Cafe and museum plan for old Isle of Wight underground train

The cars which are sitting on rails and sleepers at Branstone, have been stripped of their external paint

Two former London Underground train carriages that ran on the Isle of Wight could become a cafe and museum.

The carriages, originally built in 1938, were replaced by refurbished London Underground trains earlier this year, as part of a £26m upgrade of the Island Line services.

Retailer Holliers Park has submitted plans to convert the carriages for its site at Branstone.

They had run on the Island Line for more than 30 years.

Under the plans, internal features of the cars, including furniture, brass plates, bolts and rivets would be retained and restored as much as possible, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The cars, which are sitting on rails and sleepers at Branstone, have been stripped of their external paint and would be repainted in the original London Transport red colour.

In a planning statement Holliers Park said it would create a 24-seat cafe along with a small museum about the island's transport heritage.

The new owners said the aim was to "preserve and re-use" the Island Line cars which first ran on the island in 1989.

"This scheme represents an interesting and unique opportunity to re-use these decommissioned Island Line train cars," it said.

"Retaining their historic interest for members of the public, as well as repurposing the train cars for uses associated with the existing tourism offers."

The trains formerly operated on the Island Line railway between Ryde Pier Head and Shanklin, serving Smallbrook Junction, Brading, Sandown and Lake stations.

They transported about 1.5 million passengers in a normal year.

The fleet of trains was built in 1938 for the London Underground network, before starting service on the Isle of Wight in 1989