Chatham Main Line Coming Soon!

The history of rail in South East London and Kent is enriched with competitive history. By the mid-1840s, the South Eastern Railway had built the main line from London to Dover via Redhill and Tonbridge. This vital but long-winded link to the major port town of Dover made the SER a key player in the movement of traffic throughout Kent, and this remained as such for the decades to follow.

Not satisfied with missing out on the Capital to Coast battle, and with a desire to link the well-populated North Kent to these key destinations, the East Kent Railway (which had already built Strood to Faversham by 1859), changed its name to the London, Chatham and Dover Railway. Then from 1860 until 1863, rails spread out east and west to form this new, shorter main line.

The LCDR soon had a complete rail network; stretching from London Victoria, via Herne Hill and Catford, through Bromley South and Swanley to Rochester and the Medway Towns. Beyond Faversham, the line split in two, with one sticking along the length of the Kent Coast via Whitstable and Herne Bay to the well-known seaside towns of Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate, all accelerated into holidaymaker fame with the arrival of the railway. The second line took a turn towards Canterbury, before tackling the rugged Kent Downs and arriving in Dover. The LCDR would also extend north towards Blackfriars via Elephant & Castle, and assume ownership of the Sheerness Line, which branches out from Sittingbourne to serve the Isle of Sheppy.

From that point on, the line was cemented in its importance, and things only got better with the Southern Railway’s radical electrification schemes. Vast improvements to stations and the fitting of third rail transformed the line throughout the earlier decades of the 20th Century, with fully electric services reaching Dover and Ramsgate by 1959. In more recent times, the East Kent re-signalling project has vastly improved the movement of trains, with most of the line’s signalling being managed in a central hub at Gillingham. Stations have also been upgraded, or rebuilt entirely, to support 12-car trains between the Kent Coast, Medway and the Capital.

Today, services are largely operated by Southeastern, stopping and semi-fast trains run regularly between London, Ramsgate and Dover, with high-speed services also running between Strood, Faversham and Ramsgate. Thameslink also make an appearance, running services along the Catford Loop towards Swanley, and from North Kent into Medway, terminating in Rainham’s new Platform 0.