In their own words. Ed
The Isle of Wight Bus & Rail User’ Group (IOW BRUG) and Railfuture Wessex have congratulated The Network Rail / South West Trains Alliance for completing substantial repairs to the Isle of Wight railway infrastructure damaged by torrential rain in December that enabled trains to start carrying passengers again on Sunday 19th January ahead of the original forecast dates.
Working through difficult conditions
Stuart George, Chairman of the IOW BRUG stated his group was delighted with the prompt action taken by infrastructure contractors supported by the skilled and dedicated Island Line workforce who worked through difficult weather conditions to drain the flooded Ryde tunnel and undertake work at around 20 other sites.
Charles Burns, Acting Secretary for Rail Campaign group Railfuture Wessex said it was good for passengers to have trains serving Ryde Pier Head again. Whilst the rail services were suspended it was not easy to find the taxis which linked with the replacement coach service to Shanklin.
Lack of communication
Charles said,
“It appeared the operators were not talking to each resulting in a bad experience to those who were customers of both Island Line and Wightlink.”
Both spokesmen agreed that a positive outcome of what appeared to be a bad start to 2014 is the recent works will have hopefully addressed a number of known weaknesses with the Island Line infrastructure.
Image: Simon Haytack under CC BY 2.0
