Island Line (Isle of Wight)
| Ryde – Ventnor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Waiting train at Ryde Esplanade station
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| Route length: | 13.6 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Power system : | 750 V = | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Island Line is a railway line on the Isle of Wight off the south coast of Great Britain . It is 13.6 kilometers long and runs along the east coast from Ryde to Shanklin . In Ryde, the route begins on the pier, where ferries to Portsmouth arrive and depart. At the intermediate station Smallbrook Junction you can change to the Isle of Wight Steam Railway , a museum railway powered by steam locomotives .
The line was opened on July 12, 1889 and electrified in 1967 (750 V direct current with conductor rail ). In the mid-1990s there were plans to put the now disused southern section to Ventnor back into operation, but this failed due to excessive costs.
business
After the privatization of British Rail , the Island Line was an independent railway company from 1996. It belonged to the Stagecoach Group and was the smallest railway company in Great Britain, which was integrated into the tariff system of National Rail . It was the only railway company that had not transferred the maintenance of the operating systems to Network Rail . The Island Line was considered the most reliable and punctual railway company in Great Britain. The reasons for this were probably the simplicity and shortness of the route.
On February 4, 2007, the railway company South West Trains took over the operating license for a period of ten years, but the route will continue to be marketed separately.
vehicles
A tunnel near Ryde has a very narrow clearance profile . For this reason, conventional railroad cars cannot be used. Instead, modernized London Underground cars of the 1938 Tube Stock run. The trains consist only of the railcars (DM) with the mirrored A and D ends without side (T) and railcars without driver's cab (NDM). These cars, built in 1938, replaced the older vehicles from 1923.