Island Line won’t re-open until mid-May due to a 6-week delay in the delivery of a major £26million upgrade of the network, it has been announced.
It was originally hoped that the Ryde Pier Head to Shanklin route would re-open at the start of April following significant improvements to the track, infrastructure and stations. However, South Western Railway (SWR) has today (Friday) announced that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to unforeseen challenges, leaving the project team no choice but to push back the line’s reopening by around 6 weeks.
When the line does re-open services will resume with the brand new Class 484 trains, although to date just 2 of 10 carriages have been delivered.
The nationwide lockdown has added to the complexity of the project as teams have had to work hard to navigate changing restrictions on movement and colleagues have been required to form work bubbles on the Isle of Wight to ensure sites are COVID Secure.
The recent increase in COVID-19 cases across the UK has also created the additional challenge of colleagues needing to isolate all along our supply chain, setting back the whole project.
Vivarail, who are supplying the new class 484 trains, have been particularly affected by the pandemic with the number of engineers able to work on the new train at any one time being significantly reduced and the supplier of the Traction system being unable to work at full capacity.
Whilst some elements of the project have been hit hard by lockdown restrictions, other work streams continue to make good progress. They will use this extra time to complete additional track works and bring forward elements of the project that had been planned for later in the year - including repainting stations and other minor refurbishments.
Alex Foulds, Major Projects Director at SWR, has said:
“We’re sorry the impact of COVID-19 means we have been forced to reschedule the reopening of the Island Line, but our teams continue to work tirelessly on the project and aim to have the first trains running to a new timetable in mid-May.”
“Everyone at SWR is committed to delivering a modern railway for the Isle of Wight and we all look forward to welcoming customers onto the new Island Line tracks and trains as we emerge from the shadow of COVID 19 later this year.”
Adrian Shooter, CEO, Vivarail Ltd said:
“The complete upgrade of any line is never easy as there are so many variables involved, however undertaking it during a pandemic and with several nationwide lockdowns has obviously caused issues for everyone involved.
“We’ve seen some fantastic cross industry co-operation to come up with innovative solutions to make up lost time. From running the trains on forklift truck batteries for software testing, through to borrowing a test track in Derby to simulate the conditions on island line, everyone is pulling out all the stops to have the trains ready as soon as possible.”
Planning for the project began well before the pandemic and although mitigations have reduced the impact of COVID-19, the unpredictable nature of the virus and the associated restrictions mean there is a risk more time may be needed before the line can be reopened.
In the meantime, a replacement bus service continues to operate and offers plenty of spare capacity for the relatively small numbers of socially distanced customers needing to travel.
Fair comment and to wait a little longer shouldnt be a problem and at the end of it you will have a lovely new network with trains that will smarten up the experience no end!
This is Island Echo, you are supposed to moan about incompetence, claim covid is a lie, blame it all on the council and the MP, ask which freemasons are getting a back hander, ask when they will sell the railway for housing, and complain about the chavvy scum that new housing will bring in from the mainland.
How dare you post a reasonable, well thought out comment.
at least you are keeping up the low standards ?? by making a post that insults all others – very sad, naive little woman
nooo…. just ripping it out of all the morons on here who think that no-one should be allowed to have an opinion that disagrees even slightly with their right wing conspiracy theories and cant even be bothered to check what someones gender is before trying to insult them.
Please do keep it up, its actually hilarious.
?? bit hypocritical of you, after all, I did read a comment of yours on another news item, which was directed at another, who you referred to as a “little man” without even bothering to check what the persons gender was.
you should also remember – others do not like your left wing, socialist drivel either.
but please do keep it up, its actually hilarious.
You far left wingers are far from democratic, and you certainly don’t like free speech if it doesn’t agree with your weered views.
You are all loosers, always have been and always will be..
Just keeps getting better. Hilarious.
On a serious note though, what the hell is wrong with you? Are you seriously so insecure that you cant allow others to give their opinions without abusing them?
Cretins.
I think you should practice what you preach dear!…x
Who’s the sad naive little woman
Don’t forget the incompetent drivers.
What incompetent drivers are you referring to
I think its any incompetent Island drivers he means.
You are not Island echo!!!!!
Having ridden the old stock, this is going to be a fantastic improvement. It seems a lot of money but that’s life. I hope people don’t get too used to riding the replacement busses!
A lot of money?! £26m is absolutely peanuts for this sort of upgrade. Compare this to the cost of HS2.
They should have spent a bit more and got brand new bespoke trains. Expect further delays to be announced in due course.
yep – the island gets another lines old cast offs again – same old, same old
these are brand new trains. only the body shell is 40 years old. Everything else has been rebuilt.
There has been a lot of work done, including rebuilding Lake station, ripping the tracks up at Shanklin in preparation for digging the trackbed out, and work progressing at Brading to rebuild the platforms and reinstate the passing loop.
the old stock was introduced here in 1989 i think, so £26 million investment over 30 years for a line on an island seems reasonable. HS2 is intended to carry huge numbers of passengers, isnt an upgrade but a new line build including all trackwork, clearance, tunnels, bridges, even moving woodland to new locations, and is simply not comparible to Island Line
That is why I said £26m is peanuts. It is value for money, unlike HS2.
Sorry, but these are not “brand new trains”, they are remoulds. They should however order a few more of them while they have the chance, otherwise we may end back to square one in ten years or so.
As I said – the body shell is 40 years old.
The rest is new, completely rebuilt. Not a remould, an old reworked body shell with new running gear.
As opposed to the previous, which were just lifted out of the underground and dumped here with only cosmetic work done.
Will these new trains be like the Floating Bridge Fiasco?,
Maybe they should have just painted the old trains!
No it’s not. These trains have an excellent service history and the ones we have are as good as new.
paint wont help when they are the last remaining stock of the class and parts are impossible to obtain. For most of last year a reduced service operated because they could only manage to repair 1 unit. For December, the service virtually ground to a halt as they struggled to keep any units working.
The only possible problem is the height. There is only 50mm clearance in ryde tunnel. they are lowering the track bed to get 250mm clearance, which may result in flooding occasionally but the pumps in the tunnel are also being renewed I think.
That’s why we wanted new bespoke trains, not remoulds.
Well let’s give the new train and track a good few months, before moaning about it, staff have had to form bubbles ect because of covic, so let’s give all involved a good few months, ie, November, then let’s moan, or say how good it’s been.
Nothing new here then, has anything ever been delivered on time ?
well said dave – any old excuse in the UK, yet countries like japan, deliver on time and on budget – they see it as a disgrace and a shame to be late/over budget or below standard.
Network rail = In work later