The Isle of Wight Central Railway (IoWCR) was a railway company on the Isle of Wight, United Kingdom. It was formed in 1887 by the merging of three earlier railways, the Cowes and Newport Railway (opened 1862), the Ryde and Newport Railway (opened 1875) and the Isle of Wight (Newport Junction) Railway (opened in stages 1875 and 1879).
Its network ran from near Ryde to Cowes and from Sandown to Newport. It also worked the Freshwater, Yarmouth and Newport Railway until 1913, and in that year it purchased the Newport, Godshill and St. Lawrence Railway.
The was always short of money, and operated with antiquated equipment. The heavily seasonal traffic and, later, competition from buses and cars limited profitable income.
In 1923, it was absorbed by the new Southern Railway, and the new owner put financial resources into worthwhile modernisation, but by the 1960s the financial situation became difficult and the whole of the former network was closed in 1966. The Isle of Wight Steam Railway now operates on part of the line.
First railways
Early in the nineteenth century, the Isle of Wight was chiefly involved in agriculture; there was industrial activity in Newport, and Ryde was an established town. Cowes and Ryde both had ferry services from the mainland, but Cowes, on the River Medina, was dominant because of the better harbour there.
During the railway mania of the 1840s, it was proposed that railways should be built on the island to develop tourism, which was then beginning to become an important economic activity, as well as to handle the agriculture and other produce of the island. A number of schemes were put forward but failed to gain support, until in 1858 bills for three railway projects were submitted to Parliament; they were:
The Isle of Wight Railway (Eastern Section), intended to run from Ryde to Upper Bonchurch, with branches to Brading and Shanklin, and a tramway to Ryde Pier; The Isle of Wight Railway; to run from Cowes to Ryde via Newport, with branches to Ventnor and Ryde Pier; The Cowes and Newport Railway.
The first two were rejected in the House of Lords' Committee, and only the Cowes and Newport Railway was authorised.In the authorising act of Parliament it was titled the Cowes and Newport (Isle of Wight) Railway. The (22 & 23 Vict. c. xciv) obtained royal assent on 8 August 1859.R J Maycock and R Silbury, The Isle of Wight Railway, Oakwood Press, Usk, 1999, H P White, A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: volume 2: Southern England, Phoenix House Limited, London, 1961Bradshaw's Railway Manual Shareholders' Guide and Directory, 1869, page 68R J Maycock and R Silbury, The Isle of Wight Central Railway, Oakwood Press, Usk, 2001,
Cowes and Newport Railway
The Cowes and Newport Railway (C&NR) was to be in length, running north to south along the west side of the River Medina. The authorised share capital was £30,000 ().
A construction contract was let to Albert H. Fernandez, and the first sod was cut on 15 October 1859. The construction had been thought to be simple, but in fact the nature of the ground and the wet weather made the work extremely difficult. In December 1861, the contractor had to give up the work, and the company continued for a period managing the work directly. The itself had financial difficulties as the authorised share issue was considerably undersubscribed. The Cowes station abutted Cross Street, where there was a level crossing, over which the line continued as a tramway; engine run-round movements had to cross the level crossing and use the tramway, contrary to stipulations in the Cowes and Newport (Isle of Wight) Railway Act 1859. (The was later authorised to enlarge the station and close Cross Street. This work was done in early 1879).
Captain Tyler of the Board of Trade inspected the line for passenger operation in May 1862, but found numerous deficiencies and recommended that the authorisation for opening be declined. He returned on 14 June 1862 and this time everything was in order; the line opened on 16 June 1862; passenger traffic only was carried for some time after opening; there were eight trains each way on weekdays.Newspaper advertisement referred to in Maycock and SilburyVic Mitchell and Keith Smith, Branch Lines to Newport, Middleton Press, Midhurst, 1985, R D Rickard, The Cowes and Newport Railway, Railway Magazine, 16 June 1962 Notice boards at the Newport station made it clear that onward conveyance to London, via Cowes and Southampton, was a primary objective.
The line was operated by a contractor, Henry Martin, for 50% of gross receipts at first, later 50% of net receipts.
A wharf known as Medina Wharf was built adjoining the river between Cowes and Newport in 1877–78. Writing in 1962 Rickard said that the Medina Wharf was then the sole means of entry for coal to the island.
Isle of Wight Railway
The business interests on the east coast of the island continued to put forward a scheme based in Ryde. The Cowes and Newport Railway proposed an extension from Newport, Isle of Wight to Ryde and Ventnor, forming a large triangle, and to rename their company the Isle of Wight Railway. The promoters of the Isle of Wight (Eastern Section) Railway (IoW(ES)R) resubmitted their scheme too. The Cowes and Newport bill failed standing orders, and although there was some opposition to it, the was authorised by the Isle of Wight Eastern Section Railway Act 1860 (23 & 24 Vict. c. clxii) on 23 July 1860. In 1863, by the Isle of Wight Railway's (Extensions) Act 1863 (26 & 27 Vict. c. ccxxxii), it changed its name to the Isle of Wight Railway (IoWR); it opened between St John's Road station in Ryde and on 23 August 1864 and on to on 10 September 1866.
This had a significant effect in shifting the route for trade access to the island: in February 1868 the Cowes and Newport Railway directors reported that their company's earnings were static following the opening of the ; travellers forsook the Southampton and Cowes route in favour of Portsmouth and Ryde. Cowes railway station was inconveniently up a steep hill from the ferry port.
Isle of Wight (Newport Junction) Railway From 1861, the pace of proposing further railways on the island accelerated. Some accepted that only one further line was commercially viable, but there was little agreement about its possible course. Nonetheless, connecting Newport to the east coast was considered an important objective.
In 1868, three bills came to Parliament; they were considered to be mutually exclusive, and over a very lengthy hearing evidence was given in favour of each, and against its presumed competitors. The dominance of the Portsmouth–Ryde ferry route had not yet been established, and in any case Cowes was assumed to be the port of entry for goods and minerals.Some inward minerals and heavy goods were landed on the beach at Ryde. The (31 & 32 Vict. c. clxxxi) was given royal assent on 31 July 1868, to build a line from Newport to the Sandown station of the Isle of Wight Railway.Bradshaw's Railway Manual Shareholders' Guide and Directory, 1869, page 149E F Carter, An Historical Geography of the Railways of the British Isles, Cassell, London, 1959
The competing proposals were rejected; those who favoured a line from Newport to Ryde were disappointed, and continued the struggle.
Building the Isle of Wight (Newport Junction) Railway The authorised capital of the Newport Junction line was £84,000,Michael Robbins, The Isle of wight (Newport Junction) Railway, in the Railway Magazine, October 1959 but it was not planned to pass through any major population centre that was not already rail-connected, and the company found it difficult to raise the money it needed for construction. Moreover, successive resignations of directors made continuity of progress difficult. The first sod was finally cut at Shide on 14 October 1870. Early in 1871, a prospectus was published offering preference shares, although the company was not authorised to issue these, and this was soon followed by acrimonious and public name-calling between the company and the Corporation of Newport.
In 1872, the line between Sandown and Horringford was thought to be ready for opening, and on 20 June Colonel Yolland of the Board of Trade visited the line to carry out the inspection for passenger operation; as well as finding a considerable number of detail shortcomings, he was very critical of the rails. There were second-hand double-headed railsDouble-headed rails were rails of cross-section similar to bullhead rails, intended to be inverted when the original upper surface became worn. formerly in use on the London and South Western Railway. They had been inverted on the LSWR line, using the second running table. The rails were badly galled by the chairs and there were splits and bulges in the head. They had been cropped to , and the head wear was not matched, so that the joints were uneven. The fishplate bolts were not long enough in many cases.Colonel Yolland's Report of 24 June 1872, reproduced in Maycock and Silbury (IoWCR).K Westcott-Jones, The Isle of Wight Central Railway, in the Railway Magazine, March and April 1946
Approval to open the line to passenger traffic was refused; the company tried to appeal against this, but failed; subsequent inspection visits took place on 31 July, 28 August and 26 September 1872, without success. Creditors demanded payment, and one unfortunate contractor went into bankruptcy, having accepted the company's shares in payment: those shares were now worthless. In December 1872 it was calculated that the company had expended £77,490 and had nothing to show for it; and the line was now estimated to require £90,548 to complete.
Against this background the Isle of Wight (Newport Junction) Railway (IoW(NJ)R) had obtained a further act of Parliament, the (35 & 36 Vict. c. clxix), in August 1872, authorising additional capital as well as certain deviations and extensions. Somehow work proceeded, and in July 1874 Colonel Rich of the Board of Trade visited the Sandown to Horringford line; the bad rails seem to have been changed but Rich again refused sanction to open the line due to other faults. Further attention was given and in January 1875 Colonel Rich inspected the line from Sandown to Shide and found it satisfactory,
The company opened its line on 1 February 1875; in public announcements the company referred to the Shide station as "Newport". The company started running passenger trains on to Pan Lane at Newport, from 11 August 1875, but this was without permission from the Board of Trade: in effect illegally; Colonel Hutchinson visited for the necessary inspection on 6 October 1875, and on the company promising to rectify a number of issues, the running to Pan Lane continued. (The company sometimes used Pan Mill as the station name at first.) There were nine trains each way on weekdays.
Ryde and Newport Railway
The operation of the Isle of Wight Railway enhanced the importance of Ryde as the port of entry to the island, and it soon became more important than Cowes, particularly for passengers. 300,000 people travelled between Newport and Ryde annually, and the road coaches were not convenient. The necessity of connecting Newport revived the idea of a railway between them, and on 25 July 1872 the Ryde and Newport Railway (R&NR) was authorised by an act of Parliament, the (35 & 36 Vict. c. cxxxv). The share capital was £65,000.
The Isle of Wight Railway (IoWR) agreed to the using its line to get access to Ryde, and to its station there, in exchange for running powers for the between Ryde and Newport.The running powers were never used for ordinary traffic, but the ran trains to Ashey on certain race days.