Work has started on a project to study the Isle of Wight’s railways to see how they could meet future transport needs, which includes the possibility of running trains into Ventnor and Newport once again.
The government’s Restoring Your Railway Ideas Fund is supporting a research project commissioned by the Isle of Wight Council and being carried out by a group of transport experts led by the Centre for Economics and Business Research.
The consortium, in partnership with Ricardo Rail and Connected Economics, will deliver a Strategic Outline Business Case for the restoration of rail services to be submitted to government in May 2021.
Options being explored include the extension of the existing Island Line service (Ryde-Shanklin) south of Shanklin to Ventnor and the provision of passenger services through Smallbrook from Ryde to Newport.
Councillor Dave Stewart, leader of the Isle of Wight Council, said:
“Once again – working in partnership with our MP – we have been able to convince the government to support us in taking forward plans to enable investment on the Island.
“We are looking some way into the future here, but the potential to have an extended railway service on the Island is very real, and could have a transformational impact on our public transport provision.
“I know we have a wealth of knowledge and skill on the Island already, so I would encourage individuals and organisations with an interest in the future of the Island’s rail services to get in touch with the research team soon, find out more about the work they are doing and make their views known.”
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Bob Seely MP said:
“Working collectively with the IW Council, and others, we worked hard to secure Government money for a feasibility study.
“We need to look beyond the coronavirus pandemic and make sure the Island prospers in the long-term. We need to build back better and to help us achieve this we need to actively apply for Government support wherever it may be available. This is one such avenue we are pursuing.
“We requested this study to see if there is a viable case to reinstate rail connections from Ryde to Newport, and Shanklin to Ventnor.
“With regard to the Ryde to Newport link, clearly, we need to work with the IW Steam Railway to explore whether it would be possible to enable a shared use of their existing route to Wootton, and an extension beyond there for mutual benefit. We can only proceed with their support and cooperation.
“We have a contractor in place and we now need to talk to all interested parties to ensure we come up with a common approach on the Island.”
You couldn’t make this up DS and the IWC wasting more money on a doomed rail project along the cycle path to Newport while at the same time the IWC is looking to spend £235,000 upgrading the Ryde to Newport cycle path (IE 19th January 2021). Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing DS it certainly doesn’t look like it.
BB, to them it is just another ‘feasibility’ study, all funded, giving someone who is clearly not pressed for work more money to take on such, even when they know it is pointless, as no one cares, as it is not coming from their money or salary.
Imagine if you run a ‘business’ where no matter what you did, you still were paid, and every grant, or scheme you come up with then meant you could apply for more funding, even IF that scheme or potential project was never ever going to occur, but kept a friend, a relative in highly paid employee, then YOU would likely ‘take it on’ too.
Then imagine taking on project you knew were pointless, YET would win favour with the now jaded, yet still gullible public, then ‘so much the better’
Hence that is what is occurring here
Remember this at voting time.
Ventnor will never happen. The tunnel is fine, but getting through Wroxall would be a massive cost, involving demolishing houses and reopening a route long since built over.
Even if it were to be done, when people arrive at Ventnor, they are high up on the hill in an industrial park. How would they get to the town? Walk? Or would they want a bus to link them to the town – in which case why not just catch the bus from Shanklin or Wroxall instead of using the train.
Running from smallbrook to wooton and on to Newport could be feasible – but again why not simply use the bus direct from Ryde instead, which is likely to be faster.
A tram using existing road routes might be a good solution, or an electric bus solution using roads again.
The railway that would be useful to rebuild is Cowes to Newport, and that may make Smallbrook to Newport worthwhile.
Or perhaps go completely nuts and simply ban petrol and diesel cars on the Island. Its 26 miles long, theres nowhere you couldnt drive to and back in an electric car. Perhaps a better solution than trains is to establish electric car rentals all over the Island at every transport link.
Or just wait until we can all have Star-Trek transporters
You can’t just ban petrol and diesel vehicles, not many people can afford electric cars. I know I can’t
another 10 years or so and you wont have a choice.
There is always a choice. Not giving up my trusty defender for anyone .
there is a ban on new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, brought forward from 2040.
at some point your landrovers will become uneconomical to run as the fossil fuel industry simply shuts down in the UK due to lack of demand.
like it or not, that is what will happen.
It won’t happen .
It is already happening. Hope you enjoy living in denial.
No it isn’t.
Yes. It is.
From 2030 onwards fossil fuel cars will not be made.
2020 saw a 43% increase in electric car sales.
There are likely to be more electric cars than petrol cars sold in 2021.
It’s happening. Get used to it.
NO, That is the plan, to ban by pricing out the masses private car ownership, and instead ONCE 5G is rolled out, the masses will have to use ‘driverless electric cabs’.
You will order and pay by your phone, be given a pin number to enter the cab, it will take you to your choice. Drop you off and go on to another client.
When you want to return, either pre book or dial and get another sent.
This is what is being planned, to cut roadside parking, to end the problem of every car owner having to have ‘on street’ chargers with all the problems this will cause.
These driverless cabs, will return to an out of town base for hi rise charging with a few overseers to keep prices low.
Your Grandchildren will be amazed when they hear most ‘once’ had their own car parked for 22 hrs a day outside.
Watch, learn and remember where you heard it first.
Likely the post will be taken down as some don’t want all pre warned.
driverless is way, way off – for it to work on such a large scale it needs to be better than it is – how many times has your PC crashed – a driverless car will still run off a computer
no..the next steps are…new car sales to be electric only, eventually, then slowly but surely petrol/diesel will be taxed off the road, whilst all public service vehicles, such as buses/taxi’s will be electric only.
the existing petrol station networks will convert to charging points or battery exchange facilities (once the battery tech advances to this point), as well as tesco car parks all having a plug in point at each space.
existing eleccy cars have ranges of over a hundred miles on a charge – no one ever does more than that a day on the island – so it is the ideal place to have electric only first
When I moved to a Pub by the old train station there was another dream of building a cable car to go from there to the town and town to seafront. We all know that did not happen but if I remember there was a feasibility study carried out. Sadly the Island Councillors seem to just like spending money.
The most likely and cheapest option in the ventnor direction is to extend the line to Wroxall and open a station there called Ventnor & Wroxall parkway. Served by bus link and a good size car park.
yes that the way to go get part of the line back as wroxall should never should been shut ventnor was shut because of the water get on the line as it being changed to electrice
why bother when Shanklin is already served by bus link and already has a good size car park?
Why build a railway to wroxall when a bus can serve both wroxall and ventnor easily, and will take people to the town where they want to be?
How many houses would need to be demolished in Wroxall? Just curious?
have a look at the route on google maps. count them yourself
an extended train track would be fantastic for islanders and tourists alike especially if on occasions the steam trains were running on them
I totally agree. And what a tourist attraction it would be. It would have the added bonus of keeping tourists off the road in the summer too.
I note that this has had the most positive reactions!! 🙂
Yes, more steam, like it or not, will bring many more tourists from all over the world, even if they are wearing anoraks!
I don’t want an electric car .I collect landrovers .
Put a battery in it! :-))
Hey I know, build a tunnel… or two… or more.. ie: Tunnel to Newport, Tunnel to Ventnor, hey then tracks all th way down Military road to Freshwater, on to Yarmouth, around to Gurnard and Cowes then back to Newport ! toot toot !! And then a Tunnel under Medina, and a tunnel to mainland.. The Island would be like Swiss Cheese !!
As much as I would like to see the train network extended. As someone else has pointed out, cost far too much just to secure the land needed. And could also mean the removal of some really nice cycle paths.
In 2019 the island railway carried over 250,000 passengers and was one of the most punctual services on the rail network. That’s a lot of cars off the roads.
Removal of cycle paths???!!!….ok you’ve just sold the idea to me!!
along a lot of the cycle theres is room for both using a tram network would be best way to go and could go on road where the railway has been built on we need this its only way fallward
It would be lovely to have trains running into Newport and Ventnor, but as several people have pointed out, the land was sold off and built on.
When these lines were closed, the land was protected by local council plans, but when the Isle of Wight Council took over many years ago, this protection was removed by guess who and parcels of land were sold off.
The route into Newport has been given loads of money to be upgraded from a footpath to a cycleway as put forward by the council.
Seems they can not make up their mind what they want.
Just another headline to instigate a discussion….by the time covid has finished with the island you’ll need tractors to circum navigate the pot holed roads and majority will be on bicycles or on foot…reality is the island is in decay every seafront is closed and looking like it has been for decades…ran by businesses in the big smokes who now have to focus on matters closer to their own doorsteps…this is what happens when you sell out to big money for fast gains…just as Cornwall are now finding out….anyways…as you are….another nugget from the voice of reason!!!
As much as i think the infrastructure should not have been removed as much in the first place, i dont think we should be reinstating the Victorian era transport stuff. It’s more about what do we want to do?, then come up with what we could do, then, future solutions. That’s ports to centres of population. I dont really have any answers of my own to that. I would say i`d consider banning cars from Ryde pier, to force the use of the train and reduce car journeys in to Ryde to the Fast cat. But that might mean park and ride elsewhere or a new or relocated station to allow vehicle access. Maybe a park and ride and Station near Rowborough Corner. Then there is Cowes to Ryde and Newport. Maybe a new pier somewhere, owned by the Council, to allow more options. Victorian railway though? maybe not. Rail replacement bus upgrade to Ventnor town centre.
Okay so you want to extend the train line but you can’t put in a fixed link to the mainland. Makes sense to me