Isle of Wight News on Ventnor Blog

It’s full steam ahead at the IW Steam railway where rising visitors have prompted a doubling of the locomotive fleet and the appointment of a new, full-time Engineering Manager.

The railway is facing ‘a great opportunity and a challenge’ explained General Manager Peter Vail, thanks to the ‘extremely generous’ gift of seven new locomotives, four from the Ivatt Trust and three from the national army museum.

It is this, along with the rise in demand that has prompted the introduction of the new post.

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Looks like the Island Line service is going to be affected for the next couple of hours.

Due to electrical supply problems, there will be a reduced service of:

* 15 minutes past the hour from Shanklin
* 45 minutes past the hour from Ryde Pier Head

They say it’ll last until around 3pm.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to drive IslandLine train from Ryde Esplanade to Brading – your dreams have been answered.

Someone called Hyperen has created a video using a railway simulator of the journey between Ryde Esplanade to Brading, with the view alternating between the driving position in the cab, inside the carriage and floating around in the air.

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We’ll endeavour to keep this updated throughout the day with the latest travel information.

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Island Line Trains got back to us with an update on their service.

Amazingly they say that they’re still running – in fact they appear to be the only transport running on the Isle of Wight.

(Adam Manning told us via Twitter that the 8:45pm from Ryde Esplanade was cancelled as they were unfreezing the points)

They told us that at about 11pm they had taken a train through to Shanklin which had about ten people onboard.

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As we know, after many years of planning and negotiation, the Isle of Wight Council recently made the decision to cancel the Ryde Interchange.

The bible for Architects – The Architects’ Journal – has today published a piece with the reaction to the cancellation by the Architect of the site, Marks Barfield, who also designed the world-famous London Eye.

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A free Christmas event for members of the Isle of Wight Chamber of Commerce has been organised with the help of the Isle of Wight Steam Railway.

Havenstreet Christmas Grotto is the venue for the start of festivities where members can enjoy mulled wine, mince pies and a juicy portion of networking.

Later in the afternoon the ‘IW Chamber Christmas Special’ steam train will make a round trip and ending with tea and coffee in the Calbourne Room.

Chamber general manager Dean Pascall said: “The Steam Railway is a fantastic asset to the Island, and a ride on one of their magnificent steam trains is a great way for our members to relax and take a temporary breather from the pressures of business.”

If you would like to take advantage of this great afternoon out, get in touch with the Chamber by emailing chamber(at)iwchamber.co.uk

Yes folks, it’s that time of year again when the witches and wizards come out.

During half term holiday why not give your kids a wizard time at Havenstreet Steam Railway?

Marvel at the magic shows, explore the enchanting Woodland Walk, enjoy a warm and relaxing steam train ride … But are you brave enough to meet the bats?!

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The Ryde Gateway Interchange project, that has been in development for many years, is possibly going to be cancelled on Tuesday next week.

We were given the heads up on this by a commenter on VB, ‘anton‘, and have been researching the story with people ‘in the know’ around Ryde today.

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