Island Line Railway - current state and the future

[pitdiver]

I think some other members would confirm that the Marston vale Line (Bletchley to Bedford) certainly carries a lot less than 57 passengers per journey. Probably less than 7.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think some other members would confirm that the Marston vale Line (Bletchley to Bedford) certainly carries a lot less than 57 passengers per journey. Probably less than 7.

I don't believe that, other than when either Thameslink or LM is up the wall, that route has *ever* (in its current form) carried 57 passengers per train or indeed anywhere remotely near that.

 

[pitdiver]

I don't believe that, other than when either Thameslink or LM is up the wall, that route has *ever* (in its current form) carried 57 passengers per train or indeed anywhere remotely near that.

Yes I would definitely agree with that. I have travelled on it on a few occasions Think I was one of two passengers I know it gets a few more at school times I would have thought that when Amazon opened at Richmond it might have got busier. I use it between Millbrook and Bedford or Millbrook and Bletchley. However if I'm bored I will go Flitwick-Bedford-Bletchley-Milton Keynes just for a ride. Then come back using the X5 and local buses. (ENCTS and Priv Travel on NR)

 

[Chester1]

"Rail" 383 has "no plans in place for Ryde Pier Work" as an article header , the lease of which is up for renewal in 2019 , but the DfT would expect NR to make provision for routine maintenance and renewal works for CP6.

Maynard in same article also states that South Western Railway is to submit a costed option to the SoS by the end of March in relation to the future of Island Line operations. So there we are.

The Island Line does feed long distance (boat) services.

So the question is - how can the high costs be reduced? Looking at the German model of branch lines may help - DOO, payment of fares by TVM, complete destaffing etc? The big question is rolling stock and the pier.

(I know people don't like DOO, but if the choices are a DOO train or a DOO bus then surely people prefer a DOO train?)

Careful! You will anoy more people than me if you continue to argue that DOO is acceptable anywhere!

Unless Wightlink is prepared to make a very large contribution to renewal work on the pier then terminating services at the Esplanade station might happen in the next few years depending on cost of keeping the rail pier open. Foot passengers not prepared to walk half a mile would have to take the hovercraft service. This would move the problem to getting to Southsea terminal but at least the roads there can support the weight of a bus! The Island Line may get all the funding people want or the DfT may decide to limit spending.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Careful! You will anoy more people than me if you continue to argue that DOO is acceptable anywhere!

If a route is vulnerable to closure, then I don't think it's right to ignore *any* option. Beeching made that mistake - it was "fully staffed" or "nothing". So "nothing" it was in most cases.

This isn't a 12-car London commuter service. It's broadly comparable with a bus service, particularly if the new stock is self-powered and the electrification decommissioned.

 

[BestWestern]

We were at Portsmouth harbour yesterday afternoon. I could see storm Brian giving Ryde pier head a very profound six hour structural survey. If it survived that it should overcome a few lightweight trains rumbling over it.

Very technical. Or perhaps said battering might hasten the need for said survey.

 

[HSTEd]

The IoW 57 is in the context of high opperating costs leading to a 80% subsidy and the need for bespoke trains. How many branch lines in the UK have a subsidy that high? Most have lower costs and feed long distance services.

Bespoke trains which they already have.

Enormous subsidies being sustained without complaint is a feature of much of the railway in the North of England, but it is suddenly unacceptable once it occurs in southern england?

I see no pressing reason to do anything, the route can go on for another few years at least before anything has to be done.

 

[Chester1]

If a route is vulnerable to closure, then I don't think it's right to ignore *any* option. Beeching made that mistake - it was "fully staffed" or "nothing". So "nothing" it was in most cases.

This isn't a 12-car London commuter service. It's broadly comparable with a bus service, particularly if the new stock is self-powered and the electrification decommissioned.

I am not against DOO in all circumstances but I don't know whether it would work on the Island Line. It needs scale to avoid transfering costs to other parts of an opperation. I was mainly commenting to point out that you are risking the wrath of the anti DOO brigade!

Beeching and staffing levels... I agree a huge head count reduction would have helped the business case across a whole swathe of BR but I doubt it would have been achievable. The unions where much stronger in the 60s and would have opposed the government as strongly as they could. British trade unionism since 1945 has often been self defeating. You have to remember that for some left wing members it was (or still is) about opposing capitalism / a class war not about working conditions. The third man was supposed to be about safety when it was really about diesel replacing steam making the fireman redundant. The pragmatic solution would have been to create an at risk of closure list, drive down head count, wait, review the results and then either keep a line open or close it. The government wanted to close lines and the unions wanted as many employees as possible. This is from a historians perspective, more "mature" members of this site might think differently!

Its a bit of tangent but... with the decline of domestic tourism would Ryde-Newport-Cowes be more successful today than the line that was kept open? My dream scenario would be a Portsmouth-Gosport-Ryde-Ventnor/Cowes tram system (trams would be the only capable of climbing the gradient neccessary to tunnel deep enough to avoid Royal Navy objections). Its obviously an extremely unlikely prospect though!

 

[HSTEd]

Its a bit of tangent but... with the decline of domestic tourism would Ryde-Newport-Cowes be more successful today than the line that was kept open? My dream scenario would be a Portsmouth-Gosport-Ryde-Ventnor/Cowes tram system (trams would be the only capable of climbing the gradient neccessary to tunnel deep enough to avoid Royal Navy objections). Its obviously an extremely unlikely prospect though!

An all axles motored EMU is just as capable of climbing gradients as a tram.
This is now a false dichotomy.

I think if this line does have any kind of long term future, a rail tunnel to the mainland does need to be considered.
The population of the island is quite large, and it would likely turn the existing route into a series of railheads for Portsmouth.

 

[A0wen]

I think some other members would confirm that the Marston vale Line (Bletchley to Bedford) certainly carries a lot less than 57 passengers per journey. Probably less than 7.

Possibly so, but the Marston Vale line also carries a bit of freight as well - whereas the Island line is simply a very long siding between two towns on the IoW. And for both Bedford and Bletchley, London is the main traffic destination.

 

[Chester1]

An all axles motored EMU is just as capable of climbing gradients as a tram.
This is now a false dichotomy.

I think if this line does have any kind of long term future, a rail tunnel to the mainland does need to be considered.
The population of the island is quite large, and it would likely turn the existing route into a series of railheads for Portsmouth.

Does this apply to normal EMUs or more specialist designs? The gradient required would need to be extremely steep, basically the maximum possible. Due to the height of the Ryde tunnel and building on the trackbed on street running would be necessary. For any scheme to be remotely viable it would require a large proportion of the IoW population to be able to use it to get to Portsmouth without a change. Gosport would need to be included too. Its not going to happen unfortunately! It would cost well over a billion.

 

[HSTEd]

Does this apply to normal EMUs or more specialist designs? The gradient required would need to be extremely steep, basically the maximum possible. Due to the height of the Ryde tunnel and building on the trackbed on street running would be necessary. For any scheme to be remotely viable it would require a large proportion of the IoW population to be able to use it to get to Portsmouth without a change. Gosport would need to be included too. Its not going to happen unfortunately! It would cost well over a billion.

Almost all modern EMU designs are capable of being built with a variable numbered of powered axles - and things like the S-Stock are built with all axles motored.
Indeed there have even been Shinkansen sets that have been built with all axles motored - and they are about as far from a tram as it is possible to get.

A billion pounds is not unthinkable for a population of ~140,000 only a few kilometres from a major load centre [Portsmouth].
That is a steal compared to the Borders Railway.

The obvious route would be to branch off the line between Portsmouth & Southsea and Portsmouth Harbour, proceed south-south-east in a bored tunnel, switching to an immersed tube once you are out under the sound.
You could surface adjacent to the existing Esplanade station, or route further in-shore if you like.

 

[yorksrob]

Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Line,_Isle_of_Wight) states that...

"passenger numbers ... have fallen rapidly to an estimated 1.31 million in 2014–15. This is the lowest annual estimate since 1998–99, and suggests passenger numbers have fallen by 22% in the last four years"

So, looking at RTT for the Esplanade, there's 66 services a day during the week, 66 services a day on a Saturday and 46 services a day on a Sunday.

442 services per week, so 22,984 journeys per year.

That's fifty seven passengers per journey. Enough to fill a single decker bus, with a handful standing, but certainly not enough for a single carriage 153.

Now, you can argue, as some "believers" do on here, that every single journey matters and it'd be an outrage if we closed a failed station like Breich because there are unquantifiable social benefits that always magically swing the number in favours of heavy rail continuing to serve tiny markets (even if it may look like a sledgehammer/ nut situation). Fair enough if you are in that camp - there's no point in arguing with people like that.

But do you really believe that fifty seven passengers per journey (and falling) is "perfectly respectable"? How low would it have to get until you decided that it's just not worth the hassle of an isolated non-standard bit of the SWR franchise?

Is there a threshold at which you'd finally admit it isn't worth the candle? When it gets under a million passengers a year? It's been loosing a hundred thousand passengers per year in recent times, so it's not unthinkable that it'll go under a million before long.

(and I know there's the "but if we only invested billions in upgrading it then more people would use it" argument - I've heard the Ray Liotta quote more than a couple of times - but your actual point was about the current falling passenger numbers still being "perfectly respectable" and "enough" to warrant the existing service)

They are. The part of the quotation you've ignored is that ridership has effectively settled back down to 1998 levels.

I'm not arguing for a 'massive upgrade'. I'm merely arguing for the timely renewal of life expired infrastructure, as is accepted necessary on every railway in the United Kingdom. Of course, if amongst that work an additional loop could be installed to enable a half hourly service, I dare say passenger numbers would increase a fair bit.

 

[Chester1]

Almost all modern EMU designs are capable of being built with a variable numbered of powered axles - and things like the S-Stock are built with all axles motored.
Indeed there have even been Shinkansen sets that have been built with all axles motored - and they are about as far from a tram as it is possible to get.

A billion pounds is not unthinkable for a population of ~140,000 only a few kilometres from a major load centre [Portsmouth].
That is a steal compared to the Borders Railway.

The obvious route would be to branch off the line between Portsmouth & Southsea and Portsmouth Harbour, proceed south-south-east in a bored tunnel, switching to an immersed tube once you are out under the sound.
You could surface adjacent to the existing Esplanade station, or route further in-shore if you like.

Immersed tube would probably be vetoed by the Royal Navy. They won't want anything that reduces depth in case it is an opperational limitation in the future. I agree it would be a economic game changer for the Island without the negative effects of a road link but Isle of Wight is not in London so it has not even had a proper feasibility study. Using trains would still prevent a line to Cowes or Ventnor at a reasonable cost and I doubt a tunnel could be justified by linking the Island Line alone. Ryde tunnel height would still be a big problem although there would likely be enough economy of scale to maintain more modern tube stock.

They are. The part of the quotation you've ignored is that ridership has effectively settled back down to 1998 levels.

I'm not arguing for a 'massive upgrade'. I'm merely arguing for the timely renewal of life expired infrastructure, as is accepted necessary on every railway in the United Kingdom. Of course, if amongst that work an additional loop could be installed to enable a half hourly service, I dare say passenger numbers would increase a fair bit.

1998 levels.... That is incredibly poor. UK wide passenger rail use has more than doubled since then. Any decrease on any line is concerning. It is not a normal line. Its not a case of shipping across sprinters, the rolling stock solution will be expensive and thats before considering the pier. I wouldn't be surprised if First propose closing the pier or at least present it as costed option to the DfT. The line is an uneconomic mess that needs massive investment to opperate another 30-40 years. Over that period building a busway network is likely to be cheaper and serve a much larger number of people.

 

[HSTEd]

Immersed tube would probably be vetoed by the Royal Navy. They won't want anything that reduces depth in case it is an opperational limitation in the future. I agree it would be a economic game changer for the Island without the negative effects of a road link but Isle of Wight is not in London so it has not even had a proper feasibility study. Using trains would still prevent a line to Cowes or Ventnor at a reasonable cost and I doubt a tunnel could be justified by linking the Island Line alone. Ryde tunnel height would still be a big problem although there would likely be enough economy of scale to maintain more modern tube stock.

Immersed tube tunnels do not necessarily reduce the depth of the port - after all they can be dredge so the top of the tunnel roof armour is no shallower than the seabed around it.
And there are other ways to get very large ships out of Portsmouth - going the other way for example. The Admiralty no longer has an absolute veto in port operations after all.

The tunnel would likely kill all passenger ferry traffic, which would likely lead to only one ferry route surviving for lorries and cars in the long run.
Even without a line to Ventnor or similar it would be a huge game changer for transport provision on the island.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

That's one of the things I love about these forums...
In a handful of posts we've gone from "The line is a basket case and needs to close" to discussion of a fixed link tunnel!

 

[HSTEd]

That's one of the things I love about these forums...
In a handful of posts we've gone from "The line is a basket case and needs to close" to discussion of a fixed link tunnel!

Its far from a basket case.
It might not be the most used line and it is probably not economic.
But neither is it really that uneconomic.

Doing anything precipitous would be unwise - and the power demands are so low that I can't imagine electrification renewals coming out that expensive.

Sure its an 80% subsidy, but the subsidy is still small in absolute terms.

 

[jon0844]

That's one of the things I love about these forums...
In a handful of posts we've gone from "The line is a basket case and needs to close" to discussion of a fixed link tunnel!

Can I suggest a cable car link? If you can't go under, let's go over! Sorts out the Ryde tunnel at the same time!

 

[HSTEd]

Can I suggest a cable car link? If you can't go under, let's go over! Sorts out the Ryde tunnel at the same time!

I already suggested a 3S Ropeway, but people just laugh

 

[Chris125]

Assuming 4 miles around Newport + Cowes, 2 miles around Yarmouth and Freshwater and proper priority systems in Ryde, Sandown, Shanklin and Ventnor I think £70m is a reasonable budget.

2 miles of busway for Yarmouth and Freshwater (!) yet nothing to get buses up Ryde Pier and only 'proper priority systems' for Ryde, Sandown and Shanklin? This isn't credible.

The IoW 57 is in the context of high opperating costs leading to a 80% subsidy and the need for bespoke trains. How many branch lines in the UK have a subsidy that high? Most have lower costs and feed long distance services.

How many branch lines are on an Island, entirely self-contained with their own depot and train fleet? How many are vertically integrated with responsibilities for the track and signalling?

Even if line-by-line figures were available you'd still be comparing apples and oranges because it's a unique operation, one that geography has always made (like most else here) relatively expensive to operate.

 

[Chester1]

Its far from a basket case.
It might not be the most used line and it is probably not economic.
But neither is it really that uneconomic.

Doing anything precipitous would be unwise - and the power demands are so low that I can't imagine electrification renewals coming out that expensive.

Sure its an 80% subsidy, but the subsidy is still small in absolute terms.

What % subsidy would make it a basket case in your eyes?

2 miles of busway for Yarmouth and Freshwater (!) yet nothing to get buses up Ryde Pier and only 'proper priority systems' for Ryde, Sandown and Shanklin? This isn't credible.

How many branch lines are on an Island, entirely self-contained with their own depot and train fleet? How many are vertically integrated with responsibilities for the track and signalling?

Even if line-by-line figures were available you'd still be comparing apples and oranges because it's a unique operation, one that geography has always made (like most else here) relatively expensive to operate.

Unique opperation doesn't make the costs vanish. There are no disused track beds to build busways on from Ryde until the end of the line. As far as I am aware there is no suitable alternative route into the town either.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Taking the Isle of Wight as a whole, is it not the case that the bus services cover the daily public transport needs of the main areas of the resident population, in comparison with a similar large island such as Anglesey?

 

[yorksrob]

Immersed tube would probably be vetoed by the Royal Navy. They won't want anything that reduces depth in case it is an opperational limitation in the future. I agree it would be a economic game changer for the Island without the negative effects of a road link but Isle of Wight is not in London so it has not even had a proper feasibility study. Using trains would still prevent a line to Cowes or Ventnor at a reasonable cost and I doubt a tunnel could be justified by linking the Island Line alone. Ryde tunnel height would still be a big problem although there would likely be enough economy of scale to maintain more modern tube stock.



1998 levels.... That is incredibly poor. UK wide passenger rail use has more than doubled since then. Any decrease on any line is concerning. It is not a normal line. Its not a case of shipping across sprinters, the rolling stock solution will be expensive and thats before considering the pier. I wouldn't be surprised if First propose closing the pier or at least present it as costed option to the DfT. The line is an uneconomic mess that needs massive investment to opperate another 30-40 years. Over that period building a busway network is likely to be cheaper and serve a much larger number of people.

There is nothing particularly geographically challenging about the line in terms of maintenance and renewals compared to line in the rest of the country. There is no suggestion that any rolling stock will have to be 'bespoke' as the country will continue to use and build tube diameter into the foreseeable future. The suggestion that the route is somehow exceptional is pure hogwash.

I understand that you would like to convert the route to a busway but repeating that the line is somehow an 'uneconomic mess' and that it needs a 'massive investment' when infact it requires a routine renewal does not constitute valid justification.

 

[yorksrob]

What % subsidy would make it a basket case in your eyes?



Unique opperation doesn't make the costs vanish. There are no disused track beds to build busways on from Ryde until the end of the line. As far as I am aware there is no suitable alternative route into the town either.

There is no fixed level of what amount of subsidy would constitute a 'basket case'. Society is free to decide what it is prepared to pay to provide a public service, or what cross-subsidies from other parts of the service are necessary. This calculation will very much depend on what benefits that service will bring to the area versus what costs users can bear.

 

[Rational Plan]

When the wave of closures were happening the line was too important for transporting tourists from Ryde. Since then mass tourism has shifted abroad, more come car now, it is not so important to the Island now, but politics has shifted, no one closes passenger lines anymore, but is not important enough to secure enough investment to make it useful. At some point some money will be spent t just depends whether it will be bare minimum or a little bit above it.

 

[A0wen]

A billion pounds is not unthinkable for a population of ~140,000 only a few kilometres from a major load centre [Portsmouth].
That is a steal compared to the Borders Railway.

You're kidding right? 140,000 is the TOTAL population of the IOW - for those on the western side crossing to Lymington or Southampton is still more viable.

Edinburgh is twice the size of Portsmouth and the Borders towns had NO rail provision to Edinburgh.

And Borders railway cost £ 350m - whereas a billion is, depending on the definition a thousand million (US) or a million million (UK).

 

[Coolzac]

I think part of the problem is advertising - how many people know they can get to the Isle of Wight by train? When I tell people how easy it is from Worthing to Sandown most people are very surprised.

I don't think the train is that useful for locals but for tourists the potential is there. Great connections, not too expensive and a beautiful destination.

 

[A0wen]

I think part of the problem is advertising - how many people know they can get to the Isle of Wight by train? When I tell people how easy it is from Worthing to Sandown most people are very surprised.

I don't think the train is that useful for locals but for tourists the potential is there. Great connections, not too expensive and a beautiful destination.

Given that fewer than 10% of journeys in the UK are by rail and the rail industry recognises the vast majority of their business is from business commuters, I think your pitch for tourist trade to underpin the railway on the IoW is misplaced.

The rail line provides a link to a small part of the island, admittedly is quicker point to point from Shanklin to Ryde than the bus, but is less attractive because the stations (apart from Ryde Esplanade and Pier Head) are sited away from the 'useful' areas of each town, whereas the bus accesses those. It also provides a link to two of the cross solent links (Pier Head for the fast-cat and Esplanade for the Hovercraft). It also can't compete with the frequency that the bus offers.

The use of the railway for people going on their holidays declined in the 50s and 60s - it's not going to suddenly return to those levels for various practical reasons.

The question which needs to be answered is what does the IoW railway exist to achieve' - remove all the emotion, rose tinted glasses etc etc. It's exactly the question which was posed of the Blackpool Tramway about 10 years ago - which in that case led to the modernisation of the system.

Either it's a public service transport link or it's a tourist attraction - it can't be both. If it's the former, then what needs to be looked at is what the most cost effective modernisation is - and that may be conversion to light rail of some description.

 

[Chester1]

There is no fixed level of what amount of subsidy would constitute a 'basket case'. Society is free to decide what it is prepared to pay to provide a public service, or what cross-subsidies from other parts of the service are necessary. This calculation will very much depend on what benefits that service will bring to the area versus what costs users can bear.

I meant specifically for the Isle of Wight in your opinion?

 

[HSTEd]

You're kidding right? 140,000 is the TOTAL population of the IOW - for those on the western side crossing to Lymington or Southampton is still more viable.

The Lymington Crossing alone takes 40 minutes, whilst a car from Yarmouth to Ryde takes a comparable amount of time.

Which means if you have private transport (or an express bus route is created) then you will be in Ryde (or a park and ride further south) about the same time you reach Lymington Harbour.

So you will likely reach Brockenhurst about the same time you arrive in Portsmouth and Southsea, after all we have an all axles unit to cope with the gradient which means it will accelerate like a scalded cat.

Edinburgh is twice the size of Portsmouth and the Borders towns had NO rail provision to Edinburgh

And Edinburgh was rather drastically more distant than Portsmouth is from the Isle of White.

And Borders railway cost £ 350m - whereas a billion is, depending on the definition a thousand million (US) or a million million (UK).

The population density of the IoW is rather higher than the borders however.