Ryde to Ventnor

[@rolymier8659]

Beautiful film. In 1966 l as a 10 year old kid, Sandown was our holiday destination. Being an Essex boy l had no memories of steam on my local lines. So arriving at Ryde on the ferry l could hardly contain my excitement at seeing the little 02's with the antique coaches. Had a few trips on the line that year and our caravan camp was right next to it so l could see the trains everyday going about their business. Happy days. Have been to Havenstreet in the last few years to enjoy a nostalgia trip .

[@mikeuk4130]

Best IoW footage I’ve ever seen. Exactly as I remember it being sixty years ago, trains everywhere and always sunny.

[@DavidMartin-ym2te]

That's funny, that's my memory too, IoW steam in 1963/64. I tell my kids that the sun always shone on my school holidays (I'm 66) - they think I am bonkers!

[@nickmiller76]

@@DavidMartin-ym2te It did. I was there too.

[@tankmicr00man]

Happy days! Thanks so much for digitising this film footage. It's a wonderful record of the IOW railways as they were. I lived on the island in the mid 1950s and we regularly travelled from Cowes to Ventnor to visit my dad, who was in the TB hospital there. Ventnor station itself is my main memory.

[@brianwillson9567]

What a fantastic bit of film. If only........a time machine to experience these images for real.

[@geoffreypinchen5075]

Excellent period record of a long lost time, so very atmospheric and a great source for railway modellers. I do find it quite amazing though, that such a small island had an extensive railway system at all, never mind into the 1960's.

[@alantunbridge8919]

I visited the I.O.W. a few times in the 1950’s/60’s just to tide the trains on the Ventnor & Cowes lines. A really fascinating trip to see the pre-grouping locos. & rolling stock.

[@aswclassicsiow8588]

Born and bred on the Island in I was 7 when they did away with the steam trains, never used them much as my dad always had a car, but remember going on them from Newport to Cowes during Cowes week and Newport to Ryde for the carnivals

[@peterfletcher2260]

Absolutely brilliant. Picture quality is excellent. Does anyone have any plans for a time machine I could borrow please? Seriously the shanklin to ventnor and ryde to Newport sections should never have been closed.

[@frglee]

Well, you never know, restoring the line to Ventnor has been talked about in recent years.. The trackbed from Shanklin is largely unbuilt on, the tunnel is still there, (albeit with water pipes in it) and the site of Ventnor station still exists as an industrial estate.

[@porno6361]

@@frglee 🤞

[@steffanmaximum]

Absolute vandalism. British Rail didn't have any foresight in the potential of this railway.

[@andrewchaston503]

Brilliant. Thankyou

[@michaelhearn3052]

@@frglee Wroxall station site has been built over and Ventnor station site has been repurposed with Industrial units. The tunnel has both water and sewage pipes in it.

[@johnlunnun9769]

So nostalgic, I loved it as a kid, and still do! What a lost opportunity, but of course, it all comes down to money!

[@jean-paulmasse1091]

Very interesting ! Not much is left nowadays. But thanks to the people who look after the remaining steam section.

[@stevo728822]

3:13 Wow! I walk up the abandoned railway line frequently to shop at Lidl. Amazing to see how it used to look.

[@barrytillman2818]

Brought back memories of holidays on the island as a kid , I think that’s where my love for tank engines started

[@steffanmaximum]

I had a great holiday here in 1963. My Grandfather bought us a rail rover ticket, and we spent a few days of the holiday riding up and down on these trains.

[@simonfunwithtrains1572]

Brilliant. Just as it was, when as a kid I did my train spotting in rural Kent.

[@John2E0GTU]

The bridge between platforms is amazing!

[@ewhurstgreen]

Agreed - There was also swing bridge at Brockenhurst Platform 1 and at Eastleigh.

[@iankemp1131]

As can be seen, it was a spare gangway from the Isle of Wight ferries. When a train was in the line with platforms on both sides, if the first train out was on the far platform, you had to go through the intervening train instead. The porters were probably removing the gangplank as a train was about to arrive at that platform.

[@garyhardwick8489]

Lovely film.

[@mikebutler3263]

Great , just as I remembered, all those years ago.

[@robertpagetfilms]

I remember going to Ventnor as a child in the mid 1950s, especially the sound of the injector on the loco.

[@alantunbridge8919]

The sound would be the air pump for the brakes, fitted adjacent to the smokebox on the L.H. side.

[@iankemp1131]

@@alantunbridge8919 The intermittent chuff-chuff of the Westinghouse air pump was perhaps the most evocative sound that I remember of the IoW steam trains. I also remember it being used to remarkable effect in the final scene of John Frankenheimer's film "The Train" of 1967. Well worth seeing, with Burt Lancaster and Paul Scofield on top form.

[@nickmiller76]

@@iankemp1131 When I read the poem 'Adlestrop', I always mentally hear the sound of the Westinghouse air pump that I remember from travelling on the trains when I lived on the Island in the fifties and sixties, although I suspect the locomotive in the Edward Thomas poem would not have been thus equipped.

[@geoffreyford7288]

The young lad at the start on Ryde Station could quite easily been me! Probably not but did have a Child week rover ticket when the family holidayed at Ventnor early in the 60's. Remember the O2's with affection.

[@Martindyna]

Great footage, I particularly enjoyed seeing the remote operation of the steam engine 4:41. A shame that more of the railway wasn't kept, in particular closing the line to Ventnor seems very short sighted after all that work tunneling through St. Boniface Down. Money is just chucked at the UK railways now that BR has gone and it's privatised; far from being eradicated as was the Governments plan the level of subsidy is now at around 4 times what it was towards the end of BR so I understand. Old Station Road, Ventnor can still be explored via Google Maps although the tunnel entrance is unfortunately obscurred. The tunnel is used for utlity services now. Better views are availabe elsewhere, particularly on the disused-stations website where there are many photgraphs and sketches of Ventnor Station amongst many others.

[@Cheeseatingjunglista]

Brought to you by the same posse of Eton schooled Tory halfwits that gave us Brexit. What a shower of shits, time cannot dimish their arrogant stupidity, an unpolishable turd that thunders on

[@marty8535]

"Money is just chucked at the UK railways now that BR has gone and it's privatised..." Private Good, Public Bad! apparently.

[@Martindyna]

@@marty8535 When it was decided to privatise Royal Mail the cost of stamps was suddenly allowed to jump to a higher level, another example of blatant Government prejudice.

[@iankemp1131]

The Isle of Wight lines I was familiar with from my childhood and my dad's cine films (quite similar to this), but I had never seen the Lymington branch and its push-pull working with an M7 before.

[@GRAHAM1514]

Superb films ,thanks for sharing

[@ewhurstgreen]

Excellent footage there - thank you for sharing! Incidentally, in respect of the Pull-Push clips of set 617 at Lymington the history of these is covered on BloodandCustard.

[@ChrisJNeale]

Great footage but also contains shots of the Lymington Branch, with an M7 on a push-pull set = obviously the cameraman hopped across the Solent from Yarmouth!

[@garrymartin6474]

Thanks I was wondering where that was although its obvious now you have pointed it out !

[@daystatesniper01]

Amazing footage

[@timfairweather7568]

Thank you so much for posting this. Super stuff!

[@paulrutter5330]

From about 4:55, we are on the Lymington Branch - not the IOW!

[@iankemp1131]

It goes back to the IOW a bit later. There are also shots on the Newport/Cowes section, so we get some bonus extras compared to the billing!

[@tominnis8353]

Those were the days when everything seemed to be more tastefully painted.

[@iankemp1131]

A wonderfully evocative film of the Isle of Wight railways at the end of steam in the mid 1960s. My father took cine films and many of the shots are from very similar viewpoints on and off the train. I think your picture quality is better; was it taken on Standard 8 or Super 8? Even the colour tones seem similar. Good to see the gangplank to get to the island platform at Ventnor! Also the bonus footage on the Lymington branch and the Newport/Cowes line. Nice shots on Apse bank and I'd not seen the north end of Ventnor tunnel captured before. Thank you so much for uploading! Do you know the original source?

[@SouthamptonDashCamMan]

Love those days when you could wander off the platform, and go lineside. It was up to YOU to think about your Health & Safety not pass the buck on to everyone else.

[@petercollingwood4108]

Happy days. 👍

[@robnewman6101]

I have a Hardback Book called The Railway Policeman. The Story of the Constable on the Track.

[@bjornshigg7687]

great opportunity missed - the whole island could have become a heritage railway and all the lines kept open

[@michaelhearn3052]

Good idea, run them as summer only lines, may have helped. But the closures began in the early and mid 1950s, and there was no vision from local councils who could have taken the trains over for community running.

[@MiLLwallpaul231258]

Shame they couldn’t keep it all open as a working museum…..

[@michaelhearn3052]

Agreed. But the Heritage Railways Industry was non existent in the early and mid 1950s when the first closures took place. Indeed the whole Island could have been operated as a steam only summer operation. Just an idea.

[@smhorse]

At 1:39, which engine is being scrapped?

[@studio4436]

Thank you :-))

[@stevem-h3562]

A better vanished time.... it was after this era that it all started to go horribly wrong.

[@boblovell5789]

Strange isn't it. The Heritage movement ticks along nicely. The big boys suffer technical issues and entangle themselves in red tape.

[@bertspeggly4428]

Sometimes my family went to Ventnor for our summer holidays in the '50's. Although I probably only did id once or twice I remember Ventnor Station very well. Were they push-pull trains? Thanks for the video.

[@iankemp1131]

Not on the Isle of Wight - typically 6 coach trains and the O2 ran round at each end. A tough pull up the 1 in 70 Apse bank! But it was interesting to see the push-pull train on the Lymington branch.

[@bishwatntl]

Where were those ferries moored?

[@richardlingard6185]

Lymington

[@robertmaidment-wilson564]

Assuming you mean the ones to Pierhead, then they were moored at Portsmouth Harbour.

[@robnewman6101]

I have the DORLING KINDERSLEY DK EYEWITNESS GUIDES Book of TRAIN. Discover the story of railways - from the days of steam to the high - speed, sophisticated trains of today. In association with THE NATIONAL RAILWAY MUSEUM.

[@sskinblade]

if your going from Ryde to Ventnor why show the train going through newport

[@nigelkthomas9501]

Something wrong with the sound?

[@marty8535]

Unlkikely to have been sound for amateur recordings 60 years ago.

[@marktipper994]

A Jack Vetrianno painting at 12:39 😉. Looks like you were all living in paradise, but did you know it would all be gone soon?

[@nickmiller76]

In retrospect, it was paradise, took half a century for me to realise though.

[@roysimmons3549]

Like most of Beeching a reckless failure. Economy was never considered. It was all about Marples Ridgway and laying down tarmac everywhere. It has taken 60 years for the penny to drop..that is hundreds of juggernauts roaring up and down the M1 ain't efficient. When a freight train can take their loads 80 to 100 a time to Felixstowe or Southampton quicker and more efficiently.

[@michaelhearn3052]

Do remember that Marples was a director of Marples Ridgeway, but he resigned that directorship in 1951 when he was made a junior cabinet minister as he was required to do so by Parliamentary law, as ministers and above are required to do so today. So he had no involvement in the day to day running of his former company.

[@DavidMartin-ym2te]

Check out Mr Marples career - he was a crook and scarpered to the South of France to avoid taxes. If you think he had nothing to do with the destruction of the railways you are misinformed. @@michaelhearn3052

[@billywhyte6693]

Beautiful English countryside... no motorways, no mass migrants. The girl in the hotpants still the same