Isle of Wight Steam Railway

Agreed, and to add to that, combining two attractions in a day when one of them is constrained by timetable adds a degree of stress - even more so when reaching one of them itself requires an additional timetabled journey.

I've combined attractions in a day, but if one of them is a railway, the railway is always first , and the second is ideally much more low-key. With railway + 2nd attraction + return to railway I never find the second attraction so enjoyable, because I am always worrying about returning to the first one by a certain time; with the result you tend to rush round the second one.

Tom

 

For us it's a cost thing. We are a family of five. We can only afford to do one thing at a time. I can't think of any time we have ever combined two major visits in a day as a family.

 

If you are National Trust member there are a few doable e.g. KESR + Bodiam, Bluebell and Sheffield Park. As a NT member then we don't panic if the visit to the NT place is shorter than ideal as it hasn't cost us anything anyway. As a family NT membership has other benefits such as somewhere pleasant to have a picnic with usually good toilets etc when travelling.

 

Also Swanage and Corfe Castle, Severn Valley Railway and Dudmaston Estate, Bure Valley and Blicking Hall, North Norfolk Railway and either Sherringham Park or Felbrigg Hall , Watercress Line and Hinton Ampner

 

It's also possible to buy a family membership to English Heritage sites too, of course, which opens up a lot more possibilities

 

All true, but brings stress back into the equation.

As an example, we had a day out in London yesterday, mixing shopping, sightseeing and family. Going from Westfield at White City into South Ken for a brief visit to the museums (V&A chosen), then a meal, then to the train home had us very focused on times - and we had left ourselves time after attractions' opening times

 

Replying to myself here, but Facebook must have been listening to me when I wrote the above. It thought I’d be interested in a very recent post from John Woodhams on the IoW advertising his Bedford OB for sale. Perfect for Petra or Martin to acquire, and start their new business!

 

True, but buses can be harder to navigate for visitors not familiar with an area. As I can testify from personal experience...

When I was living in Southampton about 10 years ago, I took the ferry to Cowes and intended to get the bus to Wootton. I accidentally got out one stop too early. "No problem", I thought, "it can't be far to walk". I saw a brown sign pointing to the IoWSR, and set off.

The walk took much longer than expected. I kept thinking, "surely it must be around the next bend?" But it wasn't. And i didn't have a smart phone in those days, so I couldn't check Google Maps.

The penny finally dropped when, after about an hour, I finally found myself at Havenstreet station...because of course, the brown signs direct you to the station with a car park.

Sent from my SM-A125F using Tapatalk

 

As said before the service is well run and,pocket timetables are easily available. These include maps

 

We visited last week as part of a family holiday. I'd visited years ago, but forgotten what a nice line it is. Almost like a pocket sized Bluebell!

The whole set up is very much geared to the moving large numbers of tourists efficiently and the Haven Street site is nicely laid out for visitors.

There was plenty to keep a 4 and 2 year old occupied.

It did feel like the Ivatt was making easy work of the 4 wheelers though and did seem a bit big chufferist on them!

I was also surprised despite the train story, one set of coaches were stored outside in the platform overnight. Looking at the track layout on Google maps, is there an intention to house the second set elsewhere in the fullness of time?

 

Without a single Mk. 1 thankfully.

 

The Ivatt is a bit odd on the 4 wheel set, it only weighs 78 tonnes for the seven carriages so hardly has to break a sweat. In the fullness of time there will be a second set of bogies, this made up of older, shorter carriages which could be combined with some of the four wheelers if needed.

The current bogie set goes in the lean-to on the side of train story over the winter, but I think for sheer convenience is left in the platform over most nights

 

I appreciate I'm not going to change your mind on this topic, but what I would observe was that 99% of visitors we're the tourist market, so really the IOWSR is competing for pounds against Osborne House, various dinosaur attractions and the Needles, rather than the Bluebell or Mid Hants. In that respect the small army that descended between services to clean coaches, and their smart physical appearance were more important than whether the coaches were wooden bodied or not. I appreciate it's purely anecdotal, but we didn't overhead any complaints about the inauthentic austerity and Ivatt, and can't imagine we would have done of well presented mark 1s had been used.

Obviously from an volunteer and enthusiast perspective, the 3 southern rakes are very impressive, and something to be proud of,

That makes sense. If a 3rd bogie set is built up, is there the option for more undercover storage or train story 2?

 

I would totally disagree with that. From comments I have overheard from the general public when visiting the line, one of the things that really impresses them is the historic nature of the coaches.

 

I am absolutely convinced that this is a factor that impresses some visitors to the line, just as it is on other railways with pre-nationalisation rolling stock. However, in the absence of hard data, I hesitate to apply statistical significance to anecdotal observations on a single matter as to why people visit, and what impresses them. That's not to deny the observations - I believe them absolutely - but to try to interpret their significance. That significance is both proportionate - what proportion of visitors are making these comments? - and also about observation bias - how much do the comments overheard from others reflect the preoccupations of the hearer? I recently went to a concert with my son; he reported a number of comments as we left that I was oblivious to, because he was focused on a different perception of the event we'd both been to.

From my own visits to railways in tourist areas, I do however suspect that @chrishallam is onto something in his observation about the effort put into presentation - and that it is the act of managing that presentation that matters more to ordinary customers than what is being presented.

 

I think it is the historic nature (and therefore how quaint they feel) and the fact that they are very well kept, regularly cleaned etc. The third element is that they are all island specific, mk 1s were never on the island, I'm sure if they had been these would be equally well kept

 

There are plans for both, an outline plan for TS2 shows a similar sized building alongside the first. This is due to needing more space and also because the loco works has been outgrown, the machine shop in particular, this would be moved round to TS2 and the existing shed used for the running engines.

Both this and the second bogie set are long term projects though! I think the first of the LCDR bogies is under repair now:

https://iwsteamrailway.co.uk/heritage/conservation-projects/lcdr-appeal/

 

Dare I quote a Tripadvisor post when the correspondent expressed her pleasure at finding a leisure railway which gave as much attention to the inside of the carriages as the outside of the locomotive!

 

I would. Out of interest, did her comments make any suggestion about the virtues of any particular type of rolling stock, as opposed to it's presentation?

 

Yes