Crovan's Gate

Crovan's Gate is a town near a narrow gap in the hills that is the only practicable route into the centre of Sodor from the east. The town's station is the terminus of the Skarloey Railway and the location of the Works, where the engines go to be repaired. The town's motto is "Ave amicos cave hostes", which, translated, means "Welcome, friends; beware, enemies".

History

The Railway Series

The town is so named because of the narrow pass (Once much narrower than at present, since road and railway builders have enlarged it). This pass has for centuries been the only practicable route from the east into the centre. King Godred Crovan with 300 men held some 4000 Normans at bay here for a day until reinforcements under Jarl Sigmund and Thorkell of Norwich could arrive and occupy the surrounding heights. Then feigning retreat, Crovan lured the Normans through the gap which Sigmund then closed. The Normans were thus pinned down in a narrow space where they had no room to use their superior horsemanship except in trying to escape from what had become a virtual massacre.

Apart from its military importance, Crovan's Gate has been an agricultural market town until in the 18th Century the Crovan's Gate Mining Company made it the headquarters for their copper operations at Ward Fell and in the Skarloey Valley.^[1] By 1865, the terminus, sheds and yards for the Skarloey Railway were built here as well as a single platform station.

Nowadays, Skarloey Railway trains use a bay with a run-round loop on the north face of the North Western Railway's eastbound platform. At the platform end the line forks - left to sheds and workshops, right to the Main Line. Mr Roger Sam lived here in a cottage owned by the Railway; the original Manager's House of 1865 having been demolished during "the Lean Years".^[2]

In 1915 the NWR established their repair shops here. Since 1925 these shops have been expanded as required until, with the decline of steam on the Mainland, the Works are now equipped with machinery and craftsmen able to tackle any type of steam locomotive overhaul or rebuilding that may be needed.^[3] Sir Topham Hatt has been looking into the possibility of manufacturing parts for engines on heritage railways. The Works Diesel later came from here to help James.

Appearances

Trivia

• According to the 1958 Railway Series Island of Sodor Reference map, "Engines are made and repaired at Crovan's Gate", but there are no engines so far documented as having been built there for the North Western Railway.
• Its Talyllyn Railway equivalent is Tywyn Wharf Station.
• The Series 4 model of Crovan's Gate station has a poster that features an image of a Marklin Gauge 1 train set on the entrance.
• A section of the station terminus and four supports and the end sections for the canopy are now owned by Twitter user ThomasTankMerch.
• When the station returned in CGI in the eighteenth series, twenty years after the model version in the fourth series, there were several additions and modifications:
  • The overhead canopy of the main standard gauge station was removed and the outer part of the station building completely disappeared. The middle station footbridge was redesigned similar to the canopy's design and was longer.
  • There is no longer a road connected to the standard gauge station.
  • Some sheds, similar to the Skarloey Railway engine sheds, appeared right behind the station.
  • All the platforms were noticeably longer.
  • The narrow gauge platforms were raised up considerably.
  • The platforms between the standard gauge tracks became conjoined.
  • A footbridge spanning the narrow gauge tracks and a third standard gauge track in the middle station were added. There also appears to be a large warehouse added nearby.
  • The lamp posts, benches and the white wooden shelter all changed design.
  • The water tower for the narrow gauge engines, some signal boxes and gantries, the coaling areas, some walls and some workmen's sheds disappeared.
  • The road bridge that only crossed the three main lines now goes across the 6 standard gauge lines and the three narrow gauge lines.
  • All the standard gauge tracks and the narrow gauge lines (road bridge side only), were straight instead of curving.
  • The tracks for the main standard gauge station now end in buffers.
• Crovan's Gate was used to represent a location on the Mid Sodor Railway in the fourth series episode, You Can't Win.

References