PS Ryde is a paddle steamer that was commissioned and run by Southern Railway as a passenger ferry between mainland England and the Isle of Wight from 1937 to 1969, with an interlude during the Second World War where she served as a minesweeper and then an anti-aircraft ship, seeing action at D-Day. After many years abandoned on moorings at Island Harbour Marina on the River Medina, she was purchased by the PS Ryde Trust in late 2018, with the intention of raising money for her restoration. That project was abandoned in January 2019.
PS Ryde at Binfield, Isle of Wight, in 2006
1969 at Portsmouth.
PS Ryde in 1977, with the Medway Queen in the background
PS Ryde in 2008
The Southern Railway (SR), sometimes shortened to 'Southern', was a British railway company established in the 1923 Grouping. It linked London with the Channel ports, South West England, South coast resorts and Kent. The railway was formed by the amalgamation of several smaller railway companies, the largest of which were the London and South Western Railway (LSWR), the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) and the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SE&CR). The construction of what was to become the Southern Railway began in 1838 with the opening of the London and Southampton Railway, which was renamed the London & South Western Railway.
1933 poster for the Southern Railway's newly electrified suburban services
1945 poster ('Shabby?') by L. A. Webb promising post-war refurbishment on the Southern Railway, showing Malachite Green and Sunshine Yellow livery
Sign in Norbiton Station's underpass on the Kingston Loop Line
Edmondson ticket for travel between Beltring and Branbridges Halt and Maidstone West.