An independent report into last year's closure of the Manx Electric Railway between Laxey and Ramsey has called for a rethink of government departmental policy.
The report, carried out by retired senior civil servant Ken Tomlinson, MBE, has been published and will go before Tynwald later this month.
He concludes the lesson to be learned, or rather reinforced, by the whole episode is that departmental decisions, particularly the bigger ones, should only be taken after considering all the available information.
Edward Oldham looks at the background to the story (text, below, from attached audio file):
The decision to close the section was taken over a year ago by the then Tourism and Leisure Minister Adrian Earnshaw.
He said it was done for safety reasons, solely based on a report from United Kingdom consultancy firm CDL.
The report, and an earlier one by CDL in the 1990s, have cost the Manx taxpayer a total of ?112,000.
The latest one flew in the face of the findings of a team of local inspectors carried out just a short time before that, which had declared the section of track safe.
Mr Earnshaw's decision also drew fierce criticism from the MER Society, which called for his resignation.
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