Southern Railway
After the Railways Act 1921 came into force from January 1923, the Southern Railway took over all lines on the island, although the integration of the FYN took some time due to financial wrangling. The company set about significant investment in the island's rail services, primarily through replacing old locomotives and carriages. Twenty-three O2 Class locomotives were transferred to the island from the former London and South Western Railway's suburban services, and many coaches were brought from the former London, Chatham and Dover Railway and London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. The locomotives were given numbers under an unusual system where each number was individual only on the island. Each locomotive officially carried its number with a W-prefix to indicate this, and was given a nameplate relating to somewhere on the island (e.g. W 24—Calbourne).
The Southern also carried out changes in track layout to make services more flexible, such as the installation of double track from Brading to Sandown, new passing loops at Havenstreet and Wroxall stations, and pointwork at Smallbrook Junction. A new named train called The Tourist was set up, running from Ventnor to Freshwater via Sandown, Merstone and Newport. It was the only named train on the island, and travelled on lines from all the former Isle of Wight railway companies.
Read more about this topic: Railways On The Isle Of Wight
Famous quotes containing the words southern and/or railway:
“My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is white;”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)