Cowes railway station


Cowes railway station was a railway station in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England. It took pride in being the "prettiest station on the Garden Isle". Opened in 1862, the very first on the island, as part of the inaugural "Cowes and Newport" railway, it expanded to three platforms as the railway branched out towards Ryde in the years before the motor bus began to diminish trade. In its time prosperous enough to have a WH Smith bookstall, its latter years were considerably leaner as more and more people took their holidays abroad. The station has long since been demolished and today the area is a supermarket and municipal car park.
In its later years Cowes station was notable for an unusual operating procedure. The engine would propel its empty carriages backwards up the 1 in 95 gradient towards Mill Hill and then run forward and round the train using a crossover. The carriages were then allowed to run back down into the station by gravity, controlled by handbrake by the guard, and the locomotive was reattached to haul its train back to Newport and Ryde.