Ventnor railway station
Encyclopedia
Isle of Wight Railway
The Isle of Wight Railway was a railway company on the Isle of Wight, United Kingdom. The company owned 14 miles of railway line and its headquarters were at Sandown...
line from Ryde
Ryde
Ryde is a British seaside town, civil parish and the most populous town and urban area on the Isle of Wight, with a population of approximately 30,000. It is situated on the north-east coast. The town grew in size as a seaside resort following the joining of the villages of Upper Ryde and Lower...
.
The station lay on a ledge 294 feet (89.6 m) above sea level which had to be quarried into the hill side. The station was immediately outside a 1312 yards (1,199.7 m) long tunnel through St. Boniface Down. A lack of space meant that a turntable
Turntable (railroad)
A railway turntable is a device for turning railroad rolling stock. When steam locomotives were still in wide use, many railroads needed a way to turn the locomotives around for return trips as their controls were often not configured for extended periods of running in reverse and in many...
was used to allow steam engines to runaround their trains. In later years this was replaced by a three way switch. The various tracks merged just before the tunnel and the locomotives had to enter the tunnel during their runround manoeuvres.
The station had one side platform connected to the station buildings plus one narrow island platform. Unusually, there was only one track between the side platform and the island platform. Further away from the station buildings were goods sidings which mainly served coal merchants who operated from caves in the chalk sides of the station cutting.
The station is now an industrial park with Southern Water
Southern Water
Southern Water is the utility responsible for wastewater collection and treatment in Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, West Sussex, East Sussex and Kent, and for water supply and distribution in the approximately half of this area...
using the tunnel to run water pipes through.
This station should not be confused with Ventnor West railway station
Ventnor West railway station
Ventnor West railway station was opened on 1 June 1900 as the final addition to the railway network on the Isle of Wight. It was originally opened as Ventnor Town but the station was renamed in 1923 by the Southern Railway.- Location :...
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