Ideas for provision if disused railways are reopened on the Isle of Wight

[Bob Price]

The Vivarail design will allow the 484's to have batteries fitted if needed with fast charge.

 

[MarkyT]

Newport Harbour would seem logical but your still a good distance from the centre

The buffer stops of a Quay car park station would only be about 200m from the end of Quay St, and 400m from High Street. That's no further than often necessary to walk from a car park to a typical shopping area in a British town

The Vivarail design will allow the 484's to have batteries fitted if needed with fast charge.

Also a discontinuous electrification configuration could be adopted that locates lengths of live 3rd rail well away from platforms and level crossings, while allowing the batteries to slow recharge en route while traction power is drawn from the conductor during the lower power 'cruise phase' of each movement. Thus, battery size and weight can be minimised. Batteries can also recapture regenerated braking energy approaching stations. Fine-grained remote isolation switching of the conductor rail sections could be arranged to allow quick isolation in the event of reported trespass incidents and obstacle detection at remaining crossings could automatically detect any incursions with control centre alarms and automatic isolations, while trains could continue to move in the area (under caution clearly) using battery power, which could also cover for local supply failures and at least always be able to get a train as far as the next station.

 

[BayPaul]

There is a simple solution to the ban on extending 3rd rail - simply fit the D-trains with small nuclear reactors. Zero carbon footprint, and probably just as likely to ever see light of day as any extension on the IOW

 

[Romsey]

There is a simple solution to the ban on extending 3rd rail - simply fit the D-trains with small nuclear reactors. Zero carbon footprint, and probably just as likely to ever see light of day as any extension on the IOW

How long before that idea appears in "The County Press" to wind the locals up?? ‍♂️

 

[AlbertBeale]

There is a simple solution to the ban on extending 3rd rail - simply fit the D-trains with small nuclear reactors. Zero carbon footprint, and probably just as likely to ever see light of day as any extension on the IOW

Though of course nuclear reactors do have a significant carbon footprint. Even if this is in the speculative section...

 

[30907]

Newport Harbour would seem logical but your still a good distance from the centre

The old station wasn't so much nearer AIUI and the site has been obliterated. My guess is that the town centre would be the origin/destination for a minority of the users, and a station with car park and bus interchange on the East side of the river looks from the map to be a reasonable option. Whether it's viable is another matter....