Trams proposed for Isle of Wight

[Bletchleyite]

I'm also not sure how I feel about handing a transport monopoly over to Southern Vectis, the way they have treated some the smaller operators is nothing short of appalling.

They don't have a transport monopoly; the car, as I am always reminding people, is the competitor. Island Line is insignificant in terms of the Island's overall transport needs.

 

[Chris125]

Eh, I still want the railway to stay, but this idea isn't too bad and would probably make a significant difference to the cost of running the line in terms of maintenance and revenue.

How would costs be significantly reduced?

The line is already operated by 2-car trains with an axleweight under 10tons and a 45mph max linespeed with the track 'maintained' accordingly, they don't have to comply with mainline standards and the signalling is basic with just a few mechanical trainstops for train protection.

I'm struggling to see where the savings come from.

 

[Class 170101]

Does it run DOO?

If not then as unpopular as it is on this forum there is a start.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Does it run DOO?

No.

If not then as unpopular as it is on this forum there is a start.

I suppose it's not as if TVMs would be inadequate for the very simple fares.

 

[A0]

Why weren't the 1983 Stock taken on when it was displaced from the Jubilee Line?

Secondly the 1972, 1973 and 1992 Stock will probably become available shortly given what TfL seem to be upto.

The 1983 TS was, as I understand it, non-standard from a London Underground perspective and never had a particularly good reputation for reliability.

Whenever the Island Line has been mentioned the two types of stock which have been talked about were either the 1972 Northern Line or the 1973 Piccadilly Line sets.

 

[urbophile]

Neil Williams said:
'Vectis routes 2 and 3 already serve the route, so no need for any additional buses.'

In the tourist season, surely the buses aren't adequate. Isn't that the whole point?

 

[birchesgreen]

The 1983 stock was considered too "hi-tech" for the Island Line's needs and available resources to maintain.

As for the 1972/3 stock, i don't think any will be available until well into the 2020s.

 

[Rick1984]

certainly easy to bypass tunnel

 

[HSTEd]

The line's maintenance cost is essentially zero in railway terms.

There is little pressing to do anything unless we get to the point where a fixed crossing to the Island becomes a real possibility.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In the tourist season, surely the buses aren't adequate. Isn't that the whole point?

Vectis are, to my great surprise the first time I went to the Island given how rural it is, fans of big buses. There's plenty of capacity, and more to the point an additional 3-4 new double decker buses would be cheaper than maintaining the railway.

 

[HSTEd]

Vectis are, to my great surprise the first time I went to the Island given how rural it is, fans of big buses. There's plenty of capacity, and more to the point an additional 3-4 new double decker buses would be cheaper than maintaining the railway.

Would it?
What large maintenance costs are there?
Low performance rectifier stations, low performance motors that were designed and built to be bulletproof.
Low performance, simple, trackwork.

It is an epitome of the Southern Region's design philosophy.

 

[A0]

certainly easy to bypass tunnel

Not if you look at it on Streetview - Neither Monckton Street nor East Street are particularly wide.

As for cutting over the Esplanade -that'd cause chaos - it's about the busiest part of the road network around Ryde already.

Any solution is going to need to involve the tunnel - like it or not.

That means either keeping the 3rd rail, low voltage OHLE (e.g. 500v DC or similar) or de-electrifiying and looking for self-powered vehicles.

 

[Chris125]

In the tourist season, surely the buses aren't adequate. Isn't that the whole point?

The fundamental issue is that they can't use the pier and connect with the Catamarans to Portsmouth, but they are also less reliable, far slower and a great deal more expensive.

certainly easy to bypass tunnel

It's a lot less easy than continuing to use the tunnel.

 

[A0]

Would it?
What large maintenance costs are there?
Low performance rectifier stations, low performance motors that were designed and built to be bulletproof.
Low performance, simple, trackwork.

It is an epitome of the Southern Region's design philosophy.

Per passenger mile it's probably quite expensive - because the railway isn't that heavily used. The problem is the capital investment needed to update the Island Line is probably unviable - and it's always been marginal right from the time the network was cut back to just Ryde - Shanklin.

In some respects it *might* have been better if rather than electrifying in the way they have they'd looked for something self-powered that would have fitted down there - probably some form of railbus or similar, but I suspect the Southern's antipathy towards diesel mechanical units prevented that.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Would it?

Yes. Bus operations are almost always cheaper than rail operations.

 

[urpert]

No.



I suppose it's not as if TVMs would be inadequate for the very simple fares.

Shanklin and Ryde Esplanade also still have staffed (and well used) ticket offices.

 

[urpert]

Not if you look at it on Streetview - Neither Monckton Street nor East Street are particularly wide.

As for cutting over the Esplanade -that'd cause chaos - it's about the busiest part of the road network around Ryde already.

Any solution is going to need to involve the tunnel - like it or not.

That means either keeping the 3rd rail, low voltage OHLE (e.g. 500v DC or similar) or de-electrifiying and looking for self-powered vehicles.

There are also some pretty substantial gradients involved.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Shanklin and Ryde Esplanade also still have staffed (and well used) ticket offices.

In the context of a heavily subsidised operation, whether people prefer to use ticket offices (as many of the ageing population probably do) is less relevant than whether a TVM does the job adequately.

 

[A0]

There are also some pretty substantial gradients involved.

Agree there are some gradients around Ryde - but given the tunnel also climbs, I'm not sure that's quite so much of a problem in that part of the town. Whereas the main street down to the Esplanade itself is *very* steep.

 

[Rick1984]

That section wouldn't involve particularly steep gradients (I Know as live round the corner!) but agree on road width and crossing Esplanade.
You could cut through the garden end of Monkton street but unlikely to be popular

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

On a historical note, the Ryde Pier Tramway did actually serve St. John's Station, via Simeon Street, prior to the opening of the railway tunnel in 1880. Famously it ran *through* a large detached villa en-route! The railway tunnel was constructed by the 'cut and cover' method and is very shallow - could the same method be used for its reconstruction? - it seems to be free of buildings directly overhead. This would secure the future of the line, enabling any standard *legacy* stock, electric or diesel to be used, and also enable the Steam Rly to reach the Pier Head.

Christopher Garnett's report is very lightweight, with no costs and heroic assumptions about the suitability of the (unsatisfactory) T69 trams. It is reminiscent of his (failed) GNER francise renewal bid. The Blackpool Tramway upgrade (11 miles), completed in 2012, came in at £100 million, including £40 million for 16 new Flexity 2 trams. It is very difficult to see how this sort of expenditure for the IOW (8.5 miles) could be justified when the ridership figures are very much less than Blackpool. One thought that did occur to me is that Manchester Metrolink are considering ordering more M5000 trams before the production line is closed - maybe the IOW could piggyback on to that order? They also have the advantage of being high-floor (unlike the T69s), so avoiding the cost of station platform reconstruction.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But in the case of Blackpool they were replacing a reasonably OKish but old, slow and worn out tramway with a frequent service with a newer, a bit faster, and a bit nicer one also with a frequent service.

Replacing what is essentially a rural branch line with an odd, non-memorable service frequency with a tram every 10 minutes is not really comparable.

The closest I reckon you could get, given that there are no rural tramways in the UK, is to look at what kind of increase Germany sees when a branch line is swapped from being an irregular service with a D-lok hauling two ageing Silberlinge to hourly with brand-new DMUs. Or perhaps even to compare the ridership figures on the St Ives branch line from Cambridge prior to closure with those on today's Busway.

Then, if it's successful, time to consider it for some other branch lines? I think it'd work well for Windermere, for instance.

 

[HSTEd]

Yes. Bus operations are almost always cheaper than rail operations.

If we were starting from a clean sheet you would almost be certainly correct.
But we aren't - replacing with buses [even 3-4 extra buses only] might actually manage to require more capital expenditure than carrying on as they are.

They have no shortage of stock and can use nearly life expired 750V equipment from the mainland as it is hardly a very hard operating profile.

The line loses negligible amounts of money and remains in situ for any possible future use that might arise - for example if a fixed crossing on the eastern half of the island becomes a reality at some point in the future.

 

[yorksrob]

But in the case of Blackpool they were replacing a reasonably OKish but old, slow and worn out tramway with a frequent service with a newer, a bit faster, and a bit nicer one also with a frequent service.

Replacing what is essentially a rural branch line with an odd, non-memorable service frequency with a tram every 10 minutes is not really comparable.

The closest I reckon you could get, given that there are no rural tramways in the UK, is to look at what kind of increase Germany sees when a branch line is swapped from being an irregular service with a D-lok hauling two ageing Silberlinge to hourly with brand-new DMUs. Or perhaps even to compare the ridership figures on the St Ives branch line from Cambridge prior to closure with those on today's Busway.

Then, if it's successful, time to consider it for some other branch lines? I think it'd work well for Windermere, for instance.

I don't think a comparison between the St Ives branch before closure and the bus service now would be in any way relevant.

For starters, you would be comparing the present day with different social and economic circumstances at a time when railways in general were struggling.

Secondly many bus passengers would just as easily caught a bus down the main road if the busway hadn't been there.

In terms of Windermere, a lot of people always seem to be on the train from further south when I get it, so it seems to be of more value as a link to the rest of the country than in poorly replicating local bus services that already exist.

 

[Chris125]

The railway tunnel was constructed by the 'cut and cover' method and is very shallow - could the same method be used for its reconstruction? - it seems to be free of buildings directly overhead. This would secure the future of the line, enabling any standard *legacy* stock, electric or diesel to be used, and also enable the Steam Rly to reach the Pier Head

Alas I don't think it would any difference - there's no realistic prospect of steam returning to the pier given the cost and practicality.

Even with extra headroom through the tunnel, whether by returning the trackbed to it's original depth, using slab track or raising the roof, the severe curve through the platform and reverse-curve through the tunnel will still restrict what can be used.

 

[southern442]

In the context of a heavily subsidised operation, whether people prefer to use ticket offices (as many of the ageing population probably do) is less relevant than whether a TVM does the job adequately.

Plus it doesn't say in the rulebook that a tram system can't have ticket offices.

 

[theageofthetra]

Aren't they looking at replacing some DLR stock with a new walk through design? As a previous poster said these displaced units would appear ideal as they are relatively modern, lightweight, use a US style third rail pick up and surely would fit in the tunnel?

 

[urpert]

Aren't they looking at replacing some DLR stock with a new walk through design? As a previous poster said these displaced units would appear ideal as they are relatively modern, lightweight, use a US style third rail pick up and surely would fit in the tunnel?

There's certainly precedent to fit them with cabs (as in Essen, where they also stuck pantographs on top).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Then, if it's successful, time to consider it for some other branch lines? I think it'd work well for Windermere, for instance.

Windermere is a major tourist attraction and any talk of them losing direct services to large conurbations, especially with the recent discussions on electrifying the branch, would not be very well received.

 

[Nym]

Aren't they looking at replacing some DLR stock with a new walk through design? As a previous poster said these displaced units would appear ideal as they are relatively modern, lightweight, use a US style third rail pick up and surely would fit in the tunnel?

Yes, it may be to augment services through the Canary Wharf route. It may also include the replacement of all B-90 and B92 units, and possibly the B2K stock. The B07 stock being most likely to be retained for the non-Bank routes.