One of Islandline's former London Transport tube trains.
ISLANDLINE features in a new top ten list of the best rail journeys in Britain.
The short, eight-mile railway from Ryde to Shanklin was named "the quaintest" railway by leading railway writer Michael Williams, after two years of research travelling tens of thousands of miles round the network.
Mr Williams was commissioned by publishers Preface to identify the best of railway travel as the 50th anniversary of the infamous Beeching report approaches.
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| The inside of an Islandline carriage. |
Michael says of the Island’s railway: "What can be more surreal than to travel on a red-painted, 70-year-old ex-London Transport tube train through rolling fields and past pretty seaside villages of the Isle of Wight?
"No preserved line this — it’s as much part of the national network as Victoria or Waterloo."
The list coincides with the publication of Mr Williams’ new book, On the Slow Train Again: Twelve More Great British Railway Journeys, and the new updated paperback edition of the companion volume, On the Slow Train.
Reporter: martinn@iwcpmail.co.uk