Old information signs taken down during work to improve Ryde Interchange are set to return to service at the Isle of Wight Bus and Coach Museum.

Island Roads and Southern Vectis got together to arrange for the signs to be recycled by the attraction at its HQ – the former bus depot in Park Road, Ryde.

Island Roads contractors who are currently reconfiguring the Southern Vectis bus depot on Ryde Esplanade as part of the interchange scheme handed over a pallet of eight bus departure boards destination signs to the Bus Museum this week.

“We are delighted that Southern Vectis and Island Roads thought of us,” said museum secretary Jonathan Lamb.

“These departure boards are almost 50 years old and have been a familiar sight to thousands of passengers. It would have been a great shame if they had just gone off to landfill. We are grateful to have been given the opportunity to preserve them for the future, and hopefully to repurpose at least some of them. Our thanks to Richard Tyldsley for gifting them to the Museum, and to Island Roads for their prompt and helpful actions in bringing them to us.”

Island Roads project manager Graham Waters said: “The signs were part of the streetscene here for many years and we’re only too pleased to be able to play a part in keeping a bit of local history alive.”

Southern Vectis general manager Richard Tyldsley said: “We are pleased the Ryde Interchange works are happening and are looking forward to a new bus Station which will be a great improvement to Ryde and our operations.

“It is pleasing that part of the old station that has served us and our customers so well over the years will live on at the IW Bus and Coach Museum as part of the island bus history. We are very grateful to the museum for enabling us to save a little of the past for the future.”

Founded in 1997, the museum is a registered charity and run completely by volunteers. It has a display of around 20 historic vehicles, transport artefacts, displays, photographs, as well as a tea bar.

You can find out more about the museum here https://www.iwbusmuseum.org.uk/