After battling through winter, engineers have provided a progress report on the improvement of Ryde Pier, giving the Victorian structure a new lease on life.

Since October 2022, the line between Ryde Esplanade and Ryde Pier Head has been closed. This was to allow engineers to strengthen the 686-metre-long Victorian structure, originally built in 1880.

South Western Railway (SWR) has plans to begin platform improvements at Ryde Esplanade. This plan includes vital track maintenance at Ryde Esplanade as part of a joint project. The strengthening work which took place was a part of a wider scheme to make improvements to Ryde Pier.

The engineers faced many challenges throughout winter, resulting in the extension of the projects into the spring time.

Mixed with the weather conditions of winter, the engineers faced more challenges since they were working on a pier over open water.

This caused several health and safety concerns which resulted in the work getting paused during these poor conditions. This caused a delay to the overall completion time of the project, mainly due to a lack of scaffolding (as it was impossible to raise in these conditions).

From Sunday 2nd April, South Western Railway will be operating two trains per hour between Ryde Esplanade and Shanklin.

This results in a change in normal services. These changes are as follows:

• Ryde Pier will remain closed until the completion of the programme in late spring, with a minibus connecting to Island Line train services.
• Ryde Esplanade will be closed from Monday 13 March with buses replacing trains between Ryde Pier and Ryde St Johns via Ryde Esplanade. The station will re-open by Saturday 1 April.
• From Sunday 2 April, two trains per hour will operate between Ryde Esplanade and Shanklin, with a rail replacement bus service from Ryde Esplanade to Ryde Pier Head

The hopes of South Western Railway is that by performing this maintenance work, the structure will remain standing for decades to come, improving reliability and allowing trains to run on the Isle of Wight for the foreseeable future.

ARyde Pier // Credit: Network Rail”We’ve been faced with several weather-related challenges on the Isle of Wight” said Mark Killick, network Rail’s Wessex route director, he continued with “but with the worst behind us we’re pleased to see that progress has been made at Ryde Pier. I’d like to thank customers for bearing with us whilst we carry out this complex renewal to give Ryde Pier a new lease of life. We recognise that winter is a challenging time of year to carry out work due to the unpredictable weather, but at the same time if we were to carry this work out during the summer period,it would cause more disruption to customers and tourism on the isle of wight.

“Apart from the weather, one of the major challenges we faced is that our time on site is limited by the fact that we have to work around the tide. Even though the program had to be extended, we are confident that we’ll be able to reopen the line by late spring.”

Mark Dunn, South Western Railway’s Island Line general manager, said: “Strengthening work on the pier has been harder than anticipated due to the exceptionally difficult weather conditions, however, we have seen some good progress in recent weeks.

“Customers should be aware that buses will replace trains between Ryde Pier Head and Ryde St Johns from Monday 13 March, while we complete vital track and platform maintenance at Ryde Esplanade

“We know just how important Easter is for customers and businesses on the Island, so we will continue working hard with Network Rail to ensure we reopen Ryde Esplanade by Saturday 1 April.

“We’re very pleased to confirm that when we re-open Ryde Esplanade we will begin operating two trains per hour to Shanklin. A lot of hard work has gone into reaching this milestone, delivering on what is an important, long-term commitment to the Island Line.”