Steaming back into Ryde?

Paul, what makes you think that i dont know what its like to maintain engines and stock? i was a fitter on both C&W and loco in my time, so i am very aware of what any extension means, it means that examinations come up sooner, it places more stress on ensuring all the stock you need to run a service is going to be availible, its washouts, ensuring you have the right engines at the right time, and that you have your expenditure with in budgets.
why else do you think i would rule out regular running if it did become possible to run on the shanklin road, because it would place to far a strain on the railway, but if on a 1 train day, you could use the spare stock, and a suitable engine, to run a charter, pre booked of course, i think you might actually have a sell out, especially if it were 4 brighton coaches and Calbourne

 

But it is so much more than this. There is capital expenditure for very little return, management time and equipment availability. None of the rolling stock is less than ninety years old and there have been periods of acute shortage in 2014 despite the good efforts (and they are good efforts) of the C&W team.
PH

 

Not only my thoughts.

PH

 

but that can be said of any preserved railway, returns are allways low, its the nature of the beast, we are not in this profession on purely commercial grounds, to do so,would come to one conclusion, retire all steam locos to museums, cut up the non museum worthy coaches and just run lightweight deisel rail cars, ok your overheads would be far lower, but you would go out of business very quickly. we are in the good day out business and recreating the past,or a version of the past that appeals to modern day needs

 

This is exactly why heritage railways need to be very careful. They cost a lot to run and it won't get any less as time goes on. Sadly that means no room for "wouldn't it be nice" things that are liable to waste money.

P.H.

 

And I can have some sympathy with elements of them, whilst also understanding that, in the real world, such problems may indicate a more complicated situation than would exist in an ideal world.

I don't want to drag this thread off down a well-beaten track, but if we take the example of a large loco working a short, train, there is a potential parallel. It may be that for a given Railway its a case of "express steam loco or diesel" (or even nothing).

How is that a parallel? Well, in a worse case (and, I must add, I believe unlikely) scenario of Island Line closing, the IOWSR will have no choice but to change. Smallbrook, as has been pointed out, becomes useless without Island Line to connect to and hence it is either a case of cut back or extend. You have agreed (as I think many would) that the comparatively short extension to Ryde St John's Road would be wise in those circumstances.

The wider problem seems to me to be (and to this extent, I can understand the ferocity of your and Islander's reactions) that politicians (and Civil Servants) may get the idea that they can cut costs by landing Island Line on IOWSR. This would probably on the whole play well locally, and indeed could well cut costs initially. Such an arrangement could only work by a subsidy payment to IOWSR to take on operating Ryde Pier Head to Shanklin. The danger for IOWSR is that any deal for such a subsidy would not be infinite, and, over time, clearly there would be pressure to reduce and/or remove the subsidy. Then, it would be IOWSR refusing to continue using only its own resources that would close those parts of Island Line not attractive and commercially viable to its core business. This, local and national Government get to try and push the blame for any closure on to preservationists.

Hence, I can fully understand IOWSR wanting to play down any suggestion that it would overly welcome or seek control of all of Island Line, whilst I am sure continuing to make plans to ensure it could counteract any damage to the existing IOWSR from any changes to Island Line. I do not believe some form of sharing track into Ryde would leave IOWSR more exposed to being "forced" into taking over the balance of the branch and indeed could serve to well illustrate the benefits but also limitations of a "shared tracks" approach, whilst, perhaps most importantly, making continued operation of Island Line even more important to the well-being of the Island (by the extended service being more popular and bringing a greater contribution to the local economy).

Incidentally, I presume Island Line is fitted with TPWS and OTMR?

Steven

 

Heritage Railways need to be very clear about "wouldn't it be nice". For those which are educational charities, some activities which may be seen as "nice but not essential" to pure operators are very much core activities. This does not, of course, pay for them but may well tip the balance in favour of seeking to do them.

In any structure of railway, if supporters are willing to fund the "wouldn't it be nice". then the railway should be quite blunt that such activities depend on such funding in order to happen. Photo charters - the running of more authentic loco/stock combinations - are a prime example but not the only one.

It should also be recalled that there is much that is "nice but not essential" about even core train services - restored stations are not the only way to enable passengers to join and leave trains (as many European steam operations show) but are nevertheless a core part of the "product" which attracts the passengers in the UK.

Steven

 

What's your point here Paul? I didn't cite the line to Freshwater not the line south of Newport to Merstone and Ventnor West but the others that I did mention were all extant in the 1960s - I envisaged a social railway existing between the main population centres with the possibility of coexistent heritage operation on the other lines, and I lamented the shortsightedness that ensured that every retrenchment of the network was also made irrevocable. Ernest Marples had a conflict of interest in his position on a scale that would make his office untenable today. Ogre - fat cat - whatever..........
Transport arteries are perhaps the rarest and most expensive component of our national infrastructure and we sacrificed all of them in the 1960s and rendered them unusable thereafter for peanuts. Even the land sales were botched. I doubt there is one closed line anywhere in the UK that remains completely available for reopening given the remarkable appetite for rail travel that has emerged since privatisation, but there are many that would and could have been reopened had the land still been completely available to do so.

 

i have stated some of this before when this subject was previously raised.

there are very special considerations for the isle of wight railways.

geographically the ex-IWR line ryde to ventnor was far from ideal, brading sandown and shanklin stations being a long walk from the town centres (especially so in the case of ventnor). the buses go right through the town centres. the ex- IWCR lines were built on a shoestring and ran as much till 1923 with decrepit locos and carriages and light flat bottom rail. newport and cowes staions were however central to the town centres.

the LBSCR and LSWR funded the line from the pier to ryde st. johns road, the IW railway companies being too broke to afford such a connection.

the newport - merstone - sandown and ventnor west, newport - freshwater, brading - bembridge were all closed pre-beeching in the 1950s.

this is a very abbreviated synopsis, but apart from heavy summer saturday holiday traffic the writing was on the wall for the remaining lines . medina wharf remained important for coal traffic so long as there was a market for coal! when the ryde-newport-cowes and shanklin-ventnor lines closed in 1966 the isle of wight council bought the trackbed. what they did with the track bed and their failure to prevent development over key stretches is quite another matter but it happened and cant be reversed.

you must not look at those pics and films of the IW railways as they were in steam days and think the clock can easily be turned back. the surviving ryde-shanklin line has been rationalised to a shadow of its former self. even the BR days of the tube trains are fondly remembered when the shuttle tube waited for late ferries at the pier head and Vic Hayles wore his waistcoat with watch chain as supervisor. the punctuality of SWT hides a long period of a chronic lack of capital investment and the infrastructure being run into the ground with SWT doing no more than the franchise requires of them.

and in the intervening years at certain times of day the roads in and out of newport and ryde are now gridlocked, and nothing can be done about it because the railway land at newport is covered with roads and the Isle of Wight Council is desperately short of money.

and so far as the railways are concerned the IOWSR has to rely primarily on those holidaying on the IW in the summer, and the ryde - shanklin line carries nothing like the number of passengers it once did.

and so far as extending to ryde st. johns road, the isle of wight council has allowed the land around the station to be developed with housing, and i dont think the owners of this new housing are going to want steam trains polluting their surroundings, the area being in a hollow.

whatever the future holds for the ryde - shanklin line, it requires a substantial capital investment that wont ever be covered by fares, and the social benefit formula isnt very promising either. if the Isle of Wight Council said to IW ratepayers we are going to double your rates to buy and invest in the ryde - shanklin line i think every councillor would be at great risk of being voted out! there are enough complaints about the appalling state of the IW roads and nothing has been done about them for years!

cheers,
julian

 

This appears to be dragging on (for which apologies!) Just one Parthian shot. Why are we assuming any replacement for the present Island Line will be replaced by a train, that is assuming there will be a replacement of any sort. It could be a guided busway!

Paul H.

 

Which have proven to cost a fortune more than upgrading/reinstating a railway line from past examples! I suspect that is one "barmy idea" that not even Civil Servants will any longer have!

Given the potential costs associated with continued 3rd rail operations (and the tide turning against 3rd rail even on the mainland, it seems for rather weak reasons as far as I can see), conversion to use older diesel units, perhaps converted from newer tube trains, seems the strongest possibility.

Steven

 

hi steve,

stock is one problem. it costs £250,000 pa to rent a pacer set when i last had access to the figures. they are already nearly 30 years old. the economics simply dont add up with very few holiday makers to the IW now going by train/passenger ferry, and car ownership now being predominant for the IW population.

the track and the pier require substantial capital renewal. no major repairs have been done to the rail side of the pier since 1966.

as an ex IW resident with much of my family still living on the IW, and a regular visitor and reader of the 'Isle of Wight County Press' weekly paper i am not optimistic,
plus i have the greatest admiration for the achievements of the IOWSR at Havenstreet who have one of the best preserved railways in the UK - and well worth a visit!

cheers,
julian

 

so the electric side of Smallbrook could be a bus route, i suppose they would lay a roadway over the pier, and traffic lights at the tunnel, until it floods still Southern vectis would be happy to have a traffic free way to route buses between Shanklin and Ryde, so would the council, as they could sell the improvement the in public service

 

Work on a sub station was mentioned as part of the programme for the 10-week closure next year, so hopefully that will be addressed.

It received LU-style tripcocks relatively recently but that's it, no AWS or even cab radio I believe.

Chris

 

for some people this is actually a very serious subject that creates deep emotions. i was at school in Ryde with the grandchildren of local 'folk' heroes such as 'Mad' Jack Sturgess, Tony Townsend (drivers in steam days), Vic Hayles and many others. i lived on St Johns Hill just a few doors up from the station at St Johns Road. i remember the signal boxes being open at sandown shanklin and brading and the gas lights popping into life on the platform at brading and sitting with the signalman in brading box and when it was double track between sandown and brading. and the wheel lathe at work in Ryde St Johns Works.

however 'emotions' dont escape the economic facts that very few use the ryde-shanklin line and the passenger ferry service is also being run down on the portsmouth harbour-ryde route. i now live in the South Wales Valleys where the Valley Lines have been transformed with very high passenger numbers and an intensive service - a complete 'turnaround' from the early 1980s. however there are very special local characteristics and circumstances that have caused this to occur and i cant see any of these factors applying to the Ryde -Shanklin line.

if the Valley Lines are electrified - as has been proposed - then the Pacers will be available for the IW! however this is but a small part of the problem.

cheers,
julian

 

It depends how you define 'very few' but it continues to be well used in my experience, and I can't agree with the Catamaran service being 'run down' either - the investment in recent years in new vessels, facilities and berthing arrangements has transformed the service.

Chris

 

Blimey Julian - that's some inflation! Last time I saw the annual leasing cost ("dry" lease - lessor maintains) for a Pacer, it was £84,000 (actually, the slide been shown at a Community Rail event by one of the industry's most colourful character - he was wearing a somewhat vivid purple T-shirt at the time - had a "k" missing and read £84 - a member of the audience shouted "rip-off" and was threatened with having his house repossessed!) - that will be nearly 15 years ago.

In one way, however, the more permanently important issue is that even a Class 150 was costing nearly twice that at that time and hence is likely to be doing so now. As far as I can see, and very unusually, the 1938 Stock actually belongs to South West Trains, and therefore one might expect that any second-hand replacement would also belong to the the operator. If the stock would otherwise be going for scrap, then it may be possible to acquire it much more cheaply (at the start of privatisation, early Mark 2 stock which would have cost £30,000 per annum to lease was being scrapped for £600 per vehicle), but of course the problem is that if similar stock were remaining in use, all that would be for sale might be a heavily stripped shell.

Is the D78 conversion starting to look the most likely, perhaps?

The usage of the Island Line is quite difficult to get to - I have seen on another forum a comment that it knocked any UK heritage railway into a "cocked hat" but working out actual passenger number from the "Station usage" statistics is quite difficult - wikipedia tabulates them for Island Line:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Line,_Isle_of_Wight#Passenger_numbers

But the figures quoted are for entries and exists per station, based on tickets sold - and hence, presumably, a return should count as 2 at the starting station and 2 at the end station! As I suspect there may be quite a few singles, averaging over the 8 stations could give around 500,000 to 600,000 passengers per annum and with an adult return for the whole line at £5.60, the opportunity for ticket revenue seems quite small! Amended after I realised I had divided by the wrong number - a single is 2 1 entry and 1 exit and a return 2 entries and 2 exists, so divide that total entries and exits by 4 if all returns and 2 if all singles or 3 for a mix!

Steven

 

IIRC a figure of 1.6m a year was mentioned in an article not too long ago and sounds about right to me for a year round service with regular commuter and school traffic.

Chris

 

How much longer could the present service be maitained without any major works being needed, what life is left in the 1938 stock? and what spares are there, thats got to be the crunch point when the availability of spares dries up, i dont expect LUL can keep spares for too much longer, where as district stock converted to deisel may be an option

 

I travelled the whole IoW 'network' on a day trip in the summer, and was generally impressed with user levels on the Island Line, but it was a Bank Holiday and possibly therefore not representative. What was clear however was that considerable investment is required, and the railway is now in the wrong place to deal with traffic flows. It is hard to see the tourist levels increasing massively, meaning that it is local traffic that will need to fill the gap. Is that really realistic without a major reimagining of the island's railway? In relation to the IoWSR I personally believe that reaching Ryde would significantly help passenger levels, and improve visitor levels to the island, but I do understand that the infrastructure would struggle to cope.