Qualla: Sea Lion (steam locomotive)

Sea Lion (steam locomotive): Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Phil Parker from Leamington Spa, UK, CC BY 2.0. When the apprentices at Sellafield took her on in 1986, Sea Lion was barely a locomotive at all. Brass fittings had been pried off by collectors and thieves. She had spent years in the open air at a Kirk Michael steam centre. After that she had been hauled to Loughborough by a preservationist who moved to England and took her with him. By the time the campaign to bring her back to the Isle of Man got going, she was a derelict 90-year-old machine that had not turned a wheel under her own steam since 1939. The trainees of British Nuclear Fuels rebuilt her anyway. By 1987, on a stretch of test track laid at the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway in Cumbria, she moved.

Image: Phil Parker from Leamington Spa, UK | CC BY 2.0

Sea Lion (steam locomotive): Built for a Cliff Edge

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gordonastill (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Sea Lion was built by W. G. Bagnall and Company in Stafford and delivered in May 1896, ordered for the Groudle Glen Railway. The line had been built to carry Victorian holidaymakers three-quarters of a mile out to a clifftop zoo that featured sea lions and polar bears. The locomo...

Image: Gordonastill (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Sea Lion (steam locomotive): A Long Slow Wreck

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bahnfrend, CC BY-SA 3.0. The railway reopened in 1950 with Polar Bear only. Sea Lion had spent her wartime in the open, in poor condition, and demand had dropped. The line itself struggled on until 1962. By then the locomotive was a corpse with brass missing and metal pitted. She was saved from scrap by ...

Image: Bahnfrend | CC BY-SA 3.0

Sea Lion (steam locomotive): Back Under Steam

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Phil Parker from Leamington Spa, UK, CC BY 2.0. By 1987 Sea Lion had been transported to the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, where a short section of three-foot test track was laid for her. She turned a wheel under her own steam for the first time in 48 years. She went back to the works for finishing and paint, then arrived at...

Image: Phil Parker from Leamington Spa, UK | CC BY 2.0

Sea Lion (steam locomotive): Visiting and Visited

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Finn Bjorklid, Public domain. Sea Lion has not stayed on the island. She visited the Ffestiniog Railway in 1997, then in 2005 went to the Amberley Museum in West Sussex to help celebrate her sister Polar Bear's centenary. In a neat exchange, Polar Bear came back with her to Groudle Glen for a return visit. A ...

Image: Finn Bjorklid | Public domain