure of the Isle of Man Government, and is also responsible for the operation of the island's buses under the banner of Bus Vannin.
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