London Tube trains regularly operate on a line that never appears on any Tube map. As one of the few examples of Underground car cascading, retired Tube trains have been operating on the Isle of Wight’s Island Line since 1967.
This special relationship has lasted for decades, with two generations of retired Underground trains migrating south, like people, to retire by the seaside.
But this time round as replacements are sought once again, the apparently simple solution of buying in a third generation of time expired Tube stock looks less likely, as a host of other problems have come to the fore. The problem is working out what comes next.
The current generation
Class 483s at Ryde St John’s Road in 2017 (author)
When the Isle of Wight’s railway was electrified in 1967 by British Rail (BR)’s Southern Region, they imported ex-London Underground Standard Stock dating from the 1920s to comprise the train fleet. The Island Line’s Standard Stock, in turn, was replaced in 1989-90 by 1938 Tube stock, brought in by Network SouthEast (NSE). Now, nearly 30 years on, it will soon be time for the 1938 stock’s replacement as well.
The Island Line was electrified at the same time as, and had economies of scale with, the Bournemouth electrification project. Whilst the former had been specified to operate 7 car trains up to every 12 minutes, it has degraded significantly in recent years.
What is Island Line?
Isle of Wight railway map (DfT)
Island Line runs between Ryde Pier Head station, half a mile out to sea (at high tide) on the north-east coast of the Isle of Wight, and Shanklin on the Island’s south-east coast. There are six intermediate stations, and the line is all that remains of a once island-wide railway network. Whilst the remainder closed to regular passenger service, the Ryde Pier Head to Shanklin section was electrified. It is single track south of Smallbrook Junction station, where connections can be made with the preserved Isle of Wight Steam Railway, and there is a passing loop at Sandown. The down line between Ryde Pier Head and Ryde Esplanade is currently rusting and unused, with that section now effectively operated as a single track railway.
The third dimension
Ryde Tunnel (Wiki Commons)
The reason for the use of Tube stock, and by extension the unusual association between railway operations under London and on the Isle of Wight, is the restricted clearances in Ryde Tunnel and under Bridge 12 near Smallbrook Junction. The maximum height of rolling stock on the line was limited to 11’ 8” (3.56m) even in steam days, some 25cm less than on the mainland. When the line was electrified, BR Southern Region took the opportunity to raise the track bed in Ryde Tunnel by another 25cm, in an only-partially successful attempt to address recurrent flooding problems there. Being close to the sea, and the track bed being lower than sea level, flooding risks have been ever present.
Ryde Esplanade flooding (Wiki Commons)
The raising of Ryde Tunnel’s track bed in 1967 made the height restriction even more severe. The headline figure for the current maximum height of stock is approximately 3.3m, though much depends on the interaction between the curved roof of the tunnel and the roof profile of trains. A train which is just under 3.3m in height might fit at its centre line, but not at its outside edges. At the time of electrification, the only easily available trains small enough to fit through Ryde Tunnel were the Tube’s Standard Stock, at 2.88m in height.
Nomenclature
The lack of the definite article in “Island Line” is on purpose, being the brand created by Network SouthEast in the 1980s and which has become ingrained, in the same way as people refer to “Thameslink” rather than “the Thameslink”. To its credit, the current train operating company (TOC) has kept the moniker.
What’s the Problem(s)?
The existing fleet of Class 483s (as the 1938 stock was classified on the BR ‘TOPS’ locomotives and rolling stock numbering system) is 80 years old and can’t go on for much longer. The Class 483 fleet was nine strong when it arrived, with a tenth unit for spares, but due to ageing and seaside corrosion it has steadily been contracting ever since.
Ex-GNER Chief Executive Christopher Garnett undertook a study into Island Line in 2016 for Isle of Wight Council during the South Western refranchising process, of which Island Line is currently (a minute) part. At that time he found that just five of its trains remained serviceable.
Dino 483 at Ryde Pier Head in 2005 (author)
A sixth, unit 002 ‘Raptor’, is out of service and makes for a forlorn sight, slowly being cannibalised outside Ryde St Johns Road depot. The current peak timetable requirement is for just two trains, so a fleet of five trains sounds sufficient, but in fact the ageing trains are getting increasingly unreliable. One of them suffered a minor fire at Ryde Pier Head last November. The saline environment in which they operate takes its toll on the Class 483s (as the state of their roofs often shows) and with scheduled maintenance requirements, train availability can be tight. Despite that, Island Line maintains impressive punctuality and reliability. 99.3% of services arrived with five minutes of schedule in the 12 months to January 2018, and 99.6% of services were operated.
Although the Class 483s are two-car trains, platforms are long enough to accommodate four-car formations. These operate during the summer months, when the additional capacity is helpful in dealing with the large groups of tourists arriving from Wightlink’s high-speed catamaran ferry once or twice hourly, which sails between Portsmouth Harbour and Ryde Pier Head stations. Additional ferry passengers join and leave trains at Ryde Esplanade upon transferring with Hovertravel’s hovercraft service to Southsea.
Ryde Esplanade station and hovercraft, Ryde Pier Head in distance (author)
The Wightlink catamaran ferry (Portsmouth Harbour to Ryde Pier Head) operates twice an hour Mon-Fri peak hours (not quite every 30 minutes, the headways are 25/35 minutes), spring/summer Saturdays and occasional summer weekdays. Otherwise the service is hourly. But only one Island Line train per hour connects with them in a timely fashion, particularly in the southbound direction.
The fourth dimension – Time
Twice, ex-London Underground Tube stock has been brought over to the Island to meet Island Line’s unusual rolling stock requirements, so why not thrice?
The first reason is that it looks unlikely that any Tube stock will become available within an acceptable time frame. Despite Transport for London’s decision to sell and lease back Elizabeth line trains to release funding for a replacement fleet of Piccadilly line trains, 2023 would seem to be the earliest that the existing Piccadilly line 1973 stock might become available. By that time the Class 483s will be 85 years old, assuming they survive that long. As we’ll see later, there is no certainty that will be the case.
Furthermore Ryde tunnel is not only low, but has a tight reverse curve with a combination of single and double track bores. Yet the 2016 Garnett report didn’t mention the tunnel curvature specifically, but instead noted that Piccadilly line 1973 stock wouldn’t be suitable for transfer to Island Line because of the curvature at Ryde Esplanade station, which is also quite severe. There are actually two related issues, getting the longer 1973 stock carriages round the curve without fouling the platform, and the distance from the platform of the doors at the carriage centres when stopped at the station. This would be a particular problem at Ryde Esplanade station, which is tightly curved.
Vivarail’s refurbished ex-D78 trains have often been suggested as a potential Island Line rolling stock solution. Being approximately the same height as mainline rolling stock, they would require the trackbed in Ryde Tunnel to be re-lowered, but even then they might not be suitable. The 1973 stock driving cars are 17.47m long. The D78 driving cars are 18.37m long. So if a 1973 stock carriage is too long for Ryde Esplanade station, a D78 is even longer. Until someone performs a proper gauging exercise, it’s impossible to rule replacement vehicles in or out.
Ex-Bakerloo line 1972 stock was another possibility considered by the Garnett report, but on current plans it would not be available until after the Piccadilly’s 1973 stock is retired, and the date when the Deep Tube Upgrade might allow its release seems to be receding.
Conversion of 1972 stock to two-car operation on the Island would be more complex and expensive than it was for the 1938 stock, which had its traction equipment located in the driving trailers. The 1972 stock, on the other hand, has some of its traction equipment spread under trailer cars, and this would need to be transplanted to the driving trailers.
The Standard Stock was 40 years old when it arrived on the Island, and the 1938 stock was just over 50 years old. The 1973 stock would be 50 years old on arrival even if it were deemed suitable and made available, whilst 1972 stock would probably be nearly 60 years old by the time it arrived. In a world in which Northern’s Pacers are finally being replaced by modern trains, many Islanders are getting fed up of having decades-old London Underground cast-offs dumped on them.
The second, and probably more urgent, reason that a third generation of ex-Tube stock is unlikely on the Island is that the Class 483s are coming to the end of their natural lives at the same time that every other part of Island Line, signalling, power supply and track, seems to be doing exactly the same. There is a perfect storm of simultaneous technological demise taking place.
Whilst we’re at it, what else is wrong with Island Line?
As mentioned, four-car formations of Class 483s are helpful in dealing with tourist loadings on Island Line during the summer months, but it is clear when such operations are undertaken that something is amiss. Passengers never see both timetabled trains in four-car formations, even in the height of summer. One runs as a four-car formation, and the other as a two-car.
483 interior in 2017 (author)
On summer Saturdays shortly after electrification (the changeover day for weekly holidays on the Island), the timetable saw six 7-car trains providing a 12-minute headway service along the line. This was the maximum level of service, using nearly all available carriages.
However Garnett’s study found that today, Island Line’s third rail power supply is no longer robust enough to allow two four-car trains to run at once. The voltage drop along the line is apparently so severe that at Shanklin, the third rail is only supplying some 350V out of the normal 630V, which explains the leisurely get-aways passengers experience at that end of the line.
Two trains per hour appears to be sufficient to handle current peak patronage levels, but the current timetable is inconvenient with headways between trains of 20 minutes and 40 minutes. The uneven spacing of services is a legacy of the decision to retain a passing loop at Sandown rather than Brading so that a 20/20/20 minute headway train service could be operated (although such a timetable hasn’t operated since 2007, when it did so on summer Saturdays).
Train strip map in 2018 (author)
Whilst an evenly-spaced 30 minute headway would make journey planning along the line generally easier, the drawback of the current 20/40 minute headway timetable is most noticeable for its impact on ferry connections at Ryde Pier Head.
As the track condition has deteriorated over the years and is now poor, so too has the ride quality of old trains suffered. Maintenance arrangements are unusual at Island Line. It is vertically integrated, with the operator leasing the infrastructure from Network Rail – but only down to 450mm below the rails. The Ryde Pier Head station itself looks in need of refurbishment, while piers themselves impose severe maintenance workloads due to the hostile saline environment in which they are located. Luckily for Island Line’s operators, the Pier itself is not part of the vertical franchise and remains the sole responsibility of Network Rail – but given Network Rail’s other pressures on the mainland, Ryde Pier appears not to be a high priority.
Adding to these obvious issues is the fact that Island Line runs at a considerable loss. Although exact figures aren’t easy to come by, Garnett quoted annual revenue of approximately £1m against costs of £4.5m. Assuming that station entry/exits are a reasonably proxy for passenger journeys and that most trips are within the island, the most recent ORR statistics show 628,446 journeys (1,256,892 entries plus exits) when Island Line’s eight stations are taken together. That works out as a subsidy of over £4 per passenger trip. [These figures have been revised]
The daily ridership average is almost 7,000 journeys a day, but in reality is significantly higher in the summer and correspondingly lower in the winter.
None of the problems Island Line faces have cheap solutions, and it is clear that revenues are not a source of funding given that the line doesn’t come close to covering its running costs. Although a micro-franchise has been suggested in the past to focus on improving the line’s financial position (indeed, at the first round of rail privatisation Island Line was a separate franchise) it has never been clear who would fund its subsidy requirement apart from central government. Garnett noted that the Isle of Wight Council “would not have either the financial resources or skills to be able to operate the Island Line franchise.”
Being part of the wider, profitable, South Western franchise means that Island Line’s losses are covered by profits made elsewhere, but the line has received scant attention from franchise owners since its incorporation into the South Western franchise.
Integrated fares
Visitors can already take advantage of co-fares with Island Line and other transport:
- Day Rover passes (£16) allow unlimited travel on Island Line and the Isle of Wight Steam Railway.
- Return tickets from the mainland cover ferry/hovercraft travel, Island Line from Pier Head to Smallbrook Junction, then Steam Railway.
The ferry and hovercraft serving Ryde are passenger only, so Island Line is ideally situated to cater for their custom. The car ferries to/from the mainland alight at other Isle of Wight ports, the closest being a few miles away.
New franchise, new consultation
The new South Western Railway (SWR) franchise, operated by First/MTR, began in August 2017, although the new company hasn’t yet got round to replacing the signage at Ryde St Johns Road which states that previous franchise operator Stagecoach is still in charge. As part of the new franchise, First/MTR committed to a “key relationship with the Isle of Wight Council and other stakeholders to develop a more sustainable future for Island Line. South Western Railway will now start the consultation phase of the process to deliver improvements for Island Line. This will include setting out a range of options to stakeholders for rolling stock and infrastructure, before submitting ideas to the Government next year.”
A formal consultation document was issued in late October 2017, but the exercise wasn’t a full public consultation, remaining unpublished on SWR’s website, and being conducted instead with local stakeholder groups. Independent watchdog Pressure group Railfuture published the consultation document anyway, and it made for interesting reading. Not only did it recognise the obvious problems detailed earlier, but it revealed that Island Line’s situation was even worse than had previously been assumed.
For a start, SWR revealed that only three Class 483 trains are currently serviceable; in other words 100% availability is necessary to run the summer two-car and four-car train service. Island Line is just one serious technical failure away from having too few trains to run its summer timetable at full capacity. And because the Class 483s are owned by the franchise, rather than leased, any conventionally-leased replacement trains will add to Island Line’s losses. Confirming that operating costs are around four times higher than revenue, without putting exact amounts to them, the consultation document summed up Island Line’s current challenges by reiterating some of the well-known issues and highlighting others as well:
- Class 483s do not have a modern on-board customer experience nor meet customer expectations. Given modern rail passenger expectations for features like Wi-Fi, power sockets, on-board digital information displays and the like, it is questionable whether a practicable conversion programme could ever meet them.
- The 40-minute / 20-minute headway does not serve customer needs.
- Revenue protection is challenging: guards cannot move between carriages except at stations, and fare evasion is a factor in Island Line’s revenue shortfall. The fare evasion is not always deliberate however – there are no ticket machines at most stations and passengers may be unable to pay because the guard is in the other carriage.
- Issues around power supply, signalling and infrastructure. The third rail also needs replacing and substations are in poor condition.
- Leasing costs for infrastructure from Network Rail to the franchisee are arranged so that costs increase towards the end of each lease period, adding to Island Line’s costs; the next period ends in 2019.
- Flooding remains a problem in Ryde Tunnel.
- Stations require modernisation to provide an appropriate, efficient, and pleasant retail and transport interchange experience.
- Ryde Esplanade in particular could see its connections with Southern Vectis buses and Hovertravel hovercraft much improved (plans for a substantial rebuild of the station and its interchange arrangements were abandoned in 2009 after costs rose).
- Taken together, SWR’s analysis suggests that what Island Line needs is the old Network SouthEast approach: a total route modernisation. The trains, track, power supply and signalling all need to be replaced, and the stations modernised, all at the same time.
Interestingly, no mention was made of any need for the Class 483s to meet the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations by 2020. Presumably SWR is expecting a dispensation to be applied allowing for their continued use. However any new trains will have to comply.
What is Island Line actually for?
Part of the problem in defining the future of Island Line is that is there is confusion as to what its main purpose actually is. Recent operators have taken the view that it is primarily a tourist attraction, rather than a public service railway.
Network SouthEast treated Island Line as a conventional part of its network, despite its diminutive trains, with NSE branding applied to trains and stations (red lamp-posts etc) alike. But at privatisation, the first Island Line franchise saw trains painted in a tourist-friendly dinosaur livery, relating to the Isle of Wight’s rich fossil heritage and key tourist attraction Dinosaur Isle at Sandown.
A recent op-ed in the Island’s newspaper, the Isle of Wight County Press, criticised calls for the modernisation of Island Lane, praising instead its current tourist focussed operation. “Not only do you board a ‘step-back-in-time’ quirky old railway carriage but you bounce along the track with everyone springing up and down in their seats,” it said. “Island Line is one of our Unique Selling Points,” the piece concluded, “let’s make a feature of it.” The Isle of Wight’s official tourism website meanwhile sells the former London Underground trains as giving Island Line, “its very own unique identity and appeal.”
Yet Isle of Wight Council says what it actually wants is a “modern and extended Island Line that meets the needs of residents and cuts traffic congestion”.
Isle of Wight bus map (Southern Vectis)
The Isle of Wight has an extensive and high quality bus network, run by Go-Ahead subsidiary Southern Vectis. However its Routes 2 and 3 parallel Island Line over virtually its whole length, with the two routes combining to provide four buses per hour. But although the quality of the bus on-board environment is superior to that of the Class 483 in almost every way (most Southern Vectis buses have USB charging, many have Wi-Fi and the buses are getting next-stop displays/announcements), a comparison between bus and train journey times shows where Island Line’s unique competitive advantage lies.
On a weekday morning in peak time, the Route 2 bus takes 51 minutes from Shanklin station to Ryde Esplanade. The train does it in just 22 minutes. Both buses and private cars have to use the Island’s narrow, twisty, and (in holiday periods) heavily congested roads.
The present 20/40 minute train headways are hardly competitive, as the waiting time could be longer than the full bus journey over certain sections. If the train service were more frequent, or at least more regular, it would surely help generate more traffic.
Buses also cannot run along the weight-restricted Ryde Pier to meet the ferry, so the train has a further advantage. For travellers using the ferry, or trying to get between the main towns on the east of the Island, the train is faster and more reliable than any other option including cars, despite the less-than-contemporary passenger environment on board. So there is an ‘express’ travel niche that Island Line could usefully exploit, but this contradicts the actual impression given by the line’s current appearance as a tourist attraction and/or vintage travel experience.
Yet Island Line does carry regular commuter flows both within the Island and to/from the mainland (this writer uses it to get from Shanklin to his day job in Ryde), as well as schools traffic. Such passengers are unlikely to find the ‘heritage’ aspects of the way Island Line is currently operated appealing, and probably want a travel experience with a quality of passenger accommodation more like that of the local buses, or trains on the mainland.
What are the solutions? SWR’s view
The consultation document gave SWR a chance to put forward some ideas, and its preferred option, for the future of Island Line. Having considered Parry People Mover-type vehicles, conversion to a busway, new third-rail stock, tram-trains, overhead line-powered stock, self-powered stock and various combinations thereof, SWR’s preferred proposal was:
- A ‘self-powered’ – but not diesel – train, accommodated on the existing infrastructure.
- A 25-year lease to help spread costs.
- An enhanced service frequency to better connect with the hovercraft and catamaran ferries [presumably an even (30-minute) headway though this was not explicitly stated].
- Infrastructure improvements to allow better interchange between Island Line and the Isle of Wight Steam Railway to generate revenue for both organisations.
- Better marketing and revenue protection.
Running “on the existing infrastructure” is somewhat ambiguous. It is unclear whether SWR means the infrastructure exactly as is (such as no works to Ryde Tunnel, so any new trains could not be significantly taller than the current tube-style dimensions) or perhaps no route extensions at present, but not ruling out infrastructure changes to ease the height restrictions at Ryde Tunnel.
Meanwhile, self-powered but not diesel would suggest battery or perhaps flywheel power sources. It is improbable that Transport Secretary Chris Grayling’s latest favourite technology – hydrogen fuel cell power – will become rapidly practicable for what would be a very limited batch of small trains, without much at all in the way of roof space for hydrogen tanks.
The railway has a number of hills which could provide the opportunity for regenerative brakes to recharge batteries if a battery powered replacement train type is selected.
Other options
Garnett’s 2016 report suggested the acquisition of T69 trams from Centro’s Midland Metro operation, despite them being taller even than the Isle of Wight’s original steam stock, and requiring additional clearance for overhead power lines. It proposed conversion of Island Line to a tramway with a 15-minute service frequency and ‘line of sight’ operation to achieve savings through abandonment of the existing signalling equipment. However the proposal to use the ex-Midland Metro trams is no longer an option as Transport for West Midlands has just announced it has sold them for scrap.
The 2016 report also suggested handing over one of the two tracks between Smallbrook Junction and Ryde St Johns Road to the Isle of Wight Steam Railway.
Station strip map (author)
But the report was also controversial because it suggested removing Island Line from the wider franchise. This raised local concerns, particularly as the Department for Transport (DfT) had suggested in the South Western franchise consultation at around the same time that a social enterprise could run Island Line, and that it should be put on a ‘self-sustaining’ footing. It seemed impossible to identify a way that the line could ever be self-sustaining, and the wording was eventually changed to “more sustainable” in the final version of the franchise specification.
In any case, all of Garnett’s recommendations were ultimately rejected by the Isle of Wight Council.
During the SWR-led consultation on the future of Island Line in late 2017, a public meeting was organised on the Island by local campaign group Keep Island Line in the Franchise (KILF). This group wants to retain third rail as a power source and to make it fit for purpose, but they would accept a hybrid or battery train, provided that service levels are not diminished. KILF would also like to see an even 20 minute headway service, though it notes a 30 minute headway service would potentially offer better connections with ferries.
Re-openings?
However, the public meeting which took place in Shanklin on 14 December 2017 was overshadowed by the release of the DfT’s Strategic Vision for Rail a fortnight earlier on 29 November. On the mainland, the DfT’s suggestion of re-opening long-closed railways successfully (at least at first) diverted media attention from the recurrence of revenue problems at the Intercity East Coast franchise.
On the Island, the DfT’s sudden apparent enthusiasm for rail re-openings diverted attention from resolving Island Line’s current problems, resulting instead in Island crayons being broken out. Local press coverage of the public meeting majored on KILF’s longer-term aspirations for extending Island Line by reopening the line from Smallbrook Junction to Newport. This would be achieved by operating over the tracks owned by the Isle of Wight Steam Railway, which itself would need to be extended westwards from its current terminus at Wootton.
Several route proposals for such a reopening had been put forward by consultancy Jacobs in 2001, though at least one (with a street-running town centre loop in Newport) required tram-type rolling stock, and featured some heroically tight curve radii.
Although Newport is the ‘capital’ of the Island and the hub of the Island’s road network, it isn’t actually the largest town. Its population is slightly less than that of Ryde. The other big towns on Island Line, Sandown and Shanklin, have populations about half of Ryde’s.
The release of the DfT’s Strategic Vision for Rail also led to suggestions on the Island for reopening the line from Shanklin to Wroxall and Ventnor, an idea which crops up every few years despite the technical challenges of that reopening not having become any easier to solve in the meantime. The tunnel into Ventnor now houses a water main which would require an expensive diversion, and the track bed of the line has been built over at Wroxall and Ventnor stations.
The local MP took up the cause of Isle of Wight railway reopenings with some vigour in the House of Commons in January, asking Transport Minister Nus Ghani for a commitment to extend Island Line to Newport and Ventnor if feasibility studies confirm costs in the £10-30m range. However, he took an unusual approach in attempting to curry favour with the DfT by suggesting that such sums of money were equivalent to typical DfT margins for error in its accounting, and that his proposal compared favourably with the “very poor” returns offered by HS2. He made much less mention of the need to solve the existing challenges of Island Line’s immediate future, which SWR’s consultation had identified.
What Next?
Even the more realistic proposals, set out by SWR its consultation document and focussing on the existing route, face some daunting obstacles. It is hard to think of any off-the-shelf train capable of fulfilling SWR’s aspiration of being self-powered but non-diesel and capable of running within Island Line’s restricted loading gauge.
Ryde Tunnel (west end) & pump house (author)
The height restriction imposed by Ryde Tunnel rules out follow-on orders for any existing mainline train type in use on the mainland. It also would seem to exclude options like Vivarail’s ex-D78 District line ‘D Train’ stock, which is approximately the same height as mainline trains. Island Line staff have apparently visited Vivarail’s facilities to enquire about these trains’ suitability, but nothing has been officially stated about any outcomes. Nonetheless rumours persist of the island’s interest in these reburbished and rebuilt trains.
Island Line’s track was raised at stations during the electrification programme to allow impressively level access on and off the Tube stock (except at Ryde Esplanade, where the platform was lowered). In mainline train terms, platform heights are now at low floor rolling stock level. This further adds to the procurement challenge unless expensive track re-lowering is undertaken.
Were the track bed in Ryde Tunnel lowered to its original position, this might make any new Island Line trains easier to source. The original height restriction for the Island’s rolling stock equates to stock of a similar height to BR’s PEP-derived Class 313/314/315/507/508 series, which are slightly shorter in height than most British trains.
Lowering the track bed in Ryde Tunnel would, though, leave it more susceptible to the original flooding problem it was raised to counteract. The increased flooding risk might be mitigated with new pumping equipment, but new pumps would just introduce another yet cost pressure to the future of Island Line, both in terms of capital outlay and running costs.
And, as we have seen, this is not just a new trains problem. There is more to Island Line’s troubles than just the urgent need to replace the Class 483s.
Ryde Pier Head in 2018 (author)
Even apparently simple infrastructure projects to address obvious problems have additional costs. Reinstating the second track to create a passing loop at or near Brading station would be needed to achieve a regular 30-minute headway for train services, but it is not as straightforward as relaying the missing track. Lineside cabling has been placed on the old track bed, and would have to be relocated, adding to costs.
The power supply is at end-of-life stage with third rail and substations requiring replacement. Network Rail’s recent adventures in electrification give concern as to what the cost of this would be if like-for-like replacement were felt to be the best way forward. Meanwhile the track and track bed also need attention to bring them up to modern standards of ride quality, with considerable cost financially and in terms of service disruption. Island Line can ill-afford to put off passengers with lengthy closures for engineering work.
Though perhaps less easy to quantify in cash terms, if the decision is taken to de-electrify Island Line and use self-powered trains, what message would that send? Whilst the current Transport Secretary appears to be no fan of rail electrification, having cancelled several planned projects and curtailing others around the country, de-electrifying an existing electrified route would be another thing altogether.
SWR’s consultation ended on 31 December 2017, and it has until 31 May 2018 to submit a costed proposal for the future of Island Line to the DfT. Regular meetings of a Steering Group comprising Isle of Wight Council, DfT, Network Rail and SWR are now taking place (albeit not in public) which will shape the final proposal. According to SWR’s franchise agreement, that proposal must be “capable of acceptance by the Secretary of State”. Given the peculiar decisions of the current incumbent of that post, what might constitute acceptability is open to some degree of uncertainty.
To keep the line, targeted investment is needed
Underlying all this is that Island Line is not in itself a profitable operation. Replacement of trains and infrastructure add substantial costs without necessarily adding anything to income, worsening Island Line’s accounting position. With annual revenues of around £1m, at what price do the works necessary to secure Island Line’s long term future cease to represent value for money?
Ryde St John’s station platform & bracket (author)
There are clear tourist, traffic, environmental and quality of life benefits to upgrading the Island Line, just not a financial case as yet. But the most compelling reason may be for the unique tourism and island travel situation on the Isle of Wight.
LR is funded largely by its community. Like what we do? Then help us to do more!
1938 Tube Stock in London had all the traction equipment mounted in the Driving MOTOR cars, only the compressors were moved from the redundant trailer cars.
1972 Tube Stock has the Motor Alternator (generator of auxiliary circuits) mounted on the trailer car, the compressors also are under the trailer cars.
I was told the problem with using later generations of LU trains is that they have Aluminium bodies on a Steel Frame. As soon as the Salt Water gets in there there will me massive corrosion. You may remember that 67TS at the end of it’s life lost a roof panel due to corrosion of the rivets probably due to the remanants of the Acid Washing process still remaining.
The other challenge for the line is to comply with the latest DDA requirements, it will need wheelchair spaces and information displays soon. Does it need to have toilets that have disabled access ?
@John M
The rules do not require new trains to have toilets at all. Ryde Pierhead to Shanklin only takes 22 minutes.
A few points:
The diesel D Trains have their height raised to accommodate the diesel engines. I don’t know if the same is true of the battery powered ones.
Hilly routes do provide the possibility of regenerating energy going downhill, but this is only some of the energy used going uphill. As such, it’s a red herring.
The talk is about “self power, not diesel”. If battery power is assumed, power supplies will be required to feed charging stations, significant, but perhaps not a specialised as those for 750V dc. If the run time is 22 mins and and the 30 min headway is achieved, then there’s just 8 mins at each end of the line for top up. Some means of rapidly connecting and disconnecting the train to/from the supply will be required.
Power supply issues:
1. The issue of it degrading over time suggests there is an element of track condition to it. So heavy section CWR and newish design of heavy section 3rd rail would reduce losses significantly. (lower resistivity)
2. Replacing 3rd rail substations isn’t as expensive as you would think, if new or refurbished stock is being looked at then increasing the current 660V nominal supply voltage to 750V or 850V would be sensible to help reduce losses in association with 1.
3. More double track and paralleling will also reduce losses
Gauging studies:
3. Some have been done, the surplus trams appear to be the worst option as they are significantly higher than NR stock.
4. The PEP stock (313, 507, 508) with plenty soon to be available looks like a good choice dimensionally but the bodies are a Steel & Aluminium combination that may not withstand the saline environment well. But there are plenty of them.
5. BR MK3 stock (455, 456 & 319) while a bit taller than PEP stock is also wider and are known for having issues with reverse curvature especially in tight tunnels. But they have steel bodies that appear pretty corrosion resistant so far.
@100ANDTHIRTY,
As far as I’m aware the raising of the D-trains was for clearances alongside main line platforms, at which height the LU structure gauge is a bit wider. I’ve never seen any mention of it being needed to accommodate the diesel engines.
While you are correct about regenerative braking, an option allowing the re-use of braking energy would still have more benefit here than on less hilly lines. However I can’t see it making a big dent in the operating costs.
Fascinating stuff and a good reminder that we shouldn’t think of London’s transport problems as uniquely more difficult than other parts of the country.
Lest it be forgotten, The Isle of Wight is not the only island that operates former tube stock. So if you really want a ride in one in future you could probably still do so in Alderney.
Edwin,
I can’t see how under the current laws of physics it can actually be beneficial to have a hilly line to provide an overall energy benefit.
Slightly different is the use of ‘humpback’ stations, famously done on the Central line, to minimise the need for braking when entering the station and for power when leaving it. Even that only works properly to their maximum practical effect if the actually trains run at speed the system was designed for – and don’t get held up by the train ahead, for example.
ngh,
On item 2, you seem to open up the possibility of more-or-less replacing the entire 3rd rail of infrastructure of the island. If one effectively replaces the entire 3rd rail system, as suggested may be necessary, is that not tantamount to a new installation and would it be allowed today?
The track is very rough, which interacts with the 38TSs suspension in quite exciting ways. The axle hung motors must get quite a rough ride, and in exchange beat up the track. Unsure how they tamp the track!
The roof corrosion appears to be left to take its course…..I don’t buy the saline environment argument. Paint would help.
The quirky stock is in keeping with the whole feel of the island tbh. Are USB chargers really necessary on a 20 min journey?
….also I’m advised that one of the substations is out of service, hence the voltage issues.
The Alderney’s aluminium-bodied 1959 stock replaced a train of 1938 stock, because the older (steel-bodied) 1938 stock didn’t like the sea air. So I’m not sure why aluminium-bodied stock would be more of a problem on the Isle of Wight.
A switchback route may be more useful for a regenerative system for two reasons – the maximum charge required to be held by the batteries would be less (smaller, but more frequent, recharging cycles); and on a hilly route you have to use the brakes (generators) more. It is no coincidence that the only line using a PPM is the steeply-graded Stourbridge shuttle. The same principle is used in the caves at Rouffignac, in the Dordogne – much of the charge in the batteries used to bring the train back to the surface is generated on the way down.
Gauge issues:
Would DLR stock fit – or are they too tall?
Conventional trams (?) possibly fitted with shoegear, rather than pantographs?
Service issues
Having main bus routes paralleling the “main” (remaining) rail line is surely a planning mistake, somewhere?
Are the passenger numbers correct? If the majority of trips are wholly contained within the island, then the combined entry/exit figure for all the stations needs to be divided by two, since most trips will be captured at each end.
That gives a figure of about 70 passengers per train, or around 1.25m per year, which seems to be more in line with quoted statistics elsewhere. In turn that means subsidy per head is twice the figure quoted, and at roundly £3m per annum, far outweighs what the council pays to subsidise the rest of the island’s public transport network.
Incidentally, Ryde Pier Head used to be reached by Southern Vectis Ford Transit minibuses (hourly from Newport), though current weight limits probably preclude any kind of accessible bus from repeating the feat.
Would trains from the Glasgow Subway be suitable? I believe these are even smaller than the smallest London Underground trains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Subway_rolling_stock
Man of Kent
Yes, you’re right. Having looked back at my figures I can see what I’ve done wrong. So yes, half the passenger numbers and twice the subsidy per trip.
That said, the situation is complicated, because a good number of summer trips aren’t wholly within the Island but are to/from the mainland.
And while the subsidy per trip is high, the actual amount of money is (in railway terms) quite small. Kept within the wider South Western franchise, the cross-subsidy reduces the franchise’s profitability and therefore premium payments to the DfT, but only by some £3m/year. From memory, SWT was paying some £300m+ per year as a premium.
Great article, cheers! Entirely from an enthusiast’s perspective, I’m glad radical solutions like tram-ification don’t seem to be on the cards, but it’ll be a huge shame to see the ’38 stock go.
I feel like coming up with a bespoke self-powered train solution must surely be more expensive than just replacing life-expired third rail kit with higher voltage stuff and ordering some relatively standard electric rolling stock that will work with third rail.
Were there murmurs about using 1967 stock or was that never on the cards? I ask because they hung around at Eastleigh for an awfully long time before finally being scrapped (which I think they have now).
One of the reasons why unsuitable trams keep being mentioned as replacement is that the idea was, about 15-20 years ago, to connect the Island to South Hants Rapid Transit via a tunnel from south of Ryde (with deep station for the town) to somewhere in Gosport, where it could piggy back on the tunnel under Portsmouth Harbour (they were less interested in going the other way).
The Royal Navy killed the idea of a tunnel under Portsmouth Harbour, but the dream still lived on for trams to the ferry at Gosport from Fareham (and Southampton), and the Island. Then came the tram purge at the DfT, and the parts north of the Solent became less ambitious and bus- or train-based (the train-based stuff didn’t happen). The Island dropped its desire for a tram tunnel. But, while the plans on the mainland had changed mode, they continually dropped references for long-term aims of conversion to trams. Likewise, on the Island, while talk of an expensive fixed-link tunnel died down, trams continued to be mentioned in relation to the railway’s long term aims despite the unsuitability of the route through Ryde.
timbeau,
There is a world of difference between the statement:
If you have hilly terrain then it would benefit more from a regenerative system
and
The route has the advantage of being in hilly terrain therefore can take advantage of a regenerative system.
With the possible exception of small humps at stations, you want a railway to be flat as possible so your only energy use at the motors is used to overcome wind resistance and friction. If you add gravity to the equation it has to make it worse. As a rough guide Dinorwig pump storage scheme gets back three units of energy for every four units put in – and that is probably about as efficient as you can get.
I agree that once you are stuck with a hilly railway it makes more sense to use regeneration. But even here we have a problem. To use it internally you need another train that can take advantage of the excess power generated. On a two train system this is somewhat less likely than somewhere like the Victoria line where it can be used to the best effect. Alternatively you need even more expensive (new) substations capable of passing the electricity upstream.
One has to be careful not to take this to its logically absurd conclusion that you can increase energy efficiency by replacing flat ground with hills.
@Phil
Yes the Glasgow trains might be an option for Island Line but they still have a bunch of conversion issues, not least that the Glasgow subway has a 4′ track gauge!
timbeau,
Open question, anyone can answer.
Isn’t the problem the combination of aluminium and steel that is the problem that causes corrosion. Aluminium should be fine and modern properly-treated steel should also survive well. When did you last see a rusty car?
@Greg
Trams/DLR – I think they have been assessed and found to be too big. For DLR cars you would also need to increase the height difference between rail and platforms at all stations.
@Phil
Glasgow subway. The current trains date from the modernisation in 1979, (with some additional trailer cars built in 1990) and are to be replaced by 2020. However, as the Subway is entirely underground they lack certain features that might be seen as essential on the island – windscreen wipers for example: possibly even heating. There is also the question of gauge: it might actually be easier to relay the line to the trains’ 4-foot gauge rather than source and modify suitable standard-gauge bogies to fit the trains.
@Muzer
1967 stock would have required a lot of modification – they were only fitted for automatic operation (or perhaps the old trackside ATO equipment on the Victoria Line could have been re-used?) Also, as with the 1972 stock, they lack cabside doors, so access to the cab is only through the passenger saloon or the end door. This is apparently a showstopper.
@Daniel Wright. “a good number of summer trips aren’t wholly within the Island but are to/from the mainland” Wouldn’t they count as entries/exits at Ryde Pier Head?
One advantage of trams that I’ve seen mooted is that they could be run through the streets of Ryde rather than having to fit into Ryde Tunnel.
@pop
” agree that once you are stuck with a hilly railway it makes more sense to use regeneration. But even here we have a problem. To use it internally you need another train that can take advantage of the excess power generated. ”
I thought the suggestion we were discussing was that the train that takes advantage of the excess power would be the same one that generated it in the first place, by storing it in a battery, flywheel, or similar arrangement. Both examples I cited use this timeshifting principle, (as indeed does Dinorwic).
Timbeau,
re: whether mainland trips are counted as an entry/exit at Ryde Pier Head. Not exactly, because through tickets are available to the mainland from Island Line. So if I go to London for the day there is an entry/exit recorded only at Shanklin (with another at Waterloo), whereas when I go to work for the day, there is an entry/exit at Shanklin and an entry/exit at Ryde St Johns Road.
The ORR’s statistics do include a figure for interchanges at Ryde Pier Head, though it’s an approximation (it was 160,311 in 2016/17 if you’re interested). I didn’t include it in the figures in the article, not least because as already ably demonstrated earlier in the comments section, it would have confused me even further.
Kleinprofil (small profile) trains on the Berlin U-Bahn are 3.1 metres high. Would that be low enough?
Then again, the Budapest Metro line 1 trains are only 2.59 metres high…
@100andthirty:
I believe there already is an effective means of “rapidly connecting and disconnecting the train to/from the supply” in active trial or use on “catenary free” tramway systems – simply have a short length of live wire or solid bars at one or more stops and fit the vehicle with a normal pantograph that can be raised at those stops during the dwell or turnaround time. No need for complicated and potentially hazardous high-voltage plugs and sockets.
@Phil E
Why not re-use the existing electrical infrastructure? The voltage drop between Ryde and Shanklin wouldn’t be a problem if a train could get charge in its batteries from the third rail, sufficient to make a round trip to Shanklin, during its dwell time at Ryde.
Vivarail say their technology “uses 4 battery rafts each with a capacity of 106 kWh, ….. has a range of 40 miles ………………and requires an 8 minute charge at each end of the journey. With a 10 minute charge this range is extended to 50 miles. The train can be charged through existing infrastructure – OHL or 3rd rail”
http://vivarail.co.uk/battery-train-update/
Crunching the numbers, the existing timetable has a layover at Ryde of 7 minutes and the round trip to Shanklin is 17 miles. So during the layover at Ryde two battery rafts should be able to take on enough energy for one round trip to Shanklin. “All” we need to do is find suitable rolling stock to fit those rafts to………………
If the 3rd Rail within Ryde tunnel is no longer needed, can the floor be lowered? Surely there is still some rolling stock in existence that can cope with a few inches of water?
Greg: The main bus route paralleling the main rail route is a side-effect of that particular trip (Ryde to Shanklin) being one of the most popular journeys. The days when bus companies could be told not to run a particular route to give trains a chance have long gone in the UK (if indeed they ever existed). Any chance of banning the “Oxford Tube”?
Phil E,
That’s not really a good idea since you have to have each vehicle quite needlessly carrying around a pantograph unit which potentially adds to the overall height. No need to make it as complicated as you suggest.
The way you do it is the other way around and have the pantograph fixed at the stops and have it expand downward to make contact with the vehicle you want to recharge. This is one such example but there are others.
timbeau,
Yes you can timeshift but you always pay for the privilege in that you don’t get back what you put in. Hence the desire to avoid the need to timeshift in the first place.
It makes a bad situation less bad. It doesn’t make it good.
Those bus routes also serve places not quite on the rail route, despite being parallel to it and not far from it. There’s Elmfield, the big retail park at Busy Bee (where I once saw a light and water show), the centre of Brading, the seafront at Sandown, etc.
And in London, we have the 25 (and others along those Roman Roads) mirroring TfL Rail (Ilford-Stratford-City), Central line (Stratford-Mile End-City-Holborn) and District line (Bow-City). The 25 is one of the busiest bus routes but despite that, and a cycle superhighway along the route, the tube lines it runs parallel to are very far from empty. Because they aren’t quite the same!
Looking at the aerial photos, it’s hard not to conclude that purchasing a handful of unremarkable properties would allow the Ryde tunnel problem to be solved by “taking the roof off” and thus replacing it with a cutting. The cost of doing so might even be cheaper than either buying new low profile stock or converting from somewhere else.
Re PoP @ 0950,
No – what I suggested on item 2 is no different to what NR or TfL are doing on the main land for example the voltage on the SSR is being increased post D Stock withdrawal including bits fed from NR such as Putney – Wimbledon, Richmond (and consequently the SWML too) by replacing the substations which happen to be around life expiry point any way.
PoP
Yes unless precautions are taken aluminium and steel form a battery in the presence of salt water. As this is inherently short circuited a current flow and electrochemical corrosion results.
Mind you old Land Rovers have aluminium body panels on a steel chassis….
A few points:
– Given 3rd rail tends to lose voltage rather quickly as the distance from the substation increases, would there not be any merit in discontinuous electrification? I.e. 3rd rail left in situ (or replaced) only close to the power feeder, with the train running on battery power elsewhere and recharging as it runs along the electrified section and pauses at the terminus?
– Would it not be possible to reinstate a track connection with the IoW Steam Railway to allow steam trains to run at least as far as Ryde St. John’s Road?
– As mentioned by GAG HA;FRUNT, would it not be worthwhile to look beyond the UK for replacement trains? I think Berlin may have some A3L and G/GI-stock available soon, albeit both of these types have aluminium bodies. There are currently no plans – as far as I can tell – to replace the Budapest M1 cars. Plus I’m not sure about how easy it would be to remove the centre sections… However, the A3L vehicles are from the 1960s, and the Budapest vehicles from the 1970s… So how about… new trains? As the Island Line is currently not connected to any other rail network; and given it has no vehicular level crossings, it should be possible to put forward a safety case for operating far lighter vehicles than tube or mainline stock. This in turn opens up the possibility of procuring something built for narrow-gauge railways; or even cobbling something together in a proverbial shed.
My suggestion: Estimate the cost of some of the weird and wonderful ideas. Halve the number, and give the resulting millions to the heroic and resourceful people currently maintaining the trains, to employ a few more local people, buy a bit more machinery if they need it, and buy lots of sheet metal and other basic materials, and (over time) give the existing fascinating stock a really thorough overhaul and rebuild (of the type routinely done by restorers of cars and commercial road vehicles). There should even be a few pounds left over to fix the power supply and passing loop issues.
Incidentally, I admire the way the article also refers to the hovercraft service, as just a normal element of the local transport arrangements. Indeed it is that, but it is also (I think) the only remaining use of this once-widespread technology in the world (with the exception of a few coastguard and military vessels).
OK
Purely for nostalgia purposes ….
http://s463.photobucket.com/user/Greg_Tingey/media/IOW%201962%201%20Ventnor.jpg.html?sort=3&o=2
[Edited to remove duplicate links. Note that the above link has many pop-ups. LBM]
PoP – the problem is electrolytic corrosion between the two different metals, Aluminium & Steel with Salt water as the electrolyte. There are methods of preventing this during design and construction but it is not practicable to do this on existing trains. It basically involves not having any electrically conductive paths between the two different metals. A combination of insulators together with non-conductive paste is usually used.
You would probably do better replacing the Aluminium panels with GRP Panels and plastic or monel rivets! Will be a challenge on the aluminium parts of the bogies.
In addition on 67TS the rivets were a different type of Aluminium to the body panels so they had their own electrolytic corrosion. If you remember the unpainted 67TS the rivets that were originally flush had corroded to be slightly below the body panels. Lots of filler for the rivet heads when they painted the trains.
Re Daniel Wright,
From what I understand there are actually 2 height issues as regards structure gauging throught the Ryde Tunnels. The second later issue of the track raising on electrification to deal with the tunnel flooding has been covered very well in the article but not the older issue of repairs to the tunnel roof which caused the first reduction in height in the steam era and hasn’t been mentioned.
The tunnels were built to 14’0″ (4.26m) above rail height in the centre so there is potentially plenty of height there (BR Mk3 stock is only 3.81m max so 45cm gap), which was later reduced to 11’8″ /3.56m by the repairs to the roof (in the area of the roundabout at the north end of Dover Street) which involved the addition of beams creating a flat topped loading gauge (70cm reduction from original max height) which was then reduced even further by the track raising (another circa 25cm/10″ as you say) . My understanding is that the beams in the original roof repair have been replaced (in this current decade) with shallower section ones to eliminate the need for weight restrictions on the roads above hence the loading gauge has actually increased in recent times, hence the majority of the discussion around future rolling stock is slightly misguided.
My current understanding is that PEP stock will fit through the tunnels roof profile wise without track lowering, but that 20m Mk3 stock would need track lowering of circa 5cm (ideally a bit more) and the (flat roofed) T69 trams similarly. Alternatively a set of slightly smaller diameter wheel sets which shouldn’t be a problems given the low speeds on the island line (45mph on the IoWvs the 75or 100mph max line speed of the other national rail spec stock).
The tunnels are a slightly unusual construction in that they are flat sided with a distinct arched roof (unlike most brick railway tunnels which are an arch from below sleeper level) and this is presumably where the structural issues with the roof in places have presumably originated.
[In addition a diagram showing various gauges and their relationship with the IOW tunnels which was provided by ngh can be viewed here. PoP]
@Man of Kent
Daniel Wright provided updated figures for these calculations, as follows:
“Adding to these obvious issues is the fact that Island Line runs at a considerable loss. Although exact figures aren’t easy to come by, Garnett quoted annual revenue of approximately £1m against costs of £4.5m. Assuming that station entry/exits are a reasonably proxy for passenger journeys and that most trips are within the island, the most recent ORR statistics show 628,446 journeys (1,256,892 entries plus exits) when Island Line’s eight stations are taken together. That works out as a subsidy of over £4 per passenger trip.”
I have updated this paragraph in the article itself as well. LBM
@malcolm
Paying even more for maintenance of the stock is not going to help the operating cost deficit of the line.
In one sense this is a classic capital investment versus operational overhead argument, but whatever your viewpoint on capital accounting, you must concede that a sunk cost in the form of a one off capital investment is a secure commitment to the future of a piece of infrastructure for a 30-50 year period, whereas an ongoing expense profile is continually a case for its closure.
Indeed, I would speculate that had the 1960s electrification and tunnel raising work not been done, Island line would not be open for business today, not as a fully served part of the national network anyway.
If we’re still looking at someone’s cast-offs, I would think that the 92 Tube Stock might be more appropriate. It’s shorter than the 73, and was built in 2-car units, so you wouldn’t have to move any equipment. It was even built with cab doors. Unfortunately there are no A-A units, they always have to run in pairs to have a cab at each end.
The problem is that their reliability is poor. Saddling the Island Line with another load of lemons would be more than a bit unfair. Also, the Central and W&C won’t get their new trains until after the Piccadilly, so even longer to wait (though I believe the 92s are to be withdrawn before the 72s)?
It may be easier to tack on an order for new stock onto the NTfL scheme.
There’s a Ryde tunnel walk-through video on YouTube here:
https://youtu.be/gsdqOB-AXd4
NGH,
Thanks for those Tunnel height figures. One of the frustrations has been that a lot of the discussion about Island Line takes place without much detailed information in the public domain on the exact nature of the line’s particular gauge constraints. The Garnett report of 2016 also noted Bridge 12 at Smallbrook as a further height constraint. I suspect this was one of the structures that gave the line its restricted loading gauge in steam days, but that more-or-less works out today as PEP-type stock height.
To take the issue one step further, were one to import ex-class 313 / 507 / 508 (PEP-derived, third rail collection) as replacements for the Class 483s, or even do the track lowering required to use Mk3-derived 20m stock, or use D-Trains if they aren’t too tall, there seems some uncertainty around whether there is a remaining vehicle length issue. I don’t know whether there are gauging issues were two such trains to meet on the curves in the tunnel, but Garnett discounted the use of 17.5m 1973 stock as too long for Ryde Esplanade station, and the middle doors being too far away from the platform edge. But frustratingly, no-one seems prepared to say officially what, if any, are the limitations around vehicle length.
And, as I mentioned, introducing any such ex-Mainland stock would require tracks to be re-lowered at stations (or platforms re-raised). Not massively complicated, but time consuming and additional expense that might be hard to justify.
There appears to be no definitive description of the exact size of Ryde tunnel. Chris Garnett apparently did not succeed in finding one.
A friend, one of the bidders for the initial micro franchise in about 1992, was told they could not do their own tunnel gauging before bidding & they were told to bid as seen. They pulled out, after much work in the due diligence room at the Southampton branch of a top city lawyers, for that reason & more significantly because the successful bidder would not be compensated for revenue loss if the pier had to close for repairs.
“Anonymous” suggests opening out the tunnels. Apparently in 1992 there was nothing significant above the tunnel, apart from the main road at the roundabout. And NGH suggests that the roundabout part of the tunnel was renewed with a resulting higher crown. Room for cast off Southern 313 units.
This is exciting. Couldn’t “London Reconnections” put a team together to bid for the line. After all, the 2 mile Alderney railway is entirely volunteers & “LR rail” would have subsidy, purposeful travellers as well as enthusiast visitors!
On the vehicle length issue, is there an issue with vertical (hogging) curvature in the tunnel? With a longer vehicle, and depending on the bogie centre distance, on a hog curve the kinematic envelope will be greater than on level track or on track with a constant gradient.
If you could find another way of powering them, Tyne and Wear metro stock may eventually become redundant and is 34.45cm tall; thought may also be too long..? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne_and_Wear_Metro_rolling_stock
Re Mark T,
Excellent find with that video. The “recently” replaced beams can be seen in the video from 1:05 to 1:55, worth noting the new concrete sills used to raise the brickwork up to the level of the bottom of the new beams which shows the height increase.
I accept that my only semi-serious proposal would not give the line the same assured future which would be achieved by new trains and hardware. But the 1938 stock may be close to being the last trains working on any of Britain’s railways which can be maintained in this sort of fashion. Anything newer would have big difficulties with spare parts (particularly electronics, but other stuff as well) just not being made and not being feasible to replace by homemade stuff. Whereas, as I understand it, the 1938 stock has no electronics whatever, just simple electrical and mechanical parts which can be easily substituted by readily available gubbinses.
Of course, this is only one person’s description of the situation (I cannot even remember who), and it could be wrong. But it sounds plausible to me.
@ Anon 26 March 2018 at 19:51
If you could find another way of powering them, Tyne and Wear metro stock may eventually become redundant and is 34.45cm tall;
Mercifully for passengers on Tyne & Wear Metro, it transpires that the stock is 344.5cm tall 🙂
The 38ts gubbins mught be primitive to maintain in comparison to modern propulsion systems, but the big bits are still sent to Acton and elsewhere for overhaul. I wonder whether staffing and space aren’t as much of a constraint for the depot as equipment.
Will be interesting to see what transpires over the next decade.
@Malcolm There are already heritage railways using 50s and 60s stock, so it seems possible to maintain those. Though more expensive, probably.
The computer systems introduced into trains in the 1990s will probably pose a bigger problem one day. A few decades from now it will probably not be easy for heritage railways & lines like this one to keep board computers with Windows 95 running and a lot of 90s stock, at least on the continent, does depend on those. As late as 2009, VIRM units were delivered to the Dutch Railways with a board computer running Windows 98.
I wonder if it might be possible to solve some of the height and centre/end thow problems up at car roof level if the line through the Ryde tunnel was singled and the remaining track realigned towards the centre. This would be suitable for the majority of the double track tunnel, with the short sections of ‘twin bore’ at either end rebuilding in the same manner as the re-decked section under the main road near Esplanade. With a single track the remaining line might have a new platform at Esplanade on the short section of straight track where the crossover is sited currently. From the ‘flood image’ above it appears the crossover is on the incline down into the tunnel. It should be possible to have such a straight platform on a gradient as long as it’s not used routinely for reversing trains, which it wouldn’t be as long as the the pier head remains the normal terminus. Other approaches to stepping distance at Esplanade could include providing moving gap-filler steps on new or modified stock or (with 1/3, 2/3 door positions) for trains to use the old platform on the inside of the curve, although the latter would require passengers to cross the line from the town side, facilities for which would need to be made PRM freindly, which could be an expensive exercise.
If I had the money, I’d put it all back to steam…
Another revenue question: Are there any accurate figures for the value of journeys which start by rail on the mainland?
If for example visits to the island generate £10 million a year which is allocated to the mainland, and would otherwise be lost to rail, then £3 million of subsidy on the island suddenly starts looking much better value. This is of course before measuring any economic benefit to the island from visitor spending etc.
For example an anytime single Waterloo-Shanklin is £54.90, £4.60 of that is for the island and £13.20 for the ferry. So worst case scenario if that journey isn’t made because Island Line is closed or is unattractive then £37.10 is also lost for the London to Portsmouth journey.
The paragraph about hydrogen fuel cell powered trains being impractical as there is no room for the hydrogen tanks on the vehicle roofs made me think – why not put the tanks and motors in a separate vehicle of their own (let’s call it… oooh, how about… the ‘engine’) whilst the vehicles with the passengers can just be unpowered trailers. Crazy design for a train, but it might just work….
Regarding hydrogen fuelled trains, I read somewhere that operating through tunnels was dubious on safety grounds. Leakage into a confined space would be a combustion hazard.
As regards the Garnett report, there is an excellent dismantling / debunking / rebuttal by an engineer (Mark Brinton) who used to be responsible for maintaining the line available in several places (including the railfuture website see below) that lead to the “IoW” rejecting the recommendations of the Garnett report (29pages, detailed and well written). It includes the diagram that PoP linked too in one of my comments yesterday afternoon on the last page)
https://www.railfuture.org.uk/DL1236
Given that most railway routes involve tunnels, if hydrogen is a problem on the IOW it would be a problem on almost any line. But I think the dangers of hydrogen are over-estimated – any fuel leak can result in a fire – hydrogen has the advantage over liquid fuels of dispersing quickly instead of soaking into everything. (Petrol fumes in a confined space can also be a hazard).
People see pictures of the Hindenburg and imagine the worst if a hydrogen train were to spring a leak, but the amount of hydrogen needed to power a train is a tiny fraction of that needed to provide buoyancy. This article quotes a tank capacity for a hydrogen train of 89 kg (stored at 350bar) https://www.railengineer.uk/2018/01/05/hydrail-comes-of-age/
The Hindenburg’s gas bag had a volume of 200,000 cu m – with a density of 82grams/cu.metre, that’s 16.4 tonnes. And because the hydrogen on a train is stored at high pressure, the tanks have, of necessity, to be very robust.
Indeed many of the Hindenburg’s passengers survived because the hydrogen went up, not down. And most of the damage was caused by the airship’s envelope, whose waterproof coating (applied learning the lessons of the R101, which crashed when it got waterlogged) was sadly not flame-retardant.
The Mark Brinton report is excellent although I think he overstates the need for recovery margin in the infrastructure for the 30m interval service. There are many single track branches around the UK national network and indeed worldwide with only the absolute minimum passing loop provision that nevertheless manage to run a high frequency, reliable service. UK examples include the Cardiff Valleys and the Falmouth branch where the relative isolation of the services insulates them from performance pollution propagating from the wider network. Island Line is by its very nature fully isolated except insofar as any policy that may exist for connecting with late running ferries at Ryde Pierhead. Perhaps his views in this respect are coloured by his experience with the old tube stock! The problem with the extreme minimum infrastructure option is it then locks the line into the 30m service for the long term, especially if the second track between Smallbrook Jn and St Johns is given up to the heritage railway.
Another fleet solution with economies of scale could be a modern light metro type vehicle as might emerge from the South Wales Metro concept, part of the Wales and Borders franchise being negotiated by the Welsh Government. These could turn out to be a modern equivalent of the Tyne and Wear metrocars, based on a state of the art tram-train platform and adapted for high floor throughout, and with or without highway-running embellishments according to proposed use which could be wholly on national network heavy rail infrastructure, or also include some tramway sections. Such a vehicle on the island could give immediate compatibility with existing infrastructure together with some flexibility for future extensions under tramway legislation. The vehicle might also be an attractive proposition for running local stopping services around Southampton and Portsmouth, a Solent metro perhaps. Island Line could therefore become part of such a local metro, and share management, stock and maintenance arrangements, with the possibility of routine road haulage of sets over to a mainland depot in the Solent area via ferry.
I could have added that the Rail Engineer article quotes a fuel consumption of 0.3kg/km for a 2-car train, which equates to a range of about 600km.
Quite. Holding a train to connect with a late-running ferry may well make sense for a 30-minute interval, but it is probably largely unnecessary for a 15-minute interval.
I agree that it is an excellent report. It does, however, make the claim that much more track repair work would be needed to support operation by trams than by heavy rail vehicles, because of the need to address track twist. If this is correct then it would seem to nullify any supposed financial benefit of using trams.
Has anyone seen a breakdown of the £4 million running costs? It seems like knowing where the money is going could be quite informative.
(the only thing I can find is about £2m goes straight to Network Rail, but it’s not clear what if anything they spend it on)
The only logical solution is to start afresh. Look to wales for the answer. Bring to the island a narrow gauge steam railway and extend the lines to include Ryde to Newport . Newport to Ventnor . Ventnor to Ryde. It gives a regular passenger service and a major new tourist attraction for the island.
@David Harvey 1324
Narrow gauge steam might be a lovely idea for tourists but it isn’t a public transport solution. The current line operates early until late all year round, is reasonably quick for its line of route and offers affordable fares. Despite several attempts to operate commuter services in different places there isn’t a heritage line in the country which has these characteristics.
It’s possible Island Line may end up as a heritage line, but let’s not pretend that’s a solution for people like the author of this article who use it as a means of transport.
@GH – I assume it’s primarily rent or path fees. Despite them not maintaining the signalling, track, and power supply, I believe NR retain ownership of all assets and responsibility for major renewals so I assume they have to recover that in some way. They may also pay the electricity bill as part of a larger supply contract. They had the island signalling in the renewals plan when I was at Waterloo. It never had any serious priority at the time, but was definitely in the asset base, with a SEU count*, notional value and renewal date. Unfortunately that was always so far in the future based on previous condition assessments I never got the opportunity to carry out one myself.
* Signalling equivalent unit: A high level estimating technique that counts the number of signal heads, point ends, ground frame releases, platform plungers and indicators etc and assigns a cost to each item to produce a notional comparative cost for full or partial renewal of a particular site or package of work. It is a better technique for capturing the complexity of signalling compared to previous traditional methods based on single track kilometer.
The gauge profiles in that report are interesting – it seems that, with possibly a sliver shaved off the canopies at the stations in Ryde, a 508 would fit at all the pinch points. Now, this raises an interesting possibility. The suggestion has already been made that 508s (or 313s or 507s, which have the same body profile and can work on dc) could be transferred. They date from the mid- to late 1970s, so are slightly younger than the Tube stock that will (might?) become available some time in the next decade. Replacements for all three classes are already on order, so units should become available later this year (class 313) or in 2020 (classes 507/508).
However, it has been suggested that electrolytic corrosion could be an issue on these units because of their Al/Fe chemistry. (Perhaps we could use it to generate electricity?) But there is another possibility.
The class 313 was designed with an unusual body profile so that it would fit into the Great Northern & City tube tunnels. The new class 717s being built to replace them are presumably being built to similar dimensions. Would a follow-on order of, say four three car units not be possible?
As I mentioned, the 507s and 508s were built to the same dimensions, partly because the tooling was already there (ac classes 314 and 315 were also built on those jigs) but also, maybe, because they had to fit in the Merseyrail tunnels. And if that is the case, Merseyrail’s new Class 777s might also fit the IoW line – and with their short car lengths throwover, particularly in the platform at Ryde, would not be an issue.
Gauging trials were carried out on the IoW with the profile of a Class 503 (the predecessors on Merseyrail to Class 507/508). Presumably this was in the early 1980s when the 503s were about to become redundant.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CKTPvn2XAAA5Et4.jpg
Just across the Solent, the trackbed of the Gosport Branchline now an express bus route. Would it not be a better solution to use the route between Ryde St Johns and Shanklin as a dedicated bus route, with additional connectivity at each end over the road system to Ryde Esplanade and points south, including the railway’s original terminus at Ventnor?
Ryde St Johns and the tunnel could be handed over to the IoW Steam Railway, unlocking the tourist potential of by running steam trains to the seaside.
The remaining track between Ryde Esplanade and Ryde Peir Head does not have any height restrictions to limit the choice of rolling stock on the peir.
Unfortunately the numbers udermine your theory. According to Wikipedia, the Class 507 is 3.582 m high, while the Class 503 was only 3.48 m high.
The Class 777 is 3.82 m high, so it has to be ruled out.
@AW
1. Is the single-track trackbed wide enough for a busway?
2. If the busway buses have to leave the busway to negotiate Ryde, with its traffic congestion, it would be difficult to justify conversion of the rest.
3. How would the steam railway get trains to and from St Johns if the line between there and Smallbrook Junction is part of your proposed busway.
4. Where would the rolling stock for the Esplanade/Pierhead shuttle be maintained if it can’t get through the tunnel to St Johns?
I understand the principal reason this line (and only this line) survived Beeching was because it provides a link between the pierhead and the town – and the need to connect that rump to a maintenance depot required keeping the line to St Johns. Even in the 1960s it was recognised that the rest of the line to Shanklin made economic sense, as contributing more in revenue than the marginal cost of maintaining it, given the need to remain open as far as St Johns anyway.
@Gag ha;frunt
Thanks for those figures – so it was good fortune that the 507/508 body profile fitted the Merseyrail tunnels, given that the 503s were smaller.
And sadly the 777 is probably not a runner. What about the 717?
The Moorgate tunnels “were built large enough to take a main-line train”, and are now classified as loading gauge W6. Other readers will no doubt know more, but it sounds as if the Class 717 does not need to meet any special height restriction.
Wikipedia says of the Class 313s
“Since they were designed for use on ……….. a section of ‘tube’ line built to take standard size trains between Drayton Park and Moorgate, they are built to a slightly smaller loading gauge than conventional trains. They are standard length and width, but the roof is lower, most noticeable due to the lack of a “well” for the Stone Faiveley AMBR pantograph on the centre coach. ”
Wikipedia does not quote a source for this, but the lower roof of a the class 313/508 family compared with other rolling stock can be clearly seen on a class 455/7, which includes one ex-class 508 car.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mk_tom/15818045134
@Mark Townend – it was a different Graham to me (and presumably not Graham Feakins either) but I can confirm what you say about NR responsibilities although I don’t know what the split in costs is. (The franchise used to retain the last 03 for track work; ballast was mainly recovered from the local beaches in my day, which didn’t do much for any metalwork in the vicinity…). The signalling is, of course, managed and operated on the island – in the’90s, when we were faced with a signallers’ strike, we sent the Island line manager on a course so that he could operate the box himself if need be.
@AW busways and tunnels are tricky; busways and drainage come very expensive – one of the prime reasons why the St Ives route cost more than conventional rail. So far as the S Johns tunnel is concerned, I don’t believe that it now has the clearances to allow steam locomotives to pass because the track bed was raised to deal with the drainage problems. At the time of first franchising, the IoW Steam Railway considered a joint bid for the line along with Southern Vectis; I seem to recall that particularly attracted Salmon’s wrath, presumably as lacking in redness of capitalist meat.
More generally, the value of the link to the steam railway is diminished by the problems of access to Newport, where a large roundabout and retail park seems to block the former route, and the difficulty of going to Ventnor by the more helpful (in terms of access to the town) route
Hmm. Quite apart from the industrial relations angle, that “on a course” gives me a queasy feeling. Simple it may be, but I would have thought that safely operating the signalling for a whole railway (even with only two trains in steam) requires a degree of regular practice. Maybe that was also organised, or maybe the system is even more foolproof than I imagined.
@Timbeau
The 717s are identical to the 700s for Thameslink, apart from having emergency end-doors for the tunnels. I have seen an photo somewhere of a diesel loco in one of the tunnels, so standard size stock does fit. Could the 313s have been designed so they could use overhead electrification in the tunnels perhaps? Or it could be an urban myth that they are smaller because of the tunnels…
Back to the article, it would seem to me that the choice is a) spend significant money b) closure c) patch and mend until a) either a or b are the only choices. So c it is then!
“Revenue protection is challenging: guards cannot move between carriages except at stations, and fare evasion is a factor in Island Line’s revenue shortfall.”
Why can’t they use the end doors?
Twopenny Tube,
They do use the end doors, but some time ago (suspect others will have chapter and verse on this) there was a decision made that they could only do so when the train was stationary at stations, not while it was moving.
Herned,
A good summing up, but I’m concerned that although (c) seems the most likely choice, we might actually have reached the point where (a) and (b) *are* the only options, given the number of bits of Island Line which are at end of life. I sincerely hope it’s not (b), but I don’t think (c) gets Island Line very far before something suffers a catastrophic failure.
The Isle of Wight Steam Railway ‘2017 Strategic Vision’ document, including their aspiration of extending operations into Ryde St. John’s Road Station can be downloaded here.
http://www.iwsteamrailway.co.uk/files/documents/strategic-vision-final-version-2017pdf.pdf
@ Daniel W
Yes, your article, and the linked article posted by NGH do give the impression that decision day is looming. I would hope that some money can be found somewhere, there’s something oddly fascinating about railways on islands…
Shame it’s not a more marginal constituency…
I’m not an expert on railways, but I think you should look more closely at the possibility of using battery power for the railway. With Tesla building its Gigafactory in Nevada, the cost of Li-ion battery power is going to come down rapidly; they have already installed a 100 MW/129-MWh static battery in South Australia. If you think in terms of using renewables like wind or solar to charge the static battery then it could be used to recharge the train batteries. You don’t necessarily have to charge entirely at the ends of the line, I assume that the train stops for about one minute at each station, allowing you to top up the charge at these locations in the same way that the train already takes electricity from the third rail.
Exploring if battery power will work is sensible, but let’s not get carried away. Tesla are having no end of problem scaling up their production volumes – the full scale production of their new ‘model3’ vehicle is way behind schedule.
@Malcolm -fortunately never put to the test
@Timbeau
Another feature of the 313s and similar is that both sides are tapered by about a foot at the ends of each car, enabling the train to negotiate tighter curves in tunnels.
@Timbeau: If petrol now came along as a fuel for cars, then it would not be allowed.
Hydrogen will worm it’s way through rubber tubing and even metal cylinders (given time). Once it’s out it just heads for the stars (as it should as the lightest element).
Petrol is a semi liquid, with heavier than air fumes. It is also chemically very volatile, Unlike things like hydrogen and natural gas, but in the same category as LPG. Diesel is also much less volatile, as a certain person found out when he invaded Russia not so long ago…. (evening research topic here)
My big problem with hydrogen is simply this: It’s too blatantly uneconomical… At present anyway…
IslandDweller,
You are correct about the problem of scaling up use of batteries and the problem certainly has not been fixed.
Nevertheless, it is generally regarded as inevitable that these problems will be solved. There is nothing fundamental preventing it. What the railways need to do is manage a balancing act of not relying on batteries too prematurely but being ready to take advantage of them when they can be considered a serious alternative.
Putting it another way, we shouldn’t allow a short term hiccup to turn our backs on this technology in the long term.
Re Herned (and Timbeau)
Moorgate – Finsbury Park is another Myth Busting exercise like the IoW and those tunnel beams being the main issue for a long time and no longer an issue.
The PEP stock were designed to have clearance on all passenger lines, the MK3 suburban stock (20m) was designed to have clearance on the vast majority of routes (they don’t fit width wise on the reverse curves in the Oxted Tunnels for example but new electrostars with taper at the car ends do). I’ve also seen other sources that put the PEP stock about 5cm taller in the centre than the wikipedia source. The Pantograph well on the PEP stock is also considerably lower than on other stock presumably to keep it out of the way in the Moorgate tunnels.
As you can get class 73 locos* (at 3.80m max height) down the Moorgate tunnels height isn’t the main issue.
*In electric mode only due to diesel fume issues
Starlight informed us that “£4.60 of that is for the island and £13.20 for the ferry.” which suggests to me that the passenger ferry has a strong vested interest in keeping the Island Line operational. Indeed, if one compares the split of the distance from Portsmouth to Shanklin the train is getting the worst part of the deal! How much is it the case that if the line goes so goes the ferry? Leisure daytrips, at least, must hang in the balance.
From reading this most interesting article and comments (I used to travel on the line regularly most summers) it would seem it needs *new trains, *new track / trackbed, *new power infrastructure, and *new signalling. To accomplish most of this will, surely, require a major length of downtime for the Island system – which I’m as sure the buses will be most happy to accept the additional passengers and could even try for ‘express’ service calling just at or near the existing stations (if they haven’t already?) but even if that work is carried out over winter I wonder whether it will be worthwhile.
Much as I love this little line – despite almost falling into Ventnor station from the hill above – I do wonder whether its days are numbered unless someone decides to rescue it. A sponsorship opportunity?
@Herned
There are differences between the 717s and 700s which can’t be explained by the need for end doors.
https://railm.blob.core.windows.net/website/1/root/gtr-700103-wildenrath2-apr2_w268.jpg
http://www.railwaygazette.com/uploads/pics/tn_gb-tsgn-class717-impression.jpg
Note the headlamp clusters.
“I have seen an photo somewhere of a diesel loco in one of the tunnels, so standard size stock does fit. ”
As far as I am aware the only loco to have been down the Moorgate tunnels was a class 73 electro-diesel (presumably on electric power). These were designed to go anywhere (in particular they were built to “Hastings” loading gauge) so hardly standard.
“Could the 313s have been designed so they could use overhead electrification in the tunnels ”
They don’t. Although the roof of both a 313 and a 717 has to be low enough that a pantograph in the stowed position will fit in the tunnels
@NGH
“The Pantograph well on the PEP stock is also considerably lower than on other stock presumably to keep it out of the way in the Moorgate tunnels. ”
The well is actually very shallow – even when stowed the pantograph sits proud of the roof.
(as can be seen in this old footage of 313s on the North London Line
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=class+313+broad+street&&view=detail&mid=60CE75EF57ECF63540E760CE75EF57ECF63540E7&&FORM=VRDGAR
(at 5:03, and from 7:58 to the end, where the pan can clearly be seen from platform height before it is raised / after it is lowered)
Thus if no pantograph is fitted, the overall height is less.
@Daniel Wright
“They do use the end doors, but some time ago there was a decision made that they could only do so when the train was stationary at stations, not while it was moving. ”
But see Section 5.8 of the Brinton Report
“With regard to staff passing between trains, a number of modifications were undertaken when the vehicles were refurbished at Eastleigh in the early 1990s to make it safe for staff to pass between the vehicles whilst they were moving.”
@Alison
“How much is it the case that if the line goes so goes the ferry? ”
The ferry is probably safe – it is one of only two connections from the island with a direct rail link on the mainland side, and by far the more useful of the two (unless you want to commute to Brockenhurst!) The ferries from Cowes and Fishbourne. and even the hovercraft, all require a bus transfer.
For some years Island Line had a revenue stream in annual season tickets bought specifically for the Gold Card benefits (which have some significant differences from the £30 Network Card). Esplanade to St Johns Road was the cheapest annual season available in the NSE area. There was, of course, no requirement to use it on the island, and therefore the only cost to the franchisee was the administrative overhead of issuing it.
Following recent expansion of the Gold Card area into the West Midlands, they have now been undercut by other operators (I believe Lapworth – Hatton, in Warwickshire, is the current cheapest at £160, £20 less than the “Ticket to Ryde”). I don’t know how many they sold, but has the loss of this “nice little earner” affected their finances?
This was known even in NSE days – we felt that dealing with it was likely to be more troublesome than ignoring it – the losses weren’t very large.
Graham: What losses? It (the cheap gold card) looks to me like an “everyone wins” scenario.
The Island Line suffers in that it’s neither fish nor fowl, that is, neither a modern public transport operation nor a heritage line (unless 1960s grunge is your thing). Although the southern stations, especially Brading, have been nicely restored, the welcome to the line for ferry passengers is awful. The article shows the state of a bit of the Pier Head station. Ryde Esplanade is, to be frank, a dump. There was a plan for a totally rebuilt “Ryde Interchange” (including Esplanade station), but that fell by the wayside, and possibly due to the Island Council’s ongoing financial problems. Many visitors to the Island, especially out of season, qualify for English National bus passes. For the fit older person it’s not a big deal to walk the length of the pier from the ferry and then catch a bus for free from Ryde bus station which is adjacent to Esplanade station (hence the “Interchange” proposal). Losing that demographic to buses was probably a blow to the income of the line.
Some form of heritage/tourist revamp would seem to be the only potential answer. Passengers need to be attracted to the line for its own sake. I mean normal families, not LUL nerds. There must be ways of making it attractive, on top of the essential rebuilds of the two stations at the Ryde end.
It’s easy to dismiss the other ferry links to the island for not having mainline direct rail links. Check out the Redjet from Southampton to Cowes. There’s a dedicated bus link at the Southampton end, which works well. Frequent buses serve the West Cowes ferry terminus and link directly and quickly to Newport. Overall it works brilliantly. Through rail tickets are available as far as West Cowes. There are rail ticket machines at West Cowes. The only missing feature is Plusbus or similar for the Newport connection.
Malcolm,
Indeed. It is even a variation on an old and well-known marketing technique that is still in use today. More typically, the consumer pushes for various discounts and other agreements to get a ‘good deal’ – supposedly to the detriment of the salesman – and in doing so overlooks the fact that they didn’t actually consider whether they would have wanted the product in the first place if it was originally offered at the price that they eventually paid for it.
I suspect it may well have been a ‘nice little earner’ and had the benefit of encouraging some people to use rail who might not have otherwise have done so.
It is nothing new. Years ago you could get reduced rate admission at Chessington Zoo if purchased with your railway journey and at a few stations on the Chessington branch the combined rail and entry ticket was cheaper than the normal zoo ticket price. This anomaly was fairly well known but no attempt was made to prevent it – despite it being easy to do.
@John M
“the problem is electrolytic corrosion between the two different metals, aluminium & steel, with salt water as the electrolyte.”
A problem? Or an opportunity? Each carriage is effectively one big (albeit non-rechargeable) battery! Power problem solved! 🙂
(How many amp-hours could you get from one carriage?)
@Graham H/Malcolm
The losses in NSE days presumably being simply the discount on trips the holder would have made anyway (less the initial cost of the season ticket).
Now it’s more complicated, with one franchise getting the season ticket revenue but others suffering the reduced revenue on the discounted fares.
Wouldn’t the use of sacrificial anodes work to reduce the corrosion?
Sacrificial anodes are not a magic bullet, though they undoubtedly help in some cases. But since there are many engineers and scientists who have spent whole careers studying these things, “why don’t they …” comments from most of us here may not add much value. The ex-tube fleet under discussion is not the first, nor will it be the last, item made from different metals which is sometimes left out in the rain. A study by NACE International has suggested that the world-wide annual cost of corrosion is $2.5 trillion.
@Malcolm: Or an opportunity, rust means jobs… 😉
To Alison and others who identify the need for a lengthy closure to renew trains, track / trackbed, power infrastructure, signalling …
The railway was closed for about three months at the start of 1967 for electrification, so if renewal could be done in the same length of time …
Of course, that was British Rail, not Network Rail who need three months just to do a feasiblity study and who bring in a thousand ton crane to lift a 45 ton girder.
Daniel Wright, the author of this article, has written a companion piece, a history of the Island Line – originally the Isle of Wight Railway – at his The Beauty of Transport blog.
Re SH(LR) et al.
My corrosion science may be a bit rusty (pun intended) having been forgotten post undergrad but sacrificial anodes are about as useful as a chocolate teacup for railway stock corrosion prevention use.
Early one morning when I was on duty in Ryde ECR in 1970, I switched on the Ryde substation rectifier and proved d.c. continuity from Ryde to Shanklin via the conductor rails. Peter Harbour (driver of the first train of the day to Shanklin) noticed that the motor-driven 33kV isolator arms were vertical (substation off) as he passed by both Rowborough Farm sub and Sandown sub. Peter’s train crawled into Shanklin very slowly. He quickly called me on the Electrification phone and pointed out my mistake. I quickly switched on the the two other subs. Very embarrassing…but I had proved it was possible to run a train with only one substation on. Peter had a much quicker trip back to Ryde Pier! I enjoyed working with the Island men and missed them very much when I transferred back to the mainland. I have some very fond memories of them all.
@Rob Mannion – did you work with Mark Brinton, who authored the technical report replying to the Garnett report?
ngh,
Or to put it another way, calling something a sacrificial anode doesn’t make it a sacrificial anode. You have to be able to do something so the electricity ‘chooses’ it in preference to what you are trying to protect. And, I guess, not easy on a railway carriage.
Re PoP,
Precisely.
It seems, reading the relevant history on Wikipedia, that the IoW hasn’t just had former London carriages for decades, but for over a century!
In1898 they bought some North London Railway carriages, and in 1914 took delivery of eighteen former Metropolitan Railway carriages. I certainly hope the LondonReconnections (IoW branch) remains active.
At post 110 (I think), I see that the LR rule that the more obscure the subject the more vigorous the debate is alive and well…
A few thoughts on the voltage drop problem:
The Island line is good old fashioned jointed track with bullhead rail and fishplates, so to get good electrical continuity for traction current return and track circuits copper cables with crimp fittings on the end are bolted to the rails, my suspicion is that the overall conductivity is still far more than required for track circuit purposes but that corrosion between the cable and crimp fittings and between the crimp fittings/bolts/rail has reduced the overall conductivity resulting in higher return path resistance and hence increasing voltage drops with distance over time as the corrosion gets worse.
As regards potential solutions:
a). Replace the cables and clean up the rails where the connections are made. Start nearest the 3 substations or in known corrosion problems areas for quick wins.
b). Weld up the bullhead running rail into longer lengths if it isn’t too shot so there are far fewer joints
c). Increase the areas where long “scrap” lengths of welded 3rd rail are used for return current paralleling (already used in places on parts of the single track area).
and
A general clean up of other traction electrical connections.
@Alison W
“In 1898 they bought some North London Railway carriages…”
…so it would be oddly appropriate if the Island line’s next rolling stock just so happened to be ex-Silverlink 313’s (as used on the North London Line). Everything would come full circle.
@FANDROID
Yes, the fundamental question is to decide what the rail service actually is, is it a modern public transport system for locals and visitors, or part of the IoW “holiday experience”?
The other route onto the island is the Lymington to Yarmouth ferry. I did this a few years ago, direct train access on the mainland, then decent bus connections at the other end – curiously the most frequent bus to my B&B in Freshwater was the open top Breezer service! – and relatively little traffic either.
I remember travelling around the island by bus, but am pretty sure I had a combined rail and bus ticket, as I also used the train from Ryde to Shanklin. Are these still available?
With the weather improving, perhaps an LR fact finding mission is required? 😉
@STARLIGHT 27 March 2018 at 14:06
The Romney Hythe and Dymchurch ran school trains all year during term time, in their tiny rolling stock, until surprisingly recently! Admittedly they used one of their diesel locos usually.
I have been following the course of events with interest. I used to travel from Shanklin to Ryde on a daily basis in 80,s. The trains then used to be 7 carriages long and on many an occasion there was only standing room. The document indicates that the service now runs at 3.5 million loss. The document looks a little into the future viability of the service and possible ways of reducing the loss. However myself and many other Islanders are of the opinion that we should look to the next 100 years and not for the few. There is a wonderful opportunity to connect the railway to the mainland via a tunnel from Ryde to Portsmouth upgrade all of the track so that we run the same rolling stock. The costs of the infrastructure is going to be high. However the long term benefits for the Islands would in years to far out way the initial costs. The benefits are too great to list in this comment.
@Adrian Nigh
I thought that further upthread it was stated that the Royal Navy vetoed a tunnel under the Solent. Even if they hadn’t the cost would be enormous – and would never pay for itself even if the island were to become as populous as Southampton.
Waterloo-Portsmouth trains are not only main line loading gauge but 12 cars long. Upgrading the line to take such trains would involve so much work you might as well start from scratch – see comments elsewhere on the difficulties of extending/enlarging a similarly-restricted line at the other end of that route!
Running coastway or Bristol line trains through such a tunnel would at least solve the problems of platform length, but then most people would have to change trains anyway.
@ Timbeau
The Royal Navy were one of the the reasons the light rail proposed between Fareham (?) and Portsmouth was cancelled. From memory the reason was that the tunnel would need to be deeper because of the new aircraft carriers’ requirement for the channel to the naval base in Portsmouth to be dredged deeper. And then the tunnel could not be build in the way or location proposed. The Solent is deeper already so that wouldn’t be an issue. That doesn’t make it a viable proposition though!
As a tourist to the Isle of Wight, the railway makes going there without a car more attractive.
Clearly the public transport needs to serve both the visitors and residents.
As I recall there wasn’t a “travelcard” that covered both bus and train although there was a ticket that did both the Island Line and the steam railway and excellent bus “rover” tickets.
There was no obvious barrier to the steam railway line being extended (restored) to the edge of Newport although the route to the original station had been reused.
Realistically, for the residents, the railways are of most value as a feeder to the ferries from Ryde and as a way of avoiding car use.
Leaving aside the (substantial) problem of finding suitable stock, diesel power seems the obvious solution and wouldn’t preclude some future expansion to (say) a park and ride (to Ryde !) at the outskirts of Newport,
It seems to me that the most practical of the above suggestions would be an add-on to the NTfL order, particularly as the shorter articulated cars ought to deal better with the curves, and platforms are already at the right height.* Perhaps a number of pre-production 3-car units that can serve as a thoroughly good testing of the vehicle architecture without the full-blown LU signal and control equipment that would be on the main order. In this way, Island Line would, for a change, be at the vanguard, rather than get the cast-offs!
* Actually, I would hope that the NTfL car floors will be lower than recent tube stocks, at least back down to ’62/73 etc, if not further.
The Historic Ryde Society lists some previous attempts to construct a fixed link between the IoW and the mainland — either from Ryde to Gosport, or Freshwater to Lymington.
NGH first discusses the Oxted tunnel restrictions here:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2017/can-mend-broken-railway-thameslink-gibb-report/ on 29 June 2017 at 21:21 and then Steven Taylor on 30 June 2017 at 12:03 gives us a walkthrough photo link:
https://momodem1.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/a-walk-through-oxted-tunnel.html
GF
That link seems to point to the whole discussion & there are over 200 comments – where is it actually? ( And having looked through – I still can’t find it – or is that just me? )
Meanwhile, purely for info, I’m going to take info from the Wiki pages with stock dimensions on them, to aid undersatnding ( I hope )
Class 170 & 171 – 377
Length – 23.62 – – 20.4
Width – – 2.69 – – – 2.8
Height — 3.77 – – – 3.78
So the diesels are longer but thinner than the electrics using the same tunnel.
Oops – I forgot to add the 319’s which are ….19.8/19.9 long, by 2.82 wide & 3.58 tall.
Putting all of that together, what’s the problem, even with that reverse-curve?
Didn’t someone upthread say that the bogie pivot points are closer together on a 377 than a 455/319. This would result in greater throwover at the car ends (hence the greater chamfering than on the older stocks) but less throwover in the middle of the car. This may be enough to make a 377 fit where a 319 won’t?
I do recall that when the line was electrified the class 423s were fitted with window bars, where none had been fitted on the diesel units (classes 205 and 207) that had previously served the East Grinstead line, and continued to serve the Uckfield line. However, as far as I am aware the dimensions of the 205s were similar to the 423s. (The 207s had narrower bodies as they also worked the long lost Eridge- Tonbridge shuttle, which had restricted clearances in the Tunbridge Wells tunnel)
Re timbeau,
Yep the taper along with the body profile that is narrower at cantrail height does it as I said above, I’m sorely temped to do the math with drawings if I didn’t have more urgent stuff to do. I was wrong on bogie centres, the electrostar is 3mm more than the Mk3 suburban EMUs /PEPs; 14173 vs 14170mm respectively (but MK3 DMUs 150/210 are longer which provided some entertainment rebuilding a 210 car into a 455 car post flying Oxshott cement mixer).
Re Greg
1. Wackypedia is often wrong and is in this case on number of items quoted by at least 5 commentators above but gets believed and causes mass confusion.
2. A bit of Fact checking /myth busting
(All from BR or Bombardier Technical drawings)
Heights:
319: 3774mm (unladen) and completely wrong like the PEP heights quoted further up in comments
170 /171: 3774mm but rounded down to 377cm on Wackypedia
Electrostar 375/376/377/379/387: 3774mm (notice a pattern…) but rounded up to 378cm on Wackypedia
PEP (313 507 508) height is 3582mm or 3824mm with pantograph locked down on 313
Max Widths:
319/455: 2816mm flat sided no end taper or upper profile taper (rounded upto 282cm on wackypedia)
Electrostars: 2800mm [Depth of taper is ~100mm so car ends 2600mm]
170 /171: 2690mm
PEP (313 507 508): 2820mm
body side length (intermediate car excluding gangway connections)
319: body length is 19920mm but 380mm length due to angle on the car ends at each end so parallel bodyside length is 18440mm
Electrostars: Body length is 19660mm but (taper over last 760mm of body side at each end and 85mm length due to angle on the car ends) so parallel bodyside length is 17970mm * ++ 470mm less than a 319 ++
PEP (313 507 508): Body length is 19920mm Taper starts 770mm from body end so parallel bodyside length is 18380mm ++ 60mm less than a 319 ++
3. Quick and crude look at the maths
car centre point to corner
319: 9326mm @ 8.7degrees to longitudinal axis
Electrostars: 9079mm @ 8.3degrees to longitudinal axis
so 319 is long and higher angle = bad for clearance.
@Ngh
I didn’t know the underframe arrangements were different on the 210s. As you probably know, there are actually two ex-class 210 cars trundling around in class 455 units. The one you refer to was converted from a DMU driving trailer to an emu non- driving motor coach using components recovered from the Oxshott casualty. The other is, and was, an intermediate trailer, which was used to replace one which had had irreversible modifications made in connection with evaluation of plug doors for the Networker programme. As far as I am aware little modification was needed for that one, so it probably still has its non-standard bogie pivot points?
Network Rail’s Wessex Route Strategic Plan, https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Wessex-Route-Strategic-Plan.pdf makes no provision for expenditure on the Isle of Wight railway, because it is not part of the regulated asset base. It says (on page 35) “The key risk is the renewal of Ryde pier which would currently be unaffordable but terminal to the operation of the line if it is not available.” Use of the word ‘renewal’, rather than ‘repair’ or ‘ refurbishment’ sounds worrying. Is there a serious risk of the railway pier needing to be renewed? If so, this would seem as much of a show stopper as lack of suitable replacement rolling stock. The parallel pier carrying pedestrians and taxis was extensively renovated in 2010.
@DanielW
It’s nice to see an article which isn’t full of the same old myths about the tunnel, indeed Nigel Harris of Rail Magazine has suggested on twitter that a laser survey proved that D78 stock would ‘just’ fit – https://twitter.com/RAIL/status/975448783600455682
However regarding 4-car trains – I don’t think they’ve run for a few years now, I’ve certainly not seen any in the flesh nor videos/photos, with trains during summer often standing room only as a result.
And for comparison to the other stock, the D-Stock data (before Adrian S. has increased the height to get the diesel engines underneath!)
Bogie centres 11885mm
[others 14170 or 14173mm]
Height 3630mm
[144mm lower than mk3 suburban or Electrostar, +48mm taller 3rd rail PEP]
Width: 2840mm
[20/40mm wider than the “20m” stock]
Parallel Bodyside length 17500mm
[940mm less than Mk3 suburban (319/455), 400mm less than electrostar, 880mm less than PEP]
The quick and crude curve comparison, car centre point to corner:
D Stock 8865mm @ 9.21 degrees to longitudinal axis.
PEP 9298mm @8.72 degrees to longitudinal axis. [+433mm]
319: 9326mm @ 8.70 degrees to longitudinal axis [+461mm]
Electrostars: 9079mm @ 8.3 degrees to longitudinal axis [+214mm]
Re Chris (& Daniel W,)
Just some of the same old myths – the article still perpetuates myths which will keep getting referenced as source of incorrect information in its current form, potentially time for an update or addendum in traditionally LR form when the original article has a number of major factual errors?
e.g. 3.3m Ryde tunnel height myth which has been thoroughly busted in the comments (no longer the case after the beams were replaced)
Given the D78 stock will just fit at 3.63m, the 3.3m maximum is no longer the current height.
Given the minimum voltage before cutout circuitry kicks in is 400V (and has been for decades) which busts Garnett’s 350V non sense.
Use of D stock for IoW was part of the recent Stagecoach bid for the South West franchise. However the DfT only needed a commitment to consult, not a specific solution to be proposed. How committed therefore is the DfT to a practical solution? Does it just want a wide trawl for the cheapest possible outcome that might not require closure proceedings?
There is of course a wider issue beyond mere survival, about the role of any railway in the IoW for the longer term, but comments above have shown that that is something where the local Council would need to be a large and positive player.
@Milton Clevedon
Why should Isle of Wight Council be expected to be a “large and positive player”? Which other county council has been expected to cope with years of lack of investment in its local railway system?
NGH
A fair point. The article was based on written documentation in the public domain. Some of that has fairly comprehensively been shown to be untrue via comments by you and others – which, of course, is one of the joys of London Reconnections comment sections. I will leave it up to the moderators/editors exactly how they want to treat this. It is one of the frustrations of trying to write about Island Line that so little authoritative public information is available. One might have expected SWR’s consultation to go into detail on exactly what loading gauge restrictions currently exist on the line, both in terms of height and length of vehicles, but sadly it did not.
Thanks to the comments explaining the beam renewal in Ryde Tunnel in particular, I’m slightly more cheered that there are some viable options on rolling stock, although still not cheered that funding to replace trains and track/signalling/power supply (to whatever degree is requires), refurbish stations, and adjust track height at platforms (if necessary) will actually be forthcoming. I live in hope.
Re Daniel Wright,
Lowering the track height through platforms can be relatively easy and quick as there is plenty of useful plant to do it that can go on the “other” ferry. Through the single track stations or bridges on the Island line it can easily be done with a track under cutter aka “Gopher” as can be seen removing spent ballast under points in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvyeMPkTp6I
As there isn’t that much lowering required, the cost of sorting the infrastructure especially if done in a more relaxed way over a month at a suitably quiet time in winter when the roads are also quiet to enable some standard soon to be available non deep tube rolling stock to be used look fairly reasonable and the way forward. It also means you need to worry slightly less about corrosion if there is a steady supply of end of normal life stock available every few years if required. Some of the ROSCOs may be fairly charitable if the stock would otherwise be going to Booths/EMR..
@ Londoner in Scotland 1 April 2018 at 19:19
There is a wide range of supportive and less supportive attitudes across UK local authorities towards local rail services. This can include planning and development policies, leveraging available investment support options jointly with others, station improvements and pro-active safeguarding for the future. Contrast for example the actions of Cornwall and Lancashire on the one hand, and Somerset and Northants on the other. The appearance is that the IoW Council has been rather passive.
@ Milton Clevedon
Yes, but this local council action is additional to Network Rail and TOCs keeping the basic railway in sound condition and the sums are generally modest in relative to the cost of maintaining and operating the railway. I accept that possible re-openings to Portishead and Tavistock may be an exception.
There have been extensive track renewals on the Whitby branch in recent years, but no suggestion that North Yorkshire Council should contribute to this. Why should the Isle of Wight be treated differently?
@Londoner in Scotland: Which other county council has been expected to cope with years of lack of investment in its local railway system?
The Greater London Authority.
Re Londoner in Scotland,
Also Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (MerseyTravel)
@ Londoner in Scotland
A recent example is Cornwall County Council contributing half the cost of closing the last gap in the dual carriageway on the A30 as in the standard cost:benefit analysis it didn’t make sense, so the DFT wouldn’t put up all the cost. This appears to be a similar situation to the one the Island Line is in
@Londoner in Scotland – milking the local authorities to pay for rail investment has been going on for many years. Did it myself to get some cash for Kings Lynn electrification back in the ’80s.
@ian Jackson
“Which other county council has been expected to cope with years of lack of investment in its local railway system”
Most PTEs did. In particular, Tyne & Wear and Greater Manchester both invested in tram/metro system which took over rail lines with elderly infrastructure, many with electrification systems which were due for renewal or, in T&W’s case, had actually been decommissioned some fifteen – twenty years previously.
The saga of Kenilworth station reveals it does not always go well.
Not a County Council but even in London we had the City of London Corporation paying for the then Class 482 stock (now 1992 stock on the Waterloo & City line). This caused problems when, on taking over the service, TfL considered replacing them with something older to free them up for the Central line.
City of London were not happy about paying for the stock specifically to improve the Waterloo & City line (which, it has to be said, is a bit of an anomaly) only to see it be used elsewhere and the Waterloo & City left with older stock.
PoP
Urban legend or not … there is the persistent rumour that The Corporation offered to buy the whole of the Tube ( for £1 IIRC ), when the Thatcher government was breaking up LT.
[ The deal included all debts & liabilities, of course ]
Stamped on for ideological reasons …
Urban legend I fear – I was part of the team doing the breaking up (to my chagrin). There was a serious question as to how the LT assets should be valued, but that is not really for this thread.
Re: GT/GH – for the benefit of those of us who don’t recall, when did the Thatcher government break up LT and what was the outcome fot the Underground if it wasn’t public ownership?
(I’m sure the answer is to be found on LR *somewhere*, but as it stands I’ve no idea where.)
According to Wikipedia London Underground “The Transport for London years”, the Public-Private Partnership was set up between 2000-2003, and Tfl took back operations between 2007 and 2010.
I’m sure GH will provide chapter and verse, but a quick headline is that LT (GLC-owned) became LRT (London Regional Transport) as a newly nationalised industry at the end of June 1984 under the Thatcher (Conservative) government.
It then took until 1999/2000 under the Blair (Labour) government to re-allocate LRT to the newly-constituted London Mayor, and (for scrutiny) the GLA.
Some of the fun and games in the 1980s were covered in the attached LR article and in commentary on it: https://www.londonreconnections.com/2017/diving-into-the-fleet-part-5-the-eighties/
(It is actually Part 4 of that series… The offending numbering is merely an idiosyncracy of the Editor!)
Graham H
Oh, what a pity, it was such a lovely story – too good to be true, in fact ( ! )
Re: Chris Wedge – er, 1979-90…
Re: JR – many thanks. Still don’t understand Greg T’s comment about ideology though.
@Balthazar, Greg T
LT and government ideology are way off topic for this Island Line thread, and any further discussion may be removed without warning. LBM
@Balthazar: Private owners = good, public owners = bad….
Ignoring any form of strict ideology causes bad decision making…
Quite relevant to the recent discussion – this procurement opportunity has just been advertised by the Isle of Wight Council: https://procontract.due-north.com/Advert/Index?advertId=d2b2e71f-ac39-e811-80eb-005056b64545
It concerns the Isle of Wight Transport Infrastructure Delivery Plan.
“The council require an Infrastructure Delivery Plan (“the Delivery Plan”) to be prepared that meets the needs of new developments in a manner consistent with the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and its accompanying Guidance (NPPG). The Delivery Plan should support positively the new local development plan (Island Planning Strategy), by assessing infrastructure requirements (including requirements of neighbouring authorities where this is a relevant factor), identifying measures to meet the identified requirements and then the mechanisms by which such measures or solutions can be delivered (including financial), over the lifetime of the Island Planning Strategy (to 2034).”
A new build of NTfL would be pricey, but the Piccadilly prototypes could be available after testing. The Victoria line prototypes were scrapped after testing, being so different to the production run in the light of experience. NTfL stock is being designed to replace 4-car W&C trains, so could be adapted for IoW.
Re: Taz – “A new build of NTfL would be pricey” – and there, in a nutshell, is the pitfall of the whole concept.
“The Victoria line prototypes were scrapped after testing” – is this true?
I believe that Bombardier was required to convert the Vic line prototypes to standard at the end of testing, but decided that it was cheaper to build extra production trains that took the original numbers.
Which is how 11003/11004 was both the first and last train of 2009 stock to enter service!
Re Taz and Balthazar,
But the Island line doesn’t *need* tube sized stock after the tunnel roof beam replacement, far cheaper to do some (very) small track lowers and use some surplus NR or D Stock either of which would also be easier to maintain than tube stock.
If the council see the line as a tourist experience, then the solution is obvious: open-top trains …
As someone who has fond memories of travelling on the line during childhood holidays on the island in the late 80s/early 90s, I have a huge soft spot for it. It therefore was troubling (if somewhat unsurprising) to learn of its numerous issues in this article.
I still find it baffling that the 1983 stock (barely 15 years old at the time of its withdrawal!) was not considered for repurposing to be used on this line….does anyone here know of any technical reason why this couldn’t have happened?
In a way, it’s incredible that the line managed to survive Beeching at all….was there really no other viable option for providing transport to the pier end, or another solution sought at the time for retaining the passenger ferry link? Reading the article almost felt like reading a detailed proposal for line closure (with some eerie parallels with the reasons oft given for closure of the Liverpool Overhead Railway) 😔. Even with arch-railway-nemesis Grayling at the helm, it seems unlikely he would dare to do so (lest it puts what should be a safe Tory seat in peril!). I suspect some limited modernisation (+/- delectrification…..contrary to what the article states, there is plenty of historical precedent for this e.g. Tyneside Electrics) will be undertaken along the lines that others have suggested. The example of the Glasgow Subway does show though how a complete and thorough upgrade (carried out at a time when it might have been easier to shut it) can revitalise and rejuvenate a line, securing its future.
“The example of the Glasgow Subway”
Hardly comparable though, one is an underground railway serving a massive city whereas this is a railway serving a relatively sleepy island, which only gets busy during the tourist season.
I doubt most locals even use the railway,
@Mikey….True, but the Glasgow Subway is in some ways similar. It is short in length and isolated from other rail systems, serves a relatively small geographical area (which in addition suffered from depopulation and economic decline during that period), has its own engineering peculiarities (unique track gauge etc), and was on its last legs and in dire need of modernisation in the late 70s, with rolling stock that was over 80 years old!
@delectrification…..contrary to what the article states, there is plenty of historical precedent for this e.g. Tyneside Electrics
I can think of only three other examples, two originally electrified before WW1:
Newport – Shildon in Co Durham (de-electrified in 1935 due to declining freight traffic and cost of replacement – the line remained open until the 1960s)
Morecambe- Heysham (still open, but de-electrified in 1966, when most of the electrified network of which it formed a part was closed)
Angerstein Wharf branch in SE L0ndon: originally electrified in the 1950s using overhead wires (because of the dangers of 3rd rail in goods yards). These were removed in the 1970s when the “booster” electrics (Classes 70, 71) were replaced by electro-diesels which had no need for overhead current collection.
Hello, checking in from the US.
The best solution for the IoW line is Diesel LRV’s. There are some similar lines in North America that do this very successfully.
Open third rail is a very dangerous power system, overhead wire would be very costly to build, bus substitution for rail almost always fails.
The most important thing here is the preservation of a viable and valuable rail seevice, and modern Diesels could very well do that.
Dave K,
Here in the UK, diesels of all kinds are currently being frowned upon in a big way – mainly due to air quality and health issues. This might not be particularly relevant to the Isle of Wight in any rational way but politically converting a railway from electric (even dangerous third-rail) to diesel would probably not be acceptable. And, yes, we do know that modern diesel engines are a lot cleaner but they all get tarnished with the same brush as we say.
While I doubt it will occupy too much attention in the DfT’s decision-making on the future Island Line rolling stock and its power supply, the line runs behind houses for most of the distance between Shanklin and Sandown. Were diesel trains to be specified, that could have a significant noise impact on residents. It’s one thing moving into a house backing onto a diesel-operated railway line, but if you’ve moved into a house adjacent to an electric railway and accepted that level of noise, you’d be quite reasonably annoyed if noisier diesel trains were subsequently introduced.
@Dave K
If someone is prepared to pay for new vehicles (whether LRV or something else, and however powered) then almost anything – battery, hybrid, hydrogen, whatever – might be possible. But I don’t think the Isle of Wight line has ever had brand-new bespoke rolling stock: even in the days of steam most of it was secondhand from mainland railways, and the two generations of electric stock were already forty and fifty years old respectively when they first arrived on the island.
And a diesel LRV (light rail vehicle) sounds to me suspiciously like a Pacer…….
If this is Hornbying, please stop me.
Would Southern 313s be a good replacement on the IoW? They would fit in the tunnel. They are, from what I have read, in reasonable condition. Their current engineers do not live a million miles away. They themselves have ready-made replacements in the form of available 319s, which have toilets (apparently a big plus on the South Coast).
Ans=42
“313”? Um
The Moorgate line examples are falling to bits, creaking & groaning, juddery brakes, external damage & “rust” patches. They are basically worn out.
I know the S-coast ones were extensively refurbed, but they are themselves, now over 40 years old ….
@Answer = 42
313s (and their Merseyrail cousins) were suggested in the original article. Subsequent discussion (above) covers possible problems with electrolytic corrosion (aluminium body anode, steel underframe cathode, briny electrolyte). But they are presumably exposed to similar problems on the pier at Portsmouth Harbour – and probably in the Mersey Tunnel.
As with any second hand mainline stock, platform heights would need adjusting to the higher floors of main line stock, and the power supply is now 50 years old.
I’m not sure that any 319s are earmarked for the Coastway services, but some 377s will be displaced by class 700s when Thameslink services spread further into Sussex.
answer = 42, timbeau, Greg Tingey,
What is more, whenever we get really cold weather, Southern tell us that their class 313 really don’t like operating below 0°C.
I’m not suggesting that the 313s would be a long-term solution, for the reasons pointed out. There will be plenty of newer trains soon needing gainful employ (e.g. 456s but poss. loading gauge issues) but my understanding was that the problem requires immediate solution.
And I guess that the IoW goes below 0° less often than even the South Coast.
There would indeed be loading gauge issues with a 456, which, give or take a more stylish cab front*, has the same body as a 455
http://cdn.londonreconnections.com/2013/IOW-Tunnel-and-structures-2.jpg
Mark 3 cab fronts come in five varieties
classes 317/1, 210, 455/8, aka Bedpan, from the class 317/1’s original home on the Bedford-St Pancras line)
classes 150, 317/2, 318, 455/7, 455/9 aka Sprinter – official name of the Class 150
class 319 (Thameslink)
classes 320, 321, 322, 456 – aka Dusty Bin, from the character on the TV show 3-2-1.
class 325 – Networker: Royal Mail units with Networker cabs on mark 3 bodies
Re Timbeau,
[@1029] Southern unfortunately need every 377 they have and there will be quite a number of short formed Southern trains from the May ’18 timetable change till all the services that are going to swap to 700s actually do.
[@1237] The main gauging issue height wise (i.e. for mk3 stock) would now (post tunnel beam replacement) appear to be “Rink Road” Bridge especially above the North bound track. Track lowering (circa 4″/10cm) or bridge deck raising (jacks) looks pretty straight forward.
Given the condition of the bridge parapets on google street view (non road vehicle crash compliant post “Great Heck” regulations) the local council might also have bridge deck and parapet replacement on its “to do” list somewhere….
Re PoP / Answer=42 / Greg
There will be plenty of surplus 3 phase AC traction equipment from the SWR 455s in few years which would help improve some of the cold weather reliability issues on the PEPs. The sensible choice of PEP unit (timing vs condition) would be soon to be ex Merseyrail units.
Or even simpler buy a few 455s SWR ex Lease in 2 years and sent them over after some track lowering etc. (and if worried about corrosion don’t use the ex 508 trailers in the 455/7s).
@NGH – Good thinking re the 455s. 3-car units should be adequate without the PEP trailers and they’d be a bit pokier with a higher power to weight ration. As to electrification, I suggest replace 3rd rail with modern aluminium type for lower loop resistance and drop the old con rail onto the sleepers on normal insulated rail pads and bond to rails for return reinforcement. Replace signalling with something axle counter/radio block based to simplify return bonding.
The new Merseyrail units are not due until 2021 – can we wait that long?
The franchise will have plenty of surplus rolling stock of its own in the next year or two – not just the recently refurbished 455s (and 458s), but also the class 707s which by then will still be barely two years old. On previous form, they should see the line in to the 22nd century!
Re Mark T,
The use of scrap 3rd rail to reduce return path resistance is already used on single track IoW track sections.
[with the look of Munch’s Scream] The modern Aluminium* low resistance (~7mOhms/km excluding joints) 3rd rail that LU and other metros use actually has a stainless steel (usually 17/6) contact surface mechanically bonded (rolled or crimped) to the top and is normally used in benign conditions as regards corrosion so probably not the best idea for IoW…
*Actually a medium strength easily extrudeable alloy 6060 / 6061 / 6086 depending on the supplier / extruder combination.
The geometry of extrusion presses and the need to reload billets frequently limits the rail length to 18-20m which necessitates fish plated joint as frequently as the existing 60′ steel lengths on the IoW, my suspicion is that the frequent joints in both the running rails and 3rd rail on the IoW are part of the power supply problem.
NR alternative works anywhere solution to reducing 3rd rail resistance has been to increase the 3rd rail cross section and swap to long continuous lengths usually welded into 200m+ lengths at Eastleigh and then joined into even longer lengths on site which produces a 3rd rail with ~12mOhms/km resistance (no joints).
One simple option might be to hire one of the NR RRV excavator mounted flash butt welders (with both appropriate running rail and 3rd rail attachments) and send it on an extended holiday to the IoW to weld up everything sensible* in sight *(replace heavily worn /corroded rail at the same time). [As quick as 10mins per weld and <80db so ideal for night work?]
Getting 200m lengths of rail from Eastleigh to the IoW would be an interesting challenge – are any of the ferries even half that length?
The aluminium conductor rail might be suitable for parts of the IoW system away from the sea (although none of it is more than about two miles inland), but probably best to stick to traditional steel on the pier.
@NGH – The composite nature of the aluminium alloy rail certainly suggests it would be unsuitable for use anywhere in the Ryde pier and tunnel area! Signalling is, if I recall correctly, a mixture of TCB and one train working without train staff, all controlled from Ryde St Johns SB, mostly on the lever frame but with the former Sandown SB area with its passing loop and siding added on a small panel on the instrument shelf. Track circuiting is thus not continuous on the single line sections, but elsewhere, axle counters for train detection could allow removal of fair number of insulated block joints and impedance bonds with any remaining single rail TC bonding (through points usually) removed so traction return can go via both rails and any reinforcement conductors throughout. This would all help to reduce return resistance along with your general weld up work on plain line and conductor rail. The Sandown loop as recontrolled to St Johns originally had hydro-pneumatic train operated points with local points indicators for passage in the facing direction (effectively like tram system spring points). Many of these now obsolete units have been replaced elsewhere around the UK network by conventional electrical machines. I don’t know the fate of these items on the IoW.
Re Timbeau,
I wasn’t suggesting transporting long lengths from the mainland merely noting that Eastleigh is the fixed location for welding sections of 3rd rail together (cheaper than on site and less time spent on site) which is why there is comparatively little on site 3rd rail flash butt welding – The Dover seawall rebuild being a notable exception as there was less time pressure with all the running and 3rd rail welding done in a couple of days mid week.
My suggestion was to use some of the mobile flash butt welding equipment (NR is busy procuring lots more as it is far more time, cost and general faff efficient than thermite) to do all the welding in situ on the IoW as there isn’t much useful plant locally.
The most logical way (both running and conductor rail) to do it might be to bring over short lengths on the ferry (typically 56′ having lost 2′ at either end where the fishplates and most of the damage/wear is) of good second hand rail and weld that up that in the spare track bed adjacent to the Shanklin end of the line, then swap the rails over. The recovered rails from the 1st section done could then be shortened or scrapped with the recovered shortened rail lengths welded up adjacent to the next section along the line, thus the closure time is kept low.
Re Mark,
I was thinking either axle counters or jointless (aka audio frequency) track circuits would help massively in that respect and also reduce on going maintenance.
@NGH – I’d definitely recommend axle counters, as with no electrical commonality with the traction power system whatsoever, they require no impedance bonds for connecting the return current cables from rail to substation or for cross bonding on double track sections. In junction areas they avoid the need for any insulated block joints within switches. Highly scaleable they can also remove the need for multiple track circuit sections through comparatively long blocks, as featured on Island Line. A modern modular signalling system could use cheap lightweight integrated LED signals that are virtually zero maintenance once installed and an interlocking and workstation control system could be housed in office accomodation at Esplanade station or at the depot site. A simple automatic route setting system could manage all routine movements and, with such a low signaller workload, a combined controller / signaller position might manage more than just the signalling activities, perhaps including fleet, traction power and train crew coordination, all from the same desk.
timbeau
“termite”?
Some new variation on these usually-destructive insects, capable of welding stuff up?
Their hive-mounds must look interesting!
@Greg
The termite typo was NGH, not me. I read it as thermite, which is what I assume was meant.
[Now changed to thermite PoP]
Axle counters have their attractions, but good old fashioned track circuits have the advantage of being able to detect broken rails and / or obstructions on the line (what use are track circuit clips in an emergency in axle-counter territory?)
I had the impression that track circuit clips have lost much of their importance with the widespread use of reliable cab-to-shore radio. I could be wrong, though. (And conductor-rail shorting is still possible, provided we are sticking with conductor rail – which does seem to be the working assumption in this local bit of the conversation, if not elsewhere).
Radios can go wrong, or reception can be poor. A track circuit clip can be used by anyone – even you or I if we were in an emergency situation if no staff were present – and can turn the local signals to red instantly without the need for any discussion with someone else, or identifying your location.
A set of jump leads could probably be used in extremis.
timbeau: Of course. I would certainly prefer to use a track circuit clip untrained rather than attempting to short-circuit 700V. But we are talking about the Isle of Wight, where there is very little double track anyway, and hopefully the train I was on will be already doing the job on its own track.
My point was really that the decision between axle-counting and track-circuiting in this case should probably be made on other grounds, since the apparent additional safety of track-circuiting because of clips is likely to be amazingly marginal.
Minor island systems aside, axle counters have now become the default train detection solution for modern resignalling projects in UK and elsewhere throughout Europe, particularly in Germany, where the technology was first developed and popularised decades ago and is nearly universally used today.
There are some UK exceptions, notably the recent ETCS overlay in the Thameslink core tunnels, where some of the new fixed sections are as little as 70m in length between the new block markers. In that extreme case it was thought overall complexity favoured a modern track circuit solution instead, and the traction return system was already engineered to cope with track circuits anyway.
Another recent exception was at Nottingham. Despite that broader resignalling scheme using axle counters throughout elsewhere, the long multi-section platforms at Nottingham station itself retain track circuits. That was justified to overcome a known problem at sites where wheels routinely stop right over an axle counter sensor and a (right side) miscount can sometimes occur when the train involved moves away again resulting in a section remaining falsely occupied. That is operationally inconvenient and carries its own risks in subsequent degraded mode working until the section can be safely reset.
There is a new (for UK) solution to this miscount problem from Germany that will be applied at Birmingham New Street upon planned future resignalling, using what are termed ‘supervisor sections’. Where a platform is divided into a number of discretely indicated train detection sections for the purposes of managing multiple trains, splitting and joining etc. an extra ‘supervisor section’ can be defined in the axle counter evaluator unit over sensors covering two or more intermediate sections that when going clear can automatically reset any of the intermediate sections it covers if they have been left falsely occupied after such a miscount.
Would a pod rapid transit solution (modelled on the 1970’s Morgantown model rather than the Heathrow model) be a better solution than refurb within the physical constraints and a lower budget than sorting out the physical and power problems. Maybe even as a joint venture with west virginia university to clone the Morgantown system which has been recently refurbished.
Concrete and fibreglass also better in a salty environment and could leverage local boatbuilding skills for the pods.
@Miles – No it wouldn’t – the system would collapse every time a ferry/hovercraft docked. And as for asking boat builders to design part of a guided system … [And yes, I’m aware of the Festiniog “boat” and the Spurn head sail trolley, n to mention that Polish curiosity].
@MILES T – An automated pod system could have merits, maybe based on road going pods that could use the main line as a fast trunk ‘podway’ then branch off over general roads to further destinations. Extensions of the trunk podway might be possible to Ventnor for instance, with pods then joining the road network beyond the historic terminus to descend the hill to town centre and seafront. This technology is still young but is undoubtedly easier than unlimited go anywhere autonomy as pods could travel either on fixed schedules or on a limited loose route structure that could be fully surveyed and digitally mapped before operations commence. Service could be scheduled or on demand, particularly at night where 24/7 operation might be possible without carting a lot of air around. For an applicable technology see this recent project announcement regarding a road-going pod system for Brussels airport https://www.2getthere.eu/brussels-airport-autonomous-shuttle/ This provides functionality similar to the Ultra parking shuttle at Heathrow, but doesn’t require entirely segregated dedicated guideway, instead using the existing comparatively quiet parking access roads. That’s not to say they couldn’t also use some dedicated ‘pod-lanes’ where that is expedient. Note the 2 year testing phase.
@Mark T – if you are going for driverless technology on public roads, have you considered the merits of the driverless bus? Greater capacity – and whatever you do must be able to cope with passengers + luggage arriving at Ryde in the dozens if not hundreds all at once (Ski lift queues spring to mind). Use of vehicles that are tried and tested for the purpose, not manufactured by people whose experience is totally different. Boeing Boeing…
@GRAHAM H 23 April 2018 at 08:48
if you are going for driverless technology on public roads, have you considered the merits of the driverless bus?
The Morgantown vehicles are small bus sized, carrying up to 20 people each. I’d agree that Ultra sized pods probably are probably too small for most realistic applications. A modern vehicle based on a bus chassis can be disguised as a high tech pod of course. I’d go for a narrower width than typical bus however so passing places can be accommodated more easily. multiple small vehicles or sections could be coupled up (physically or virtually) or articulated to get to small or large bus capacity as neccessary. With no driving position, I’d go for something reversible so turning loops are not always required in tight spots like the pier head.
Boeing didn’t do very well with their LRVs either, but these latest ‘pods’ are coming from a whole range of agile new suppliers around the world so a healthy market could develop. The expensive proprietary APM market is really asking to be broken apart to provide more cost effective solutions that are affordable to customers other than the largest international airports.
@Mark Townend
Sounds like a Parry People Mover on rubber tyres.
Another possibility. Small autonomous trams, this time on rails:
https://www.globalrailnews.com/2017/09/29/this-is-what-a-coventry-tram-system-could-look-like/
@Mark T – that is indeed why I mentioned Boeing… I’m not sure about this obsession with pods, tho’ – at least on the IoW, something much beefier is needed than a 20 seater during the peak season, which is why, of course, the railway survived, Sure, they can formed up into trains, but that seems to miss the point and brings with it the joining and splitting timetable problems with which everyone here is familiar.. Size apart, the problem with APMs, like the unmentionable Ms, would seem to be the lack of a common technical platform with open technology
Way off piste, I might add that the same problem would seem to await autonomous lorry trains. Can we expect marshalling yards and offices where trains of lorries are split and joined, and their crew await them? [Very few shippers send multiple lorries simultaneously now to the same end destination].
@GH – I agree all this pod technology is in its early days. Note in that item about the Brussels airport system there is a full two years of further development and testing envisaged before a single passenger will be carried on a pilot line. Also, any new dedicated guideway used (on ex railway alignment or elsewhere) is still a road or similar surface in the end, with all the same drainage problems etc you have raised previously with respect to busways on old rail alignments. That’s why, of all the autonomy projects, I particularly like that Coventry mini-tram which could clearly also run on a lightly constructed conventional open rail alignment as well as street trackage. Being guided mechanically by rails takes away a large component of the computational complexity overhead of the automation controlling steering, with the associated difficulty of safety verification, and also by having clear tracks to follow in street sections other non-automated road users including pedestrians have a clearer idea of the vehicles’ trajectories. The lorry train marshalling yard problem is a major issue I agree. It could result in recreating the old railfreight network on tyres, which can’t be as efficient as a similar setup on rails (in a perfect world setting aside absurdly high prices for seemingly everything in the rail industry). Perhaps it would be better to direct research towards automation and cost reduction of intermodal road/rail transfer and logistical systems for efficient management of grouping and trunking on rails.
GH; “Can we expect marshalling yards and offices where trains of lorries are split and joined, and their crew await them?” – such things already exist (at least embryonically) in distribution depots where linehaul loads transfer to delivery runs, sometimes by as simple an expedient of sending one trailer of a pair/group (in administrations where that is permitted) to one destination, another to another, etc; and in en-route linehaul lorry parks, where tractor units meet, swap trailers, and head back whence they came.
Both types of operation are common, so it’s a matter of degree rather than one of principle.
@Betterbee – It would be interesting (but probably too annoying to the moderators) to know how the GLC’s bulk break proposals would have worked in that respect; maybe the rubicon to be crossed here is the use of such individual roadtrains by multiple operators/multiple hauliers.. That would certainly up the ante in terms of scale, numbers of locations, and complexity.
No doubt I’m missing something, but it has always seemed odd to me that promoters of pod-based PRT systems or ‘very light rail’ (Coventry link above) claim that they will be so much cheaper than conventional light rail systems. Such logic runs counter to economies of scale. Clearly when there is a regulatory change (e.g. trams vs trains) this can introduce a step change in costs at a particular scale, but otherwise more small things almost always cost more than few big things.
Re: Stewart – I’m sure I’ve read that the one real-world example did exactly that, in that the cost of leasing and operating two Class 139 Parry People Movers on the Stourbridge Town branch (one in service at any one time) is less than the equivalent costs of the single Class 153 unit they displaced, and therefore they represented the lowest cost way of releasing a vehicle for main line service.
That is before considering that the 139s made possible a 10-minute clockface timetable on the branch that heavy rail can’t achieve.
@Stewart, @ Balthazar
Automation also potentially changes the operating cost formula and the optimum size of vehicles. With unattended operation a two car consist could be split and operated more frequently as two singles with no increase in staffing levels (assuming infrastructure can support the higher frequency). The huge potential future market for autonomous road vehicle technology could also bring down costs of the techniques and components as applied to innovative public transport concepts compared to both traditional rail and APM systems. The Coventry proposal also envisages new track construction techniques on street, minimising utility diversions, and battery power means no return current requirements for the running rails. I guess they might utilise fast charging at stops perhaps implying hybrid battery/super-capacitor banks on board.
@Mark Townend – Yes, and no. It’s easy, but misleading to think that removal of drivers will make a vast difference to operating costs. Significant, yes, game changing, probably not. In the bus industry, staff costs usually amount to around 60-70% of all costs, and of these, maybe 20-30% of all costs are consumed by drivers, the rest being consumed by engineering support, admin and so on. The closer the operating model is to railways, the more that proportion of costs saved by eliminating drivers diminishes because of the cost of signalling and specific infrastructure.
@Balthazar Stourbidge is an interesting example where it seems the system (1.3km of single track) is sufficiently small that the big thing (1x 153) is less efficient than the small things (2x 139) that replaced it, but I think assuming that success could automatically be translated to larger systems would be very unwise. Similarly, pods may be optimal for airport car park shuttles but that doesn’t mean they make any sense on a city scale.
@MT I think the questions of automation, power supply and vehicle size are often jumbled together when it would be more sensible to consider the merits of each separately.
@Stewart
Only one 139 is needed at any one time, the second is only needed as maintenance cover.
Likewise, if you take maintenance cover into account, the “big thing” was actually one-and-a bit 153s. But you get economies of scale, most rolling stock can be available for 90% of the time, so less than 10% of a large fleet will be out of service for routine or unplanned maintenance at any one time. On the Stourbridge shuttle it is, necessarily, 50% of the fleet!
Re: Class 503 Gauging Trails (Timbeau 27th March)
I have copies of three BR internal memos from 1983 when local IOW management was pushing for 9x3car Class 503’s. The comments on the state of the Standard Stock trains at this time make very familiar reading with the main article above! I found these memos in the web somewhere but I can’t find them again to link to unfortunately.
@STEWART 26 April 2018 at 08:03
“I think the questions of automation, power supply and vehicle size are often jumbled together when it would be more sensible to consider the merits of each separately.”
This I agree with. The Stourbridge example is, for instance, one of extreme simplicity, yet remarkable utility. Ten minute frequency!
There’s an announcement about SWR Island Line proposals in a local newspaper:
http://www.iwcp.co.uk/news/16205704.Island_Line_s_oldest_trains_could_be_replaced_within_two_years/
“ISLAND Line’s oldest trains look set to be replaced within two years.
South Western Railway, which operates Island Line, said the 1938 London Underground trains would be replaced — not with brand new trains, but they will be ‘significantly newer’ than the current stock.
…
Other improvements in the pipeline include the introduction of a new timetable, with trains every 30 minutes, onboard wifi and charging ports, information boards and new CCTV.
A new platform layout at Ryde Interchange would create improved access for Hovertravel passengers.”
The main points seem to be:
– New timetable, with a loop at Brading allowing a 30min service
– Fully refurbished rolling stock of a larger profile, allowing guards to move between carriages
– Onboard wifi and charging ports, information boards and new CCTV
– A new platform layout at Ryde Interchange, allowing improved access for Hovertravel passengers
– Track upgrade
– A structural survey of Ryde Pier shows the supporting steelwork to be sound, but decking and track require replacement which is the recommended option
This will be put to the DfT shortly with a decision due by the end of year. If agreed replacement stock could arrive by 2020.
There’s a bit more on the ‘Keep Island Line in Franchise’ facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/kilfcampaign/permalink/1972092756439507/
“Fully refurbiushed stock of a larger profile”
Any sensible / practical suggestions or thoughts as to what these might be?
D stock or 313 family. What else?
@GT –
1. Three car Vivarail D-trains in diesel, full electric or one of many possible hybrid variations
2. Three car 455s with centre PEP trailer removed as recently retractioned and refurbished, and soon to be released from SWR inner suburban duties
3. ?
@KIT GREEN – Up thread people have claimed the composite steel/aluminium nature of PEP type bodies may make their use on the pier not viable due to salt spray.
MT
3. Class 707, but I don’t see a refurbishment being needed.
(This is tongue in cheek.)
If refurbishment of PEP stock for the purposes of IoW is really cheap then they can be considered as disposable assets. There is no shortage of them. Corrosion? Replace them every year.
@KG – Seems wasteful, especially as internal refit with modern interiors is likely to form a large proportion of total costs. I suppose it could keep a small factory busy full time. Design everything to be highly modular so it can be quickly detached and bolted into a new pre-prepared bodyshell, Traction modules and bogies similarly underneath 🙂
Thanks, everybody … the main thought (excepting corrosion problems on the ex-PEP’s ) seems to be something from Vivarail, which makes sense, especially given the modular nature of these rebuilt units
Those corrosion problems would surely arise on Vivarail’s offering as well, as they have the same alloy body/steel underframe construction.
That diagram again
http://cdn.londonreconnections.com/2013/IOW-Tunnel-and-structures-2.jpg
Heights (from Wikipedia, so usual caveats apply)
PEP type 3.58m
D78 stock 3,62m
Class 455 3.7m (actually a 317 or 321 as I couldn’t find the dimensions for a 455)
Comparing these with the profiles depicted for a PEP and a 455 in The Diagram, this suggest that something closer in height to a PEP than a 455 (such as D stock) should fit, at least in terms of overall height.
The height of a T69 tram is shown as 3.4 metres, but this is surely wrong, as its shown in the diagram to be taller than a PEP – maybe allowance has been made for the lower floor, and it is assumed track has been raised to make it match the existing platforms? (Which would be relevant for clearances depicted at the station canopies etc – see top left corner of diagram)
I understand the arched portals are now the biggest constraint as there’s no realistic margin to lower the tunnel track. Both heavy rail vehicles illustrated appear to clear the critical top corners of the portals adequately, and I assume a D78 would too. For the flat soffit bridges illustrated, although shown foul of the higher curved roof profile of cl455 or similar, that might be tackled by local track lowering over a small distance.
The T69 height thing is puzzling as you wouldn’t raise the track equally everywhere, only perhaps where it is the expedient option for platform matching. Academic now anyway as they were auctioned in January this year and acquired for scrap apart from two museum examples:
https://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/birmingham/2018/02/22/midland-metro-tram-fleet-sold-for-scrap–but-two-are-set-for-new-journey/
Good point re D78 v PEP body construction. I wonder if detailed design features make one any better than the other in this respect.
I see that Glasgow Subway has been mentioned, but no-one seems to have suggested using their low (very low) profile vehicles. Tunnels are said to be 3.4 M in diameter.
The Subway is due to have seventeen new trains from 2020, or maybe 2021, replacing thirteen trains dating from 1980. The low profile would surely fit the Ryde tunnel. The rail gauge is 4 ft (1.220 M). Could this be re-gauged to 4 ft 8½ ins (1.435 M) without excessive problems?
If the Forth Bridge can have a coating that lasts 25 years then surely corrosion of a carriage can be controlled in a similar way, even allowing for mixed materials.
JOHNMF….. it would be far from trivial to re-gauge the bogies. indeed, the small profile might make it impossible – remember, in tube gauge cars (or smaller), the wheels are higher than floor level under the longitudinal seats in the end bays.. Even if it were to be possible to regauge them, the Glasgow subway trains are being replaced because they are worn out.
Would it not be possible to reduce the IoW line gauge to 4 ft and place a follow on order for new stock based on Glasgow stock
There may be other adaptations needed for the Glasgow Subway design to be suitable for the Isle of Wight. The Subway is essentially an indoor layout, and the trains do not need such features as weatherproofing and windscreen wipers, and little or no provision for heating or insulation. All of these would seen to be essential on the IoW
If you are going to narrow the gauge to accommodate (new) “Glasgow” stock, why not go the whole hog and narrow the gauge to 1m – there’s plenty of second hand stock (eg the RhB) around.
@GH – Now there’s an idea. A little bit of Switzerland on the IOW. A Ventnor extension could incorporate a Brusio style open spiral and some street running to get down to nearer sea level.
Re Timbeau, Mark T, Kit Green, Greg,
It appears there has been an outbreak of crayonista fever in the Bank Holiday weekend sun…. so time for an outbreak of cold hard realism (again)…
Alternatively cut out Wikipedia inaccuracies and use the measurements I took from the BR/LU technical drawings see my posts of 31 March 2018 at 17:28 & 1 April 2018 at 12:45:
(Condensed repetition:)
Max Heights
BR MK3 EMU and Bombardier Electrostar & Turbostar families are family are all 3774mm
PEP (313 507 508) height is 3582mm or 3824mm with pantograph locked down on 313
D Stock 3630mm
As noted in the 1st April post the Diesel versions of the Vivarail D Stock are taller as the floor height had to be increased to accommodated the diesel engines under the floor and are about 100mm taller than the original height i.e. very similar to the BR Mk3s and Bombardier stock (Diesel D Stock about 10mm lower?) hence don’t expect diesel versions on the IoW.
The corrosion issues with the existing IoW stock are apparently due to the original design issues (and grades of steel chosen) that don’t handle water well let alone the slightly more saline variety on some parts of the route i.e. water is allowed to collect and poor water proofing so anything newer should be less problematic. (Also see the Bakerloo issues with water getting into where it should never had). Any new stock should also have less issues with and benefit from the carriage washer in the depot.
PEP and D Stock are both Steel / Aluminium composite construction so plenty of potential issues but a good refurb and a fresh high quality 2K paint job would be a good start.
Interestingly the version 2 Vivarail D Stock now come with new non cab car ends (walk through in the style of their replacement S Stock) which means all the corner post structures (see Bakerloo issues) will get the opportunity for inspection and work during refurb and future easier access if required (new ends are fibreglass) . The original D Stock windows were a potential corrosion issue and get replaced by Vivarail with something that should be more corrosion resistant. Given that there isn’t much opportunity for normal 3rd rail regenerative braking on the Island line I’d expect Vivarail to have an on board small battery / super-capacitor solution that charges during braking and when stationery to allow more aggressive acceleration for the new timetable to speed things up by a few minutes. The other passenger features listed all match vivarails offering. Hence expect Vivarail.
In terms of the revised Ryde Esplanade/Interchange platform layout promised, I’d expect to see a return to 2 platform operation and in the simplest case the points moved from the south of the station to the north with single track working on the pier retained or a more expensive reinstatement of the 2 track operation to the Pier Head station. (The current track layout was designed to allow a train to operate an independent shuttle service to the Pier Head from Ryde Esplanade/Interchange.
One just hopes that given the 30min service intervals and “new” stock that there are though is being given for options to add extra cars and or more trains if passenger numbers happen to rise due to the changes.
@NGH – Electric with a small battery/supercap array for improved acceleration, helping to overcome any weakness in supply and capturing braking energy without complex substation arrangements is a very nifty idea. As to Esplanade, two platforms might need a replacement accessible bridge over the railway, but the cost of that might plausibly be shared with the Hover-terminal operator as that facility would also benefit from better access to the town and bus interchange. I’m assuming the old station subway wouldn’t be suitable.
Just to be clear, I was being lighthearted about the Swiss narrow gauge option!
@Mark T – my tongue was only partially in my cheek at the time – the line is there principally to supplement the bus service during the peak months, so running it as a tourist attraction (with steam, even, at certain times) is not wholly unrealistic. [BTW, 75 cm would do – there’s a complete 75 cm railway going spare in Switzerland at the moment – the Waldenburgbahn – complete with an otherwise homeless vintage steam train].
For the record, Glasgow Subway trains have a windscreen wiper on the driver’s cab window, to allow for working in the open at Govan Depot. (I looked specially today). However, that does not make them at all suitable for use on the Isle of Wight, for reasons others have described.
I note in the discussion above above about the suggested unsuitability of the 73 stock. It should be pointed out that these vehicles are designed to remain within the profile of a “standard tube car”. Consequently these vehicles are slightly narrower than 72 Stock and at the ends in plan view the vehicles are tapered. It is possible that the stepping distance may increase somewhat compared with the 38 stock but not significantly so, and would be much better than a PEP stock (i.e. Class 313, 507, 598 etc) alternative. One problem with the 73 stock is how to accommodate the air compressor if a two car arrangement is preferred. One option is to transfer this equipment to a depowered Driving car.
I believe one would also have the same problem with a 2 car PEP stock unit
@Philip Crook
“how to accommodate the air compressor if a two car arrangement is preferred. …………….
I believe one would also have the same problem with a 2 car PEP stock unit!
If Wikipedia is to be believed, the compressor on the class 507s is on one of the driving motor coaches, so removing the trailer would not be a problem, on that account at least.
@Timbeau
The 313 compressor is under one of the DMSO’s, not the intermediate trailer.
Philip Crook….note the current IoW stock didn’t have compressors on driving cars when operating on LU; they were relocated when the moved to IoW. I am sure something can be done for the 1973 tube stock, in the event (unlikely in my view) that it ends up there
Fortunately the Garnett Report has been discredited due to the number of factual errors it contains. One such is the assertion that a current rail voltage as low as 350v is causing problems. All EMUs (including ’38 stock) have a low voltage protection system, and will not even attempt to move with traction voltage that low. Further, Network Rail are responsible for maintaining traction voltage at the correct level. The poor ride quality of the ’38 stock is down to the sheer lack of proper track maintenance, not the trains themselves. The major damage to track and formation was caused mainly by the heavy axle loading of the Standard Stock, employed from 1967 to 1991 – minimal and insufficient repair has been carried out since then, a result of minimal investment, particularly since the line was franchised. The poor condition of the ’38 stock is also the result of franchising – Network SouthEast planned for running repairs to be carried out by Ryde Depot, which was equipped for the purpose. Major overhauls would be carried out on the mainland, thus giving the stock a far longer life expectancy. Garnetts’ infatuation with trams is deeply flawed in many ways The infrastructure would need to be entirely replaced. “Line of sight” operation is a non-starter. Let us hope that SWR have carefully studied all aspects of the Island Line operation, and have been given all of the facts and figures. I’m not holding my breath though. Time will tell.
In the latest issue of Modern Railways it states that the SWR preferred option of stock replacement on the Isle of Wight is …
[Snip as article on this is in work.] LBM
Please hold off on commenting on Isle of Wight trains, as a sequel article is being written. Comments may be removed without warning. LBM
I have a few options some been mentioned, some not.
The 507/508’s have had refurbs done, if d78 viva’s will fit the tunnel will these not?
Train lengths could be an issue, but 3 or 4 car units is a capacity increase & guard can get throughout the train for revenue control.
1967 stock has motors & auxiliaries on intermediate vehicles? Run as 4 car units, simples!
Power, does IOW not have any wind farms that could be hooked up to replacement 3rd rail?? First self-sufficient renewable energy electric railway in the world?
A long time being discussed, but announced today that Class 484 conversions from D78s, operating as 3rd rail DC EMUs, have been approved by DfT.
UK/IoW version of Wuppertal Schwebebahn hasn’t been mentioned yet…….
@Paul S – and this month’s SWR community news briefing specifically mentions the introduction of sufficient 2 car class 484s, together with the reinstated passing loop, to enable a future 30 minute service to be operated.
What is the capacity of a two car 484 and what is the capacity of the ferry?
@Alan Overall – alas the days when there was a separate pier shuttle (and pier tramway to boot) have long gone – these days, there is a bus service of sorts along the pier.
@Alan Overall
According to Wikipedia the capacity of the ferries is 260 passengers. I can’t find figures for the capacity of a D-Train but crush-loaded (acceptable for the short run along the pier) it won’t be far off that.
There is a surprisingly large car park at the seaward end of Ryde Pier and most of the time only a minority of ferry passengers use the train, so two coaches is entirely adequate.
Buses, other possibly than minibuses, cannot run along the pier and there is no regular service. I believe that taxis are used when rail replacement transport is needed to Ryde Pier Head.
When are Wightlink going to fix the barrier that works only sometimes on entry to the pier. [Sarcasm snipped. LBM]
The London calvary will be arriving shortly.
“South Western Railway has revealed the first of the Class 484 electric multiple-units which Vivarail is producing for the Island Line on the Isle of Wight, and has announced the dates of a major blockade of the 13·7 km line when engineering works are to be undertaken in advance of their introduction to service next year.
“The five two-car Class 484 units are being produced at Vivarail’s Long Marston site using the bodyshells and bogies of metro cars which were previously used on London Underground’s District Line.
“‘The £26m investment in the Isle of Wight’s railway network is set to modernise the Island Line route, providing a more efficient, effective and reliable service for islanders and visitors alike’, SWR told Rail Business UK on August 20. ‘Our new fleet of Class 484 trains are a key part of this modernisation programme, offering passengers more capacity, better accessibility, USB charging, passenger information systems and onboard wi-fi.’
“SWR said the Class 484 trains would offer passengers more capacity, better accessibility, USB charging, passenger information systems and onboard wi-fi.
“The five two-car Class 484 units are being produced at Vivarail’s Long Marston site using the bodyshells and bogies of metro cars which were previously used on London Underground’s District Line.”
How have the issues raised in the article been resolved.
Flooding in the tunnel and lowering the track bed?
Gauge clearance on Esplanade curve?
Or are both now being actioned during the line closure.