The Isle of Wight Steam Railway is a heritage railway on the Isle of Wight. The railway passes through 5½ miles of unspoiled countryside from Smallbrook Junction to Wootton station, passing through the small village of Havenstreet, where the line has a station, headquarters and a depot. At Smallbrook Junction, the steam railway connects with the Island Line.
The railway is owned and operated by the Isle of Wight Railway Co. Ltd. and run largely by volunteers. Services are operated on most days from June to September, together with Sundays in April, May, and October and public holidays. The railway is popular with tourists, attracting people to its original steam locomotive and railway cafe. Over each August bank holiday weekend, the railway organises the Island Steam Show, which combines an intensive service on the railway with displays of various sorts of steam power including traction engines and steam fair equipment, together with other attractions that vary year by year. For events like steam galas and Day out with Thomas events, engines from the mainland have to be brought in by boat and then transferred to Havenstreet.
The railway has several steam locomotives and a small series of diesel shunters, four of which have had notable careers on the island. To compliment the collection, numerous examples of pre-grouping carriages have been recovered and restored. The oldest of these were built in 1864 and the last in 1924. There are also more than 45 units of freight rolling stock, the oldest of which dates from circa 1860.
The aim is for a rolling stock storage and display building to be built at Havenstreet, meaning the railway's collection of Victorian and Edwardian carriages to be kept under cover when not in use, away from the harmful effects of sun, wind and rain. The plan is for a four road shed, each road capable of storing four bogie coaches or their equivalent, with a total size of some 75x25 metres. The railway is hoping to secure a Heritage Lottery grant towards the £815,000 cost. Some £163,000 needs to be raised by the railway. The total being £71,000 by December 2008.
The first railway on the Isle of Wight opened in 1862, linking Newport and Cowes. It became the nucleus of the Isle of Wight Central Railway. The line from Ryde to Newport was opened in 1875 and by 1890 the island was served by an extensive network of lines. However most of these lines were relatively poorly maintained and had a low level of traffic, reflecting the general isolation and poverty of the island.
These factors meant that the island's railways could rarely afford to acquire new locomotives or rolling stock and instead relied on using already elderly equipment transferred from the mainland. Much of the equipment currently used on the Isle of Wight Steam Railway falls into this category, representing usage on the island in the early twentieth century but also the mid to late nineteenth century on the mainland.
The first railway closures on the Island were in 1952. Then in 1966 the Ryde - Newport - Cowes and Shanklin - Ventnor lines were closed. The last steam services on the island ran on the remaining Ryde to Shanklin line on 31 December 1966. However a small group of rail enthusiasts formed the Wight Locomotive Society and raised funds to preserve one of the last steam locomotives, W24 Calbourne, and a number of the remaining carriages. Then, in 1971, the Isle of Wight Railway Co Ltd was formed to buy the 1½-mile length of track between Wootton and Havenstreet. From that early beginning, the railway has been gradually extended from Havenstreet towards Ryde. In 1991 this extension reached Smallbrook Junction on the Ryde - Shanklin line, where a new interchange station was built there allowing passengers to interchange with Island Line trains.
An extension of the line westwards from Wootton to Newport has been suggested in the past. It now seems unlikely as there is now a road on the site of Newport station and houses have been built on another part of the former line. Another possible extension is one from Smallbrook Junction to Ryde St John's Road station, using one of the two Island Line tracks on this stretch.
