Lottery grant for the Isle of Wight Steam Railway

Lots of work done during the last week, the detail work for the purlins and to create window and door openings has continued. Scaffolding rails have been erected around much of the roof area to protect the workers who will fit the cladding. The main drainage runs have been started, this should help to keep the site a little drier! The weather is predicted to be drier over the next few weeks which will be a bonus for all.


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Work continues at a really good pace, roof cladding has started to appear today with six sheets fitted in the short space of time that I was viewing the work taking place.

Photo two gives a very good impression of the length of the building, it shows one of the two road bays that will be within the building, this particular bay will house most of our grounded bodies that are awaiting restoration and restored historic goods stock. Photo three shows the cleaning and maintenance road in the leanto which covers the fifth road. Some of the open space to the left between the leanto and the track will be used to site a rainwater havesting tank.

 

Gary - how many grounded bodies do you think you can get under cover? I'm guessing that the current bogie and 4-wheel sets will probably need about two-and-a-half to three roads, and there will always be two or three vehicles in the workshop at any one time - how much do you think you can get in the remaining space?

Also, when commissioned, is the plan that the service set will go under cover each night? I guess that means you will have to split the bogie set each evening and re-form it each morning?

Edit - oh look, post 900...

Tom

 

Tom the present plan is that the six Oldbury bodies plus the FYN composite will go undercover. That is the minimum, if at all possible more will go undercover.

The present bogie set has just been reduced to four vehicles with the withdrawl from service of Ex SECR 4145, but should go up to five again when Brighton 2403 is commisioned (March or April 2013 is possible) Each of the five roads will accomodate four bogie vehicles so the full set will have to be split. The six four wheelers with a single bogie coach fill a second road. W8, W11 and W24 will also live in Changing trains when not in use. Most if not all of the restored historic goods vehicles will again live in Changing trains except of course when they are out in a demonstration goods train, possibly in years to come hauled by the E1.

The service sets will not be put away if they are in use the following day, but will be if the period is two or more days.

When changing trains is brought fully into use it will be of tremendous benifit to the railway. We are still looking at possible ways of increasing undercover accomodation even further in the future. That may have to wait until we have a presence at Ryde St Johns to take advantage of the old goods yard and perhaps even some of the unused parts of the Works!

 

Thanks Gary

OK, I know it is selective quotation. But what a potential embarrassment of riches!

Tom

 

I've seen a few casual references to "a presence at Ryde St. Johns" in posts and on Wikipedia. Are there plans to slew tracks across and start operating that far up? And are there any plans to preserve any of the early Standard Underground stock that once ran on the island? I noticed that at least one similar car was at Eastleigh recently.

 

Hi,
I am not speaking for the railway, this is just my own thoughts, but I understand the long term plan is that Islandline will need some p-way works in the next 5-10 years and by replacing the passing loop at Brading they could operate a much more even service using two trains which would pass at Brading. This means they would not need double track between Smallbrook Junction and Ryde St. Johns as they currently have. One of these lines could be 'given over' to the IWSR for use as a single line to Ryde St Johns where two platforms can be utilised. Islandline would keep the other line and use the platform there for trains going in either direction. Smallbrook Junction would likely remain as a new development is planned there in roughly the same time period.

The London Transport Museum has a set of four pre-1923 'Standard' stock cars that will be used to make a new heritage train in due course, I am sure you can find pictures of it online with a bit of searching!

 

I remember this cropping up quite recently as resignalling was expected, but i think it was reported that Network Rail postponed/cancelled it and i've yet to hear anything since.

Chris

 

I thought I read somewhere (probably on Nat Pres) that the Island Line Franchise was for everything, i.e infrastructure and associated maintainance as well. I ddn't think Notwork Rail were on the island. I might be wrong.

 

Island line would like to simplify the electric railway, doing away with virtually all the signalling so that Brading becomes the main passing place on the whole line. This would enable the current uneven 20min then 40min service to become an even 30 min frequency, which in turn matches the Fastcat service at the pierhead. The double track section from smallbrook through to Ryde esplanade would be singled with the Steam Railway taking over the redundant line to St Johns.

As Andrew said the Steam Railway would use 2 platforms at St Johns with Island line using the 3rd platform. The signal box at St Johns would also be used by the Steam Railway. This possible extension would open up all sorts of possibilities for the future, steam to Shanklin? Steam to Esplanade or even onto the Pier! Although weight restrictions may prevent that from happening.

 

Yup, I'm aware of the Standard Stock project, although that's had mixed fortunes in recent times (as has the Q stock). I should have been clearer: I was more interested to know whether the IoWSR had plans to preserve one themselves. It'd be rather good to see that, plus a 38 stock car when the time comes.

There's a discussion on District Dave's London Underground Site - Standard Stock Preservation about the stock in various places, but I've rather lost the thread on numbering and so on, and what actually ex-IOW still survives.

 

The arrangement with Railtrack, and presumably now Network Rail, is described by the IW Council in this report:

"Island Line is responsible for the maintenance of the infrastructure generally e.g. track, signalling, electrification equipment and buildings, however Railtrack is responsible for the maintenance of structures, earthworks and the formation below 450mm from the underside of the sleepers. Railtrack is responsible for renewals except permanent way and the non-structural elements of stations."

Chris

 

Thank you for the clarification. I knew it was a different arrangement to the normal franchises on the mainland.

 

Hi, I don't thing there are any plans (again, this is just my opinion) and it is, after all, the Isle of Wight Steam Railway which tries to preserve the Island railway scene in the days of steam. There has been debate recently about the Ryde Pier Tram which is on site and is now being restored, but this was a contemporary of the O2s and could be said to be worth having, the electric stock belongs to a different category and it would be up to the railway to decide if it wanted to go down this path. I personally would be very wary, especially when the LU museum does have examples of both types. On another level where on earth would you store them? It would take up a lot of space which we don't really have. Anyway, that's just my thoughts.

 

Reading through the District Dave thread it seems that only two Island vehicles now survive

S27 a 1925 MCCW Control Trailer (LT numbers 1789 / 5279)
S49 a 1923 Cammell Laird Trailer (LT numbers 846 / 7296)

Speaking personally, I think that this is a gap in the collection at Havenstreet and I hope that a complete 1938 car can be acquired to represent the 3rd rail period on the Isle of Wight. Nevertheless two "standard stock" Island vehicles do survive, so their absence from Havenstreet doesn't mean that the breed has disappeared completely.

Overall though the collection at Havenstreet does represent a wide selection of Island rail vehicles and we must sometimes be pragmatic and accept that not everything can be "saved"

 

IMHO we must "always" rather than "sometimes" be pragmatic!

PH

 

Although the weather has done its very best to disrupt the cladding team have made significant progress this week, a couple of days were lost when it was too wet and windy to be on the roof. Three of the four main sections are on with a start being made today on the last and biggest roof section. The smaller roof over the display area has also appeared this week.

The area inside the shed that is now under the roof is much drier already. The second photo shows how much the floor level will have to be built up, the bottom purlin on the dividing wall is the eventual level. In places the floor will have to br raised three to four feet so that the tracks are level.

 

Thanks for these weekly updates Gary. I was at Havenstreet yesterday for the first time since construction got underway but the weather was so bad that I didn't fancy walking up to the field to take a look.

Fantastic progress is being made, it won't be long before the C&W team's hard work will be protected from the elements.

 

We now have a roof! there appears to be lots of detail finishing work to do on the roof E.G. the ridge capping. A good start has been made with the wall cladding, the first being the external wall that creates the lean to. The lean to track will enable most of the cleaning and routine maintance to be done under cover, which will be a massive bonus!

It will be gradually get harder to photograph the inside of the building from the outside, due to walls gettin in the way:smile:

 

Very good progress again this week. The lean to road is now fully clad and has its guttering fitted.

The floor level bay has its full ridge cladding fitted and a start made on its internal fire wall.

The platform bay shown in photo 1 has its internal fire wall fitted and the ridge capping. The bottom of the sheeting marks the eventual floor level.

Photo 2 is taken from the approximate starting position of the track fan that will serve changing trains.

Photo 3 shows the current method of protection that we provide for the 4 wheel stock. It takes approximately a full day to shunt each coach into position, retrieve the cover from the stores and to fit the cover, at the start of each season another full day is spent shunting, removing the cover and putting it back into store.

We are looking forwards to the day when we can open the doors, shunt the full 6 coach rake inside, close the door and hey presto! they are fully protected until we need them again.