Replacement

We were back on The Island and decided to head to Shanklin for lunch. We had a choice of travel: a scheduled bus or a rail replacement bus. Although the rail replacement is slightly faster during the day, it is marginally more expensive.

As long as we have been coming here, the Island Line has been having issues. There was a ten-month closure in 2021 for significant renewals and to support new trains, which was completed just as we arrived for our month-long island-living experiment. The trains were lovely and new, and everything seemed fine at the end of that month. But a nine-month closure followed the next year, and I can't quite remember the different reasons.

This time, there seem to be two pieces of work: track and bridge renewals, signalling upgrades, and footbridge renovations along the length of the line, and a separate piece of work to improve (preserve) the bit of track that heads out on the pier to meet the FastCat. I think that part is going to be closed until next year. So, until the promised full service with two trains per hour when it reopens, we're on a bus.

The journey was quite speedy, and few people were on the outward journey. We were the only people on the entire return journey. Between the two, we had a lovely lunch at The Fisherman's Cottage, although it was sad there was no crab.

Despite eating a much bigger lunch than we had planned, we were back at Ryde Co-op in the evening, hunting for dinner.