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 very 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 engine s and steam fair equipment, together with other attractions that vary year by year.

As the name suggests, services are hauled by steam locomotives , with most of the fleet having spent much of their working life on the island's railways. The principal locomotives in use are:

    Calbourne, 02 class 0-4-4T number W24, built in 1891 for the London and South Western Railway and transferred to the island in 1925 .
    Freshwater, Terrier class number W8, built in 1876 for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and transferred to the island in 1913 .
    Newport, Terrier class number W11, built in 1878 for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and transferred to the island in 1902 .

These locomotives are supported by a handful of more recent steam and diesel locomotives.

The locomotives are complemented by two distinct fleets of carriage s. One fleet consists of bogie carriages built between 1911 and 1924 , representing the final generation of steam hauled stock used on the island. The other fleet consists of four-wheel carriages built between 1864 and 1898 representing the previous generation; most of these have been rebuilt from bodies previously sold off for use as holiday homes or storage sheds. The two fleets are not normally mixed in the same train.

History

Isle of Wight railways diagram, showing closed and reopened lines and new stations.

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 trafficked, reflecting the general isolation and poverty of the island. These factors meant that the island's railways could rarely afford to acquire new locomotive s 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.