This article from the October 1959 issue of The Railway Magazine examines the history of the Isle of Wight (Newport Junction) Railway, drawing on contemporary records and board minutes to trace its development, financial difficulties, and eventual incorporation into the Isle of Wight Central Railway. The account follows the railway from its promotion in the 1860s through to the end of its independent existence.
By MICHAEL ROBBINS
Early misfortunes and financial difficulties
SOME railways have certainly been more fortunate than others. Cases of contractors going bankrupt, though not common, are not unknown; so are quarrels with neighbours, serious breakdowns of engines, collapses of bridges, disputes between directors and management, delays in getting certificates for opening to traffic, chronic penury, and receivership; but a line less than six miles long must be accounted unusually unlucky to have incurred every one of these mishaps. Yet that was the fate of the Isle of Wight (Newport Junction) Railway. A major accident and embezzlement of its funds seem to have been the only disasters it escaped; and as to the latter, the most probable reason is that it never had any quantity of funds worth embezzling.
Early documentation and surviving records
The history of this ill-conceived project has been briefly dealt with in The Railway Magazine for March/April, 1946, and in my own book on ‘The Isle of Wight Railways’; but the sheer wretchedness of the tale seems to make it worth fuller treatment, and this is attempted here on the evidence of the minute books of the company, now in charge of the Archivist (Historical Records), B.T.C., by whose courtesy I have access to them. These minutes, with their usual maddening allusiveness to other matters not recorded and incompleteness in the unfolding of the story, are the basis of what follows, supplemented by the printed half-yearly reports.
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Promotion of the Newport Junction line
Exactly what interests were behind the promotion of the Newport Junction line (as it will be called here) is not now clear. The Act of July 31, 1868, authorised the construction of a 9¼-mile line between Newport and Sandown and station arrangements at each end with the existing railways at those places. Capital was to be £84,000, with £28,000 on loan. (By the time the line was open for traffic between these two points, the capital account stood at over £188,000.) It seems that the Ryde Station Company, an active but ill-starred concern in island railway politics at that time, was involved in the Newport Junction; so also was the Corporation of Newport. The promoters expressed hope that a foundation had been laid for a working union of the several railway undertakings in the island, but there was a noteworthy absence of enthusiasm on the part of either the Isle of Wight Railway, which was just recovering from an attack of branch-line fever, or the Cowes & Newport, which managed to keep running but only just.
Engineers and early management
Sir Charles Fox & Sons and R. J. H. Saunders were appointed engineers, and at an early stage an awkward question came up for settlement. It was claimed that understandings amounting to contractual agreements with two different persons, a Mr. Greenhill and a Mr. Jackson, for construction of the line. In January, 1869, Jackson was appointed the company’s contractor. In the same month it became clear that Newport’s contribution to the funds was going to be very small, and the next six months were taken up with raising enough money to make a start. The directors met formally only three times in this period, but in August, 1870, the contract with Jackson was sealed, whereupon Greenhill’s solicitors became active. There was correspondence with Lord Eversley (Governor and Captain of the island) about the ceremony of turning the first sod, to be performed by his daughter, the Hon. Emma Laura Shaw-Lefevre; and as a double precaution both Captain Mangles, Chairman of the London & South Western, and Mr. Samuel Laing, Chairman of the London, Brighton and South Coast, were invited. In September, 1870, Mr. George Sheward, of Leinster Square, London, was appointed chairman of the company; he appears to have had no personal connection with the island but was a director of the London & North Western, Stokes Bay, and Sambre & Meuse Railways.
Relations with the Board of Trade
A Bill for the Isle of Wight & Cowes & Newport Junction Railway was rejected, but another Bill was deposited in the autumn for the Ryde & Newport line; this was passed in 1872. By offering a shorter route between the two towns this line was clearly going to take most of its prospective traffic away from the Newport Junction. Almost more serious trouble began about the exact alignment of the entry into Newport, which was crossing the River Medina, which was to delay completion of the line until 1879, with very injurious consequences. The directors complained of an ‘unwilling spirit’ shown by the Isle of Wight Railway; but they were optimistic enough to prepare a Bill to build a branch from Merstone to Whitwell and get running powers over the Cowes & Newport. It was a high time for railway promotion in the small island; the Freshwater, Bouldnor & Newport was promoted in the same session of 1872. It did not succeed until 1880, with Yarmouth instead of Bouldnor in its title.
Rolling stock and early operations
By the end of 1871, the question of rolling stock for the line was engaging the board. Tenders were accepted for three carriages from the Metropolitan Railway Carriage & Wagon Company of Birmingham—No. 1, a composite, £310; No. 2, a third brake, £256 5s.; No. 3, a composite, £272. On February 14, 1872, it was reported that ballasting had begun, ‘a locomotive and proper wagons being employed’; these were presumably hired from the Isle of Wight Railway. In April a letter was sent to the L.S.W.R. inquiring about terms for borrowing, or possibly purchasing, a light six-wheel tank engine. The answer was £2 a day, plus the engine crew’s wages, or £1,000 for outright sale. These terms were apparently considered too stiff, for in May, when it was thought that the line from Sandown to Horringford would open within a fortnight, it was suggested that an engine and six carriages should be hired from the English & Foreign Credit Company. In the event it seems that the carriages came so hired, but that the locomotive Comet, a Beattie 2-4-0 well-tank, was hired from the South Western, with a plate affixed to it indicating L.S.W.R. ownership.
Continuing disputes and delays
Meanwhile the first of a series of tussles with the Board of Trade had taken place. In July the Board suggested that the Company’s notice of opening within ten days should be withdrawn, and Colonel Yolland, the Board’s Inspecting Officer, made reports on July 31, August 28, and September 26. Disputes had arisen with George Wright, who had provided the engine during the construction period, and with the contractor Jackson about some of the materials supplied. By December, Jackson was in bankruptcy; the company issued a writ claiming that rails sold by him to the Ryde Pier Company were its property and not Jackson’s to dispose of.
Joint station difficulties
A serious dispute continued with Cowes & Newport Companies and the Ryde & Newport Companies about the site of the new joint station at Newport. The Board of Trade appointed Mr. Samuel Swarbrick, General Manager of the Great Eastern Railway, to be the umpire between the parties. Comet was still on the line in February, 1873, when £1 8s. was paid for repairs to her. In the same month, a tender was accepted for completion of the line as far as Pan Lane, half a mile short of Newport Station, and for ironwork for the Coppins Bridge at Newport. The new contractor, Terry, was appealing a year later for payment of his outstanding account, amounting to £561; he issued a writ in June, 1874, but an arrangement to make deferred payments was arrived at.
Opening and early revenues
Throughout the second half of 1874 the company kept on trying to open part of the line, from Sandown to Horringford or Shide, and the Board of Trade as regularly ordered a postponement. At length, on February 1, 1875, the 8¼ miles between Sandown and Shide were brought into public service; the Mayor of Newport invited the directors and officials to a public dinner; Mr. J. Bourne, Manager of the I.W.R., was appointed Traffic Manager for the Newport Junction at the rate of £150 a year; and the claims for remuneration of directors and officers were settled for payment, not in cash but in Lloyd’s bonds. The traffic revenue for the week ending March 6 was £67 3s. 8d. But this alarmingly penurious condition did not prevent the board from maintaining a keen interest in a southern extension—in March, 1874, it was considering a line from Merstone to Appledorf, about three miles south-west.
Further management changes and insolvency
In May, 1875, Mr. Francis Fox was asked to prepare plans. In June, 1875, a certain Vincent J. Barton, who appears to have been a dealer in second-hand rolling stock, offered two engines at £850 each. There is nothing more about this in the minutes, but it is known that the company’s only owned engine, the 2-2-2 Newport, from the Furness Railway, was bought in 1875. It does not appear, however, that Barton was the intermediary.
In the latter part of 1875 work on the half-mile from Shide to Pan Lane was nearly ready for traffic. There is an unusual minute about this, reporting that a letter was read from Mr. Bourne requiring the directors’ authority to run the trains to Pan Lane without the sanction of the Board of Trade, whereon it was ‘Resolved That Mr. Bourne be authorised to run the trains to Pan Lane—but to be careful to avoid coming into collision with the Board of Trade.’ If this somewhat Delphic wording of consent was in fact meant as a joke, it is the only one I can remember seeing in any railway’s board minutes; but note that a joke was intended should probably be dismissed as unworthy. In the event, prudence prevailed, and the new line was not opened until October 1875, after Colonel Hutchinson had inspected it. As a precaution this was not entirely effective: early in 1877 bridge on this section gave way. The engine had broken its crank axle in May, 1876; in February, 1877, Mr. Bourne wrote that ‘something must be done with the wooden bridges, they keep getting worse’; and from this time onward the minutes are full of requests from different parties to be paid—the L.S.W.R. for the balance of its engine hire account, the credit company requesting weekly or monthly payments for engine and carriage hire, and so on.
Final arrangements and incorporation
By the end of 1878, the wretched company was in full dispute at both ends of its little line—with the I.W.R. at Sandown about the terms of the use of the station there, and with the joint committee of the C. & N. and R. & N. at Newport about the joint station and its approach from the south. The Newport Junction was anxious to open in June, 1878, and said it was ready; but the usual delay ensued, and it was not brought into public use until June 1, 1879. By this time a receiver had been appointed, and after eighteen months a scheme of arrangement with different creditors was negotiated. Before the end of 1878, suggestions for a working agreement with the joint committee had been made, stimulated no doubt by bad relations with the I.W.R., whose Manager, Mr. Bourne, after having to apologise for a letter he wrote to the board, relinquished his connection with the Newport Junction at the end of March 1879.
The working agreement was sealed in December, 1879, and came into force at the beginning of 1880.
End of the company
The remaining seven and a half years of the company’s life, as recorded in the minutes of progressively less frequent directors’ meetings, deal with matters of less moment, apart from revisions of the working agreement. The permanent way remains unsatisfactory; the I.W.R. will not light the Sandown Junction signal unless the Newport Junction supply the oil; the joint committee try to get running powers over the I.W.R. to Ventnor; travellers and landowners complain to the Board of Trade; the Southern extension is still on the stocks, but to purchase or work the three companies’ lines is disproved; in 1885 and 1886, rival schemes for amalgamation with the I.W.R. and with the other two companies are propounded; on March 2, 1887, it is resolved to issue free passes to directors of the Seneca Falls Railway who are to visit the island; and the last meeting in the minute book is dated July 6, 1887.
Thirteen days before the Royal Assent was given to the Act incorporating the Newport Junction in the new Isle of Wight Central Railway.
All this comparatively small beer. It is, in fact, a sad little story. On the traffic merits of the line, which even in the high Victorian age with no motor competition was never within sight of solvency, it must remain remarkable that it went on being worked until February 6, 1956, being carried first on the not very broad back of the I.W.C.R.—which did, however, manage to pay an ordinary dividend in 1913—and then by the more generous one of the Southern Railway. The last word may best be quoted from P. C. Allen’s Railways of the Isle of Wight, published in 1925: ‘That the people of Horringford might wish to visit the people of Blackwater was reasonable and proper to suppose, but the railway company could not really expect them to do it often enough to make the line pay.’
Originally published in The Railway Magazine, October 1959 issue. Subscribe here to also get free access to The archive dating back to the 1800s https://www.classicmagazines.co.uk/the-railway-magazine
