Cowes Railway Station took pride in being the “prettiest station on the Garden Isle”. Opened in 1862, the very first on the island as part of the inaugural “Cowes and Newport” railway it expanded to three platforms as the railway branched out towards Ryde in the years before the motor bus began to diminish trade. In its time prosperous enough to have a WH Smiths bookstall, its latter years were considerably leaner as more and more people took their holidays abroad.