STEVIEBOY1
Established Member
- Joined
- 31 Jul 2010
- Messages
- 4,001
I went on the UK Railtours 159 SWT unit charter to the Isle of Wight yesterday, it was a great day out.
It did make me ponder about a few transport issuse on and to the Island though.
When steam was withdrawn and the sad closure of much of the railways there in the late 1960s, just leaving the service from Ryde to Shanklin, where did the original tube electric come from and from what era, was it from the 1920s or 1930s? and the stock that is now in use, which I think was bought over around 15-20 years, when was that originally built.? They only seem to have about 4 two carriage units in service. I think the red livery looks better than the NWSE livery which they used to have, although I am not sure if it is quite the same shade red as original LT UndergrounD trains were.?
We also went on the IOW Steam railway which I thought was brilliant, they were running two train sets, one with bogies and one with 4 wheel stock. The locos and rolling stock were is very good condition indeed, really clean and very well maintained and reminded me of some of stock used on the Bluebell line.
The transfer across from Portsmouth was on one of the older ferries rather than the fast cat. Outbound the sailing was one hour as they also did a trip around Portsmouth Harbour which was very interesting. However I was surprised that the return sailing from Ryde to Pompey took 35 minutes, I thought the old ferry only took about 25 minutes or so.
It did make me ponder about a few transport issuse on and to the Island though.
When steam was withdrawn and the sad closure of much of the railways there in the late 1960s, just leaving the service from Ryde to Shanklin, where did the original tube electric come from and from what era, was it from the 1920s or 1930s? and the stock that is now in use, which I think was bought over around 15-20 years, when was that originally built.? They only seem to have about 4 two carriage units in service. I think the red livery looks better than the NWSE livery which they used to have, although I am not sure if it is quite the same shade red as original LT UndergrounD trains were.?
We also went on the IOW Steam railway which I thought was brilliant, they were running two train sets, one with bogies and one with 4 wheel stock. The locos and rolling stock were is very good condition indeed, really clean and very well maintained and reminded me of some of stock used on the Bluebell line.
The transfer across from Portsmouth was on one of the older ferries rather than the fast cat. Outbound the sailing was one hour as they also did a trip around Portsmouth Harbour which was very interesting. However I was surprised that the return sailing from Ryde to Pompey took 35 minutes, I thought the old ferry only took about 25 minutes or so.
