The second Fish and Chip Evening of the summer on 14 July runs the same format as the first: daytime steam services through the mid-island countryside, extended evening departures, and fish and chips served in the carriages at Havenstreet station as part of the ticket price. The Isle of Wight Steam Railway does this well precisely because the railway was never trying to be anything other than what it is.
A weekday evening in July on a heritage steam railway is the kind of out-of-ordinary experience that tends to stick. The sound, the smell, the movement of the coaches, and the countryside unreeling outside the window at fifteen miles per hour combine into something that has very little equivalent. The fish supper is good, the carriages are properly old, and the evening staff have the patience to answer the same questions about the locomotive that children ask on every trip.
Book in advance; the evening departures sell out. Full details and tickets at iwsteamrailway.co.uk. More heritage events on the Isle of Wight through the summer.
