of course no better resourced financially than the three smaller companies. Charles Conacher, its General Manager, wrote that it No extensions of the small network were planned. In fact, the IoWCR did not pay a dividend until 1913, and after that only on first preference shares. The IoWCR was impecunious throughout its existence, and the generally improving expectations of society: interlocking, the block system and continuous brakes, workmen's compensation, and improvements to working hours, coupled with the need to replace worn-out track and to repair bridges, all combined to ensure that the company never managed to escape from this plight. Later development Freshwater, Yarmouth and Newport Railway The western part of the island remained untouched by railways, but Yarmouth was a ferry terminal, with the ferry to Lymington operated by the London and South Western Railway. The LSWR encouraged the formation of a scheme for a railway that became the Freshwater, Yarmouth and Newport Railway, authorised on 26 August 1880. It opened for goods traffic on 10 September 1888, and for passengers on 20 July 1889. There were eleven passenger trains each way on weekdays. The new line joined the IoWCR at Newport, but the layout at the junction did not enable FY&NR trains to run into the station directly; they were not permitted to propel to and from the station, so that they had to run around their train in both directions. The line was worked by the IoWCR. Newport, Godshill and St Lawrence Railway Notwithstanding the existence of the route through Sandown, the member companies of the IoWCR had long felt that a direct line from Cowes or Newport to Ventnor, independent of the IoWR, was desirable, and a number of schemes had been proposed. In 1889, one of these schemes was authorised: the Newport, Godshill and St Lawrence Railway got its Act of Parliament on 12 August. Long comments that constructing it was "probably the greatest economic folly of the Isle of Wight's railway network". The IoWCR was to work the line for 55% of gross receipts. It would leave the IoWCR Sandown line at , and follow a southerly course from there. This Act was followed by a second Act in 1892 authorising an extension to . However the location available for the terminus there was, like the IoWR's own station, somewhat inconvenient. It proved very difficult to persuade investors to subscribe in the railway, with