I was interested to read that South Western Railway (SWR) consider it is only necessary to run a train every 60 minutes on Island Line until next spring due to lack of demand.

I, and other interested parties, have been communicating with SWR over the last year and consider the reason to be more involved than that.

I have written before about this to your paper but feel there is a real problem with the passing loop at Brading.

Running time from Ryde Pier Head to Brading on the old timetable was 14 minutes which was quite tight and trains often ran a little late in the summer period, particularly if a stop at Smallbrook Junction was required.

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There was a seven minute turnaround at the Pier Head which meant that a train took 35 minutes to get from Brading to the Pier Head and back.

Brading Station is only ten minutes travel time from Shanklin which means the passing loop is nowhere near halfway along the line.

SWR needed, therefore, to reduce the time a train takes from Brading to Ryde Pier Head and back to 30 minutes so that two trains can run a 30 minute service.

The initial timetable achieved this by knocking one minute off the running times each way and reducing the turnaround time at the Pier Head to just four minutes.

SWR have admitted (to me) that this would be very tight and not very robust in the event of late running.

It would seem, therefore, that SWR are letting one train settle in before they introduce a second.

The problem is always going to be with catamaran connections at Ryde.

The catamaran has an eight minute turnaround and if the trains are only four minutes it will make all connections extremely tight.

I calculate six minutes between train/catamaran would be the very best that could be achieved and put late running into the formula and you are looking at many missed connections particularly at busy times and during the summer months.

An answer might be to run three trains on a 30-minute, or even 20-minute interval.

Even that would not use the passing loop at Brading but the old loops at Ryde St John and Sandown. I really hope something can be resolved as this route through to Portsmouth Harbour Station has tremendous potential.

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