The East Kent Railway was one of Britain's less well known light
railways, a part of the Colonel Stephens group of lines, the East
Kent Railway was meant to open up the newly discovered Kent coal
field and help to make its shareholders wealthy, however things
took a different turn, when the projected colliery's along the line
did not materialise the way the promoters had first envisaged. The
only colliery to produce quantities of coal being Tilmanstone near
Shepherdswell, which opened in 1912. There were other pits started
along the formation of the line from Shepherdswell to Wingham, but
in the cases of the other pits, only the surface buildings or test
shafts were constructed, before the work was abandoned. This was
largely due to flooding and the poor calorific quality of East Kent
coal, which had to be mixed with other coal to be effectively used.
There were four colliery's completed in Kent, the East Kent Railway
only served one of them and this together with the other three
lasted until the latter part of the 20th century. The railway
operated a loss making passenger service to Wingham and for a few
years to Sandwich Road halt on the line to Richborough Port line,
however the service to Wingham Canterbury Road came to an end in
October 1948, after British Railways had taken control. The East
Kent Railway lasted through two world wars and was nationalised in
1948, becoming part of the Southern Region of British Railways, it
closed to traffic in 1984, during the coal strike.
General
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