Island Line bids farewell to 1930s “icon of transport”…
THE oldest rolling stock on the national network has been retired from service after almost 83 years in operation.
The 1938 Class 483 former London Underground trains on the Isle of Wight ran a final day of service between Ryde Pier and Shanklin on Sunday January 3.
The Island Line is now closed for three months for a £26 million refurbishment, ahead of Vivarail Class 484 trains taking over in the spring.
A farewell event had been planned to mark the event. However, the Isle of Wight moved from COVID-19 Tier 1 to Tier 4 in just three weeks. Ferry services to the mainland have been reduced, and it was made clear to enthusiasts that visitors would not be welcome. Only a small number of people ignored the warnings.
“These trains have been operating on the island since 1989,” said South Western
Railway Interim Managing Director Mark Hopwood, who had delayed leaving his job to return to his permanent role at Great Western Railway specially for the occasion. In the event, he could not leave his home in Tier 4 Thames Valley.
“Most trains that are 30 to 40 years old have been scrapped. We’ve seen people celebrating the demise of jumbo jets that are 20 years old. We’ve seen people throwing away cars that are less than ten years old,” he said.
“But when these trains first carried passengers, Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister. Winston Churchill had not sat in the Prime Minister’s chair. These trains served London through the Second World War, through the 1950s to the 1980s - and then crossed to the island.
“They are an icon of transport. But they have reached the point where we just can’t maintain them anymore. We can’t get the spare parts. We can’t get companies to make new bits for them.”
Of the five surviving sets, two have been stripped for parts. One is described as “very bare”. In the last couple of years, only two have been in regular service. Often, only one has been running as they have become increasingly unreliable.
“They are fun. Quirky. Each one is different,” said Alan Martin, driver instructor at Island Line.
“They act individually, they accelerate and brake differently, and you get used to their habits. It has been a pleasure to drive them.
“They have gone past their sell-by date. But the fitters have done an amazing job keeping these units running for as long as they have. They are full of nostalgia. The regular commuters have an absolute ball with them. And in the summer, when numbers pick up, a lot of the passengers are enthusiasts coming to take photos of the trains.
“They will be missed. The new stock, the Class 484, is from 1978. So it is 40 years newer than the current units - a lot more gadgets, a lot more electronics to understand. It’s a challenge. The old trains have to really be driven - they don’t have any computers.”
The first of five two-car ex-District Line trains has been delivered by Vivarail, arriving by Wightlink ferry at Fishbourne on November 19. SWR said the others would follow in the spring.
Meanwhile, an extensive programme of infrastructure work is under way. Every platform on the 8½-mile route has to be altered to accommodate the new trains, with the floors of the new vehicles much higher than those they replace.
Jointed track will be replaced, with standard ballast instead of shingle beneath, to stabilise the rails and improve the notoriously
dreadful ride quality. New signalling will be installed and commissioned.
And a passing loop will be reinstated at Brading station, after an absence of half a century. This will enable a half-hourly service in each direction, so that trains can meet high-speed ferries from Portsmouth on a clockface timetable.
Almost all funding comes from the Department for Transport. Uniquely on the national rail network, South Western Railway maintains both track and trains. It leases the track from Network Rail, which continues to have responsibility for land below the track bed.
At the same time, NR is carrying out a further £20m of work to strengthen Ryde Pier to make it safe for the coming years.
“This work has to be done if the island is to retain a rail service,” said Hopwood.
“And there are aspirations that we must rightly meet - people travelling in a wheelchair should be able to get on and off the train.”
While the railway is out of action, buses will replace trains. Normally when services cannot run, road vehicles come from island company Southern Vectis, which is part of Go-Ahead. This time, SWR operator FirstGroup has contracted its own First buses. Vehicles and drivers have been shipped over from the mainland, with drivers staying in local hotels.
“We have to look for the cheapest and most effective option,” defended Hopwood.
“When we let the contract, we did not know what COVID state the island would be in, in terms of restrictions. But the expectation was that a lot of the island buses would be busy carrying schoolchildren. So, we are bringing more resilience and giving us a better chance to run that operation reliably, by bringing buses and drivers across to the island.”
Adrian Shooter, chairman and chief executive at Vivarail, said the aluminium shell of the Class 484 is “as good as new”, with no corrosion found when it was stripped back to bare metal.
Inside, all the wiring and fittings are brand new. Bogies on the trains are from the 2000s, rather than from the 1970s and 1980s, when the trains were built. Passengers will also have information screens, WiFi and charging points for the first time.