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IoW light rail conversion proposed


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26 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Perhaps if the Fawley branch gets reopened there will be enough potential use for a bi-mode 484 to justify having a small fleet on the south coast.

Or revive one of the Edwardian schemes for a tunnel connecting the island to the mainland.

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3 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

Is there a definitive list of the Class 484 cars former LU numbers please?

Not at present AFAIK. Not all of the D78 stock conversions have been completed yet and not all of them will be converted. One or two vehicles may be swapped for another for various reasons and only when the order has been completed will which cars were converted become established.

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21 hours ago, Chris116 said:

I understood that they use a DMU during the week and an EMU at weekends on the Lymington branch so they might be able to replace the DMU but keep the current EMU for weekends. The DMU would then be the spare for the 484 during the week. Obviously you could not have two 484's due to the costs involved. 

 

But that doesn't overcome the problem of having a fleet of 1 unit and the problems that causes with maintenance - both the spare parts issue and the training of repair staff (sharing with the Island Line really isn't viable).

 

 

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21 hours ago, Chris116 said:

understood that they use a DMU during the week and an EMU at weekends on the Lymington branch

 

21 hours ago, Christopher125 said:

That's been the case for a few years now hasn't it? Last photo of a 158 on flickr is 2018.

As Chris125 noted the 158’s haven’t been on the Lymmie for a couple of years now ;) 

 

It’s a Desiro

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:L52385/2021-07-16/detailed#allox_id=0


8D894802-3CFD-4964-899F-DDF0968AF978.jpeg.a3453e50aa96292972dfed835c4c4690.jpeg

Edited by PaulRhB
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3 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

 

As Chris125 noted the 158’s haven’t been on the Lymmie for a couple of years now ;) 

 

It’s a Desiro

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:L52385/2021-07-16/detailed#allox_id=0


8D894802-3CFD-4964-899F-DDF0968AF978.jpeg.a3453e50aa96292972dfed835c4c4690.jpeg

Indeed, The Lymington branch went back over to a fully electrified service after the December 2018 timetable change, when enough 707s had arrived at the London end - freeing up the 450s to re-cover both the Lymington branch and a handful of other services operated by 158s over the third rail (Basingstoke - Totton, Winchester - Totton, 22:22 Basingstoke - Fratton I believe where the 3 main ones). 

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On 15/07/2021 at 16:35, PhilJ W said:

Not at present AFAIK. Not all of the D78 stock conversions have been completed yet and not all of them will be converted. One or two vehicles may be swapped for another for various reasons and only when the order has been completed will which cars were converted become established.


Depends what you mean by ‘completed’.  Two units are at Ryde and the remaining three are at Eastleigh - that’s the full fleet of five units.

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53 minutes ago, RichardLong said:


Depends what you mean by ‘completed’.  Two units are at Ryde and the remaining three are at Eastleigh - that’s the full fleet of five units.

I meant the whole D78 fleet. Some are being converted to diesel electric and some are being converted to battery electric. As well as that some have been scrapped and others are set aside for future use.

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34 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I meant the whole D78 fleet. Some are being converted to diesel electric and some are being converted to battery electric. As well as that some have been scrapped and others are set aside for future use.

Fair enough - but I think the original question was about Class 484s.  All the other conversions (to date) have been Class 230, whether diesel electric or battery electric.

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  • 3 weeks later...

BBC: Isle of Wight rail work falls further behind after flooding

 

Quote

South Western Railway (SWR) said it could not give a specific re-opening date but expected the railway line to remain closed into the autumn.


It said newly laid ballast had been washed away from underneath sleepers and electrical, signalling and points equipment had also been damaged by the water.

In a statement, the operator said: "We had been aiming to reopen the Island Line in the first half of next month, but flash flooding has added uncertainty to our programme.

 

Edited by Christopher125
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Tonights South Today had a piece on the line reporter not very friendly showed the washouts and station flooded. There have been problems but this was totally out of mans control I did agree that its taken to long and could well influence future passenger usage. But overall the report was not good for rail.

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On 05/08/2021 at 20:06, lmsforever said:

Tonights South Today had a piece on the line reporter not very friendly showed the washouts and station flooded. There have been problems but this was totally out of mans control I did agree that its taken to long and could well influence future passenger usage. But overall the report was not good for rail.

 

I saw that. The reporter did not mention (AFAIK) that many roads on the Island had been washed out too, just a vague mention of disruption "elsewhere".

 

But what I do not understand, even with the IOW's difficult access, is the length of time SWR were suggesting it will take to recover from the flooding problems. Obvs, it will delay train testing, but such an occurrence would be dealt with within days on the mainland, so a week or two would seem to be about right for the Island. But SWR are suggesting a delay from "early next month" to well into the winter.  I wonder why?

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6 hours ago, Zomboid said:

The Conwy valley line gets washed out and closed for months every other year. A different kind of inaccessibility to the IOW though 

The thing about the Conwy Valley Line is that it is in a valley and therefore follows the river. The most recent closure was to try and carry out works to try to prevent frequent closures due to more frequent extreme weather events.

 

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/news/additional-work-to-conwy-valley-line-aims-to-prevent-long-closures-due-to-railway-wash-out/

 

Maybe something similar is planned for the Island Line to prevent the conductor rail from boiling flood water.

 

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6 hours ago, 96701 said:

The thing about the Conwy Valley Line is that it is in a valley and therefore follows the river.

 

 

So does the Isle of Wight from Smallbrook to the South Portal of Esplanade Tunnel, although in this case it's known as a brook.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Interestingly RTT appears to be showing paths for the training currently underway - in theory leaving St Johns for Shanklin every half hour from 8:51 to 17:21 all next week.

 

In reality they've been running hourly and clocking off mid-late afternoon (so far at least), but this may be useful for anyone wanting to see them?

 

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:RYR/2021-08-30/0910?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

Edited by Christopher125
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1 hour ago, John M Upton said:

Do we have a definite date for when the line will reopen?  This seems to be dragging on somewhat...

 

On other sites, the most commonly suggested date is 18 October. That looks about right now that the 4th set has been delivered and the 5th is presumably soon. That gives time for set shakedown, reliability running and training.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Good news: First train to the Pier Head since January can be seen (14:53) on the webcams travelling up the pier...

 

Bad news: It stopped about 3/4 of the way up, and at this moment is stationary with the lights flashing....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkmhN7P8U-4

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-44KECp-xQ

 

Edited by Christopher125
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