DELAYS ON THE LINE: TRAINS WON’T BE RUNNING AGAIN UNTIL MID-MAY

Island Line won’t re-open until mid-May due to a 6-week delay in the delivery of a major £26million upgrade of the network, it has been announced.

It was originally hoped that the Ryde Pier Head to Shanklin route would re-open at the start of April following significant improvements to the track, infrastructure and stations. However, South Western Railway (SWR) has today (Friday) announced that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to unforeseen challenges, leaving the project team no choice but to push back the line’s reopening by around 6 weeks.

When the line does re-open services will resume with the brand new Class 484 trains, although to date just 2 of 10 carriages have been delivered.

The nationwide lockdown has added to the complexity of the project as teams have had to work hard to navigate changing restrictions on movement and colleagues have been required to form work bubbles on the Isle of Wight to ensure sites are COVID Secure.

The recent increase in COVID-19 cases across the UK has also created the additional challenge of colleagues needing to isolate all along our supply chain, setting back the whole project.