East Kent Railway
The East Kent Railway (EKR) was an early railway operating between Strood and Faversham in Kent, England, during 1858 and 1859. In the latter year it changed its name to the London, Chatham and Dover Railway to reflect its ambitions to build a rival line from London to Dover via Chatham and Canterbury. The line as far as Canterbury was opened in 1860 and the extension to Dover Priory on 22 July 1861. The route to London Victoria station via the Mid-Kent line and the West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway opened on 1 November 1861.
Origins
Although it was a relatively prosperous and well-populated area, the north of the county of Kent was poorly served by railways during the 1840s. the
A plan for the construction of a new railway between the existing stations at Strood and
The SER did not put up more opposition as many of the directors felt that the line would never be built due to lack of finance, others "waited in the background for the onset of bankruptcy, hoping to absorb the new line at a substantial discount."[5]
Construction of the line
The engineer for the new line was Thomas Russell Crampton who was one of the directors of the new company. The building of the line took an inordinately long time because of the parlous financial state of the EKR throughout is existence. Contracts were not awarded until 1856 and contractors were often left unpaid. Thus it was not until January 1858 that the line from Chatham to Faversham was completed. The section from Strood over the Medway to Chatham was opened in March 1858. This included the Rochester railway bridge designed by Joseph Cubitt. The railway was built as a single track line (with provision for doubling) throughout its 18+1⁄2-mile (30 km) length and but had taken five years to raise the finance and build.
The branch line to Faversham Creek opened 12 April 1860; the main line as far as
Train service
The EKR service was originally five trains per day in each direction, with a journey time of 50 minutes. The railway purchased six 4-4-0ST Sondes class Crampton locomotives from R and W Hawthorn. These soon proved to be unreliable and would shortly afterwards had to be rebuilt as conventional 2-4-0Ts.[7]
Westerly extension to the line
In November 1855, soon after gaining authority for the Dover extension, but before it had opened any line, the railway company again gave notice of application to Parliament to extend their lines in to both London and Westminster. Their draft proposals involved the construction of fourteen stretches of line involving links with several existing or proposed railways. These included the SER at
Nevertheless, in 1856 the EKR introduced a parliamentary
Proposals by Joseph Locke, consulting engineer to the SER, for the amalgamation of that railway and the EKR were discussed by both sides in June 1858, although some of the SER directors were unhappy about taking on such a financially insecure company. Furthermore, under Locke's proposals, the services of Thomas Crampton, the engineer, contractor and part financier of the Canterbury–Dover line, would be dispensed with. Crampton managed to persuade the EKR board to accept an alternative proposal, that he would finance the westerly extension towards London.[10] The EKR board therefore put forward a revised set of proposals to Parliament in 1858. These involved building their own line from Strood to
Other lines
Two further railway lines were proposed during the late 1850s with the object of connecting to the EKR, but had not been completed at the time of the change of name. These were the
See also
References
- ^ Nock (1961), pp. 45–46.
- ^ Bradley (1979), p.3.
- ^ London, Chatham, and Dover Railway (1867), p. 4.
- ^ Nock, (1961) p.46.
- ^ White (1961), p.40.
- ^ Dendy Marshall (1968), p.326.
- ^ Bradley (1979), pp. 19–20.
- ^ ‘Railway Intelligence. East Kent’, The Times, 21 November 1855; p. 5.
- ^ Nock (1961), p.47.
- ^ Nock (1961), pp. 51–52.
- ^ White (1961), p. 40.
- ^ Dendy Marshall (1968) p.330.
Sources
- Bradley, D. L. (1960). The Locomotives of the London Chatham and Dover Railway. Railway Correspondence and Travel Society.
- Dendy Marshall, C. F. (1968). R.W. Kidner (ed.). History of the Southern Railway. Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-0059-X.
- The London, Chatham, and Dover Railway (main line), Beckenham to Dover: report of the Committee of the main line shareholders, appointed ... 1866. Effingham Wilson. 1867..
- Nock, O. S. (1961). The South Eastern & Chatham Railway. Ian Allan Ltd..
- White, H. P. (1961). A Regional History of the Railways of Southern Great Britain V.2 Southern England. Phoenix House..
External links
- Platform 14 Ltd (18 May 2008). "East Kent Railway". Along These Lines. Season 1. Episode 6. ITV Meridian. Archived from the original on 24 July 2008. Retrieved 4 May 2008.