The Isle of Man Steam Railway Douglas to Peel line started way back in July 1873 and was the first railway line on the Isle of Man. Its history has been well documented over the years and some interesting reading can be found at Isle of Man Railway Supporters Association Isle of Man Railways and Isle of Man Disused Railway Station
In geocaching terms this trail was first planned, set and placed by Happy Humphrey in December 2007 and consisted of 16 traditional and a Mystery Bonus cache (the coordinates for which are in 4 of the traditional caches along the route) covering a distance of 10 miles from Peel to the Quarter Bridge near Douglas. This is a very popular walk for locals and tourists alike and well worth doing by geocachers just for these caches alone, as well as the beautiful scenery and interesting pieces of railway memorabilia along the route.
However, with “Power Trails” becoming very popular with geocachers around the world, two local caching teams (twoofnine and Stillroaming) decided, as a tribute to Happy Humphrey and the Heritage Trail, they would expand the series and place an additional 63 caches along the route as well as keeping the original caches where possible and therefore making this the first official “Power Trail” on the Isle of Man with a possible 90 plus caches en route.
Hopefully local cachers will enjoy the challenge and maybe some of our visiting geo-tourists will be encouraged to have a go at this and all the other great caches on the Isle of Man.
The hides are a mixture of 35mm film containers, 150ml tubes and a few larger caches, which can be used for trading and swapping trackables. If you use the hints then the finds will be very easy, but the real challenge here is how many can you find in a day. There are other caches en route too which may add to your total.
For those who complete the whole series twoofnine have designed a badge for your profile page, details of which can be found in the first and last listing in the series.
Good luck and happy caching.
Here is the description from the original listing by Happy Humphrey:
Union Mills was once one of the most attractive stations on the island, with prize-winning gardens. The platform is still in place, although the timber buildings are long gone.
See here for more on the old station.
There is an 8-ton crane, dating from 1893, on display on a short section of track at the cache site.
There is parking very close by if you're not approaching along the track bed.