Isle of Wight Island line

Russel said:

Good to see the pier has reopened, looking forward to visiting next month.

Is the little takeaway tea/donut shop still open at Esplanade station?

Click to expand...

As of last weekend there didn't seem to be anything open at Esplanade station except the ticket office, but the builders were still working in what I assume will be the retail units.

Russel said:

Good to see the pier has reopened, looking forward to visiting next month.

Is the little takeaway tea/donut shop still open at Esplanade station?

Click to expand...

No, and the one out near the old toilets has gone as well. They are talking about having tearooms or something, but what and when remains to be seen. You can still get things on the other side of the Esplanade or on Union Street (the one traffic comes down).

hermit said:

It looks as though any hopes that we would now get the promised half-hourly service up the pier have now been finally dashed - the new timetable appears to be the same as the last pre-closure one, with basically a 40-minute service. This means that only half the trains have a decent (10-11 minute) connection with the catamaran, while for the others there will be a 26-27 minute wait. Those of us who (usually) have options when to travel can choose the crossings with the best connections, but for those who have to travel at fixed times this will be very unsatisfactory. There will be some very unhappy commuters, and more walking up and down the pier.
The only good thing about the timetable is that there is no longer the threat of an hour’s wait at Pierhead if a late-arriving cat misses the train.

Click to expand...

This is what I was wondering about. How long is it likely to stay like this before/if returning to a full service, and why?

spark001uk said:

This is what I was wondering about. How long is it likely to stay like this before/if returning to a full service, and why?

Click to expand...

The issue seems to be that the half-hourly timetable can't be made to work reliably. At present there don't seem to be any public proposals for measures to resolve that. The previous mitigation was for alternate trains to terminate at Esplanade instead of Pier Head.

Though at the moment, problems with the Wightlink fastcats seem to be more of an issue. Only one seems to be available, and when that expires, as it did yesterday and over the whole bank holiday weekend, the timetable collapses, and passengers may be diverted to the hovercraft or the Fishbourne car ferry.

DelW said:

The issue seems to be that the half-hourly timetable can't be made to work reliably. At present there don't seem to be any public proposals for measures to resolve that. The previous mitigation was for alternate trains to terminate at Esplanade instead of Pier Head.

Though at the moment, problems with the Wightlink fastcats seem to be more of an issue. Only one seems to be available, and when that expires, as it did yesterday and over the whole bank holiday weekend, the timetable collapses, and passengers may be diverted to the hovercraft or the Fishbourne car ferry.

Click to expand...

Ah. Picking my moment to go over soon, it's a long way and involves a couple of trains and the cat (don't really like the hover), so sounds like tomorrow wouldn't be the best day to choose then

spark001uk said:

Ah. Picking my moment to go over soon, it's a long way and involves a couple of trains and the cat (don't really like the hover), so sounds like tomorrow wouldn't be the best day to choose then

Click to expand...

The fastcat was back in service from mid morning yesterday, but there do seem to be intermittent engine problems at present.

hermit said:

It looks as though any hopes that we would now get the promised half-hourly service up the pier have now been finally dashed - the new timetable appears to be the same as the last pre-closure one, with basically a 40-minute service. This means that only half the trains have a decent (10-11 minute) connection with the catamaran, while for the others there will be a 26-27 minute wait. Those of us who (usually) have options when to travel can choose the crossings with the best connections, but for those who have to travel at fixed times this will be very unsatisfactory. There will be some very unhappy commuters, and more walking up and down the pier.
The only good thing about the timetable is that there is no longer the threat of an hour’s wait at Pierhead if a late-arriving cat misses the train.

Click to expand...

The only way to make the 30 minutes interval timetable work it is to take about a minute off the time taken for the trains to travel between Ryde Pier Head and Brading. The only way I can see of doing this is to increase the line speed of the two and a half mile section between Brading and Smallbrook Junction from 45mph to 60mph.

I was on the Island line yesterday. Some pictures below.

THC

Regarding a 30min service, the local Bus & Rail users group reported back in January that:

...a feasibility study is in progress to try to identify possible measures to reduce the train running times. The report will be shared with the DfT for potential future funding if resources are available.

weeklycommuter said:

The only way I can see of doing this is to increase the line speed of the two and a half mile section between Brading and Smallbrook Junction from 45mph to 60mph.

Click to expand...

Raising low speeds is usually much more effective, trains between Ryde and Brading spend a significant amount of time at or below 20mph for various reasons.

Surely they'd worked all this out during testing of the stock etc, before the 484s entered service on the refurbed line?

spark001uk said:

Surely they'd worked all this out during testing of the stock etc, before the 484s entered service on the refurbed line?

Click to expand...

I suspect it's one of those cases where the timetable works in theory, until those pesky passengers get involved and slow things down. And with tight turn-round times at termini, and trains having to pass each other at Brading, once the times start to slip the delays multiply and recovery is difficult.

As Field Marshal Von Moltke said "no plan of operations can with any certainty reach beyond the first encounter with the enemy.’

spark001uk said:

Surely they'd worked all this out during testing of the stock etc, before the 484s entered service on the refurbed line?

Click to expand...

It should have been obvious when they decided to reinstate the loop at Brading for the trains to pass each other for a 30 minute interval timetable that they needed to take a minute off the time taken for the trains to travel between Brading and Ryde Pier Head.

The 2019 class 483 timetable shows a 14 minute interval between Brading and Ryde Pier Head. There is a minimum four minute turnaround at Ryde Pier Head. AIUI the class 484 trains can run at 60mph so the issue is ensuring the two and a half mile long single track between Smallbrook Junction and Brading supports the trains running at 60mph. This should have been part of the work done when the Brading Loop was installed in 2021. Unless and until this is done passengers will have to live with the current 40 minute interval timetable.

As the Portsmouth Harbour to Ryde Pier Head fastcat service is almost always an hourly service with a half hourly service only on very busy summer weekends and bank holidays the 40 minute interval Island Line train timetable designed to support the hourly fastcat timetable is still usable and at least ensures the train timetable can be operated reliably.

weeklycommuter said:

The 2019 class 483 timetable shows a 14 minute interval between Brading and Ryde Pier Head. There is a minimum four minute turnaround at Ryde Pier Head. AIUI the class 484 trains can run at 60mph so the issue is ensuring the two and a half mile long single track between Smallbrook Junction and Brading supports the trains running at 60mph. This should have been part of the work done when the Brading Loop was installed in 2021. Unless and until this is done passengers will have to live with the current 40 minute interval timetable.

Click to expand...

Doubtful 60mph would make any significant difference once you account for acceleration and braking, they don't spend enough time at 40/45mph between Ryde and Brading - aside from curvature, foot crossings and the limited power supply that already causes issues, the turnouts at Smallbrook will restrict speed even for passing trains, and ground conditions at Rowborough wouldn't allow it either.

Maybe regearing would make more sense given the poor acceleration, but they do seem capable of more on occasions - excessively conservative driving policy?

spark001uk said:

Surely they'd worked all this out during testing of the stock etc, before the 484s entered service on the refurbed line?

Click to expand...

I doubt they took into account how 'old school' Island Line was, untouched by AWS let alone TPWS and OTMR and the increasingly conservative modern railway - it wasn't just new rolling stock and a loop, but a complete cultural change.

Chris125 said:

Doubtful 60mph would make any significant difference once you account for acceleration and braking, they don't spend enough time at 40/45mph - aside from curvature, crossings and the limited power supply that already causes issues, the turnouts at Smallbrook will restrict speed even for passing trains, and ground conditions at Rowborough wouldn't allow there either.

Maybe regearing would make more sense given the poor acceleration, but they do seem capable of more on occasions - excessively conservative driving policy?



I doubt they took into account how 'old school' Island Line was, untouched by AWS let alone TPWS and OTMR and the increasingly conservative modern railway - it wasn't just new rolling stock and a loop, but a complete cultural change.

Click to expand...

From the videos I've seen online, the door open/close process seems glacial, could this be improved to shave a minute off the timetable, it may be my memory, but I don't recall the doors being anywhere near as slow on the District Line?

That said, with every new stock introduction, station dwell times seem to increase, look at the S Stock compared to the A or C stock...