Reculver, Kent - a "What If?" Layout Discussion.

[Ray Von]

I'll just say that my location is semi-fictional, with a capital F!  Have you seen the pub architecture!?  

My philosophy is that this layout landed (with help from Nearholmer and C126 - and others) somewhere on North Kent's coast c1980 - I'll do my best to make it "believable" in operation, but there will be a lot of artistic license involved in the process.

 

[C126]

Mornin' all.  May I just hold my hand up to the confusion about trains through to Ashford and Hastings.  This was when I thought the location was inland, half-way on a line of longitude between Faversham and Charing.  Now it has been relocated, I defer to everyone's local knowledge, and also admit to being confused by the original railway company initials rather than the lines' main stations, so please forgive any mistakes I make.

 

If pl. 2 is to remain electrified, what is to be done with the loco-hauled Mk. I.s, other than occasional inter-regional portion and Saturday excursions?  Also, I would hold out for a commuter service joining at Grove Ferry for lowly-paid plebs unable to afford to live in Canterbury; it is not just London that has commuters.  Like the Lymington and Sheerness(?) branches, a one-unit shuttle connecting to a main line.

 

Sure there was something else to add from a previous page, but I have forgotten now.  As to Suder's business, think of 'anything in a van'.  To increase interest, it would be nice for her/his business to be served by an extra 'Q' (as required) Speedlink train, as presumably the Zanussi warehouse would have a daily block train north to their depot.  And personally, I find block trains boring...

[DCB]

On 13/02/2021 at 10:07, Ray Von said:

Here is the list of rolling stock again, if that helps-

 

Rolling Stock:

 

Mk1 corridor brake comp x 3

 

Mk1 corridor second x 2

 

Mk1 corridor first x 1

 

Mk1 second open x 2

 

Mk1 mini buffet 

 

Mk1 pullman bar

 

Mk1 first sleeping car

 

Mk1 brake gangway coach

 

57ft newspaper packing van blue

 

57ft express parcels blue grey x 2

 

Single vent van brown

 

Railfreight van x 8

 

BP oil tanker wagon

 

 

 

Loco's:

 

Class 20

 

Class 40

 

Class 47

 

Class 25

 

Class 411 four car emu x 2

 

(I have a class 08, but it's due to be retired.)

I would have thought a 33 would have been essential for a 1960s to 1990s SR layout, maybe a 73, while class 20 and especially 40 wouldn't have ventured into SR territory. Likewise the pullman and sleeping car would have been just about unknown on the SR of the 1980s.  Maybe stick the misfits on eBay and buy more?   It's what I tend to do.

[Pacific231G]

On 11/02/2021 at 14:02, Nearholmer said:

 

Reculver was quite a place a long time ago, so it feels fair game for development.

 

It is very close to the main line, I agree, but perhaps the town worthies got annoyed about being missed-off, and promoted their own short branch, a sort of "Abingdon-by-Sea".

Perectly reasonable considering Weston super Mare ( a loop but a spur is just as feasible) and other short "seaside" spurs from Brighton Kemptown to Ramsgate Harbour.  I'm not sure it would have been any shorter than the Littlehampton branch off the Coastway Line * The idea of developing Reculver as a resort sounds very promising had better coastal defences than those that failed to protect it in the 18C  been developed.

 

*OT but I've just discovered that Littlehampton once had a cross Channel ferry link to Honfleur in Normandy (a larger town but sadly without a station since it was closed to make way for improved road access) .

[whart57]

OK, I have had a thought, and one a little less radical than changing the entire coastline. It does involve the fiction that Reculver was a more important settlement at the dawn of the railway age than it was in reality. In reality Reculver's glory days were in Anglo-Saxon times, things went downhill after King Ethelbert. Which was incidentally the name of the pub in Reculver.

 

So first a map:

 

 

Let's go through the growth of Reculver first, using the example of next door Herne Bay as our guide. We start with the old town which we suggest grew around the church and the Roman fort. Let's say medieval monks set up shop inside the ruins of the Roman Fort which would have provided ready made walls and after Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries that became the basis of the post-Tudor town. I've given the North Stream a bit bigger role, one that permits a small barge harbour, typical of the North Kent coast, in the shadow of the town. In Victorian times land speculators laid out a new town on the clifftop. We can gloss over the fact that these cliffs are unstable and tend to fall into the sea, but that speculative development is what actually happened in Herne Bay in the 1840s. Any one interested can look at Googlemaps for Hanover Square, Brunswick Square and Oxenden Square in Herne Bay. They were meant to become smart squares like those in London. In reality those clifftops were covered with caravan camps after WW2. An indication of the passenger potential of those camps can be found from East Kent bus company services in the 1950s. Summer service, a 20 minute headway on the 39 route to Reculver using double deckers. Winter service a small 29 seat single decker shuttling back and forth four or five times a day.

 

Now unlike with Herne Bay it would have been an easy route for a railway from the SER mainline to Reculver. Sturry to Herne Bay would have required some hefty earthworks, Grove Ferry to Reculver can follow the Roman coast line. So in 1846 or thereabouts you get a single track branch from Grove Ferry.

 

In 1861 the East Kent Railway - the later LCDR - turns up with their Kent Coast line from Faversham to Thanet. Now, I have pushed this a little further south, closer to the present day A299 road, my excuse being that the need to pass under the SER branch forced this. Would the LCDR pass by Reculver without trying to steal traffic from the SER? Would they hell. So they lay a branch from Roman Galley Junction (I give you that name, it has a nice ring I think) to terminate next to the SER station. This again would be fairly easy to lay out and would be laid out as double track.

 

After World War One, land speculators lay out more plots for people to build houses on - again just as at Herne Bay, the residential streets around the station and at Hampton are these - and after WW2 there is the usual 1960s and later development. I haven't drawn it in but a light industrial estate next to the railway is a highly likely development, again that happened between Sea Street and the railway in Herne Bay.

 

So where does that leave you with your layout? I would say platforms 1/2 are the old SER station and platforms 3/4 the later LDCR station. Platforms 3/4 would certainly have been electrified in 1959 when the Kent Coast Railway was, but the old SER line to platforms 1/2 might not have been. If you want more than a two car Thumper in those platforms though then you need the third rail there.

 

So your operation patterns c1979 would in my opinion be:

• A frequent service from platforms 3/4 to London Victoria. To my mind, and only bending reality slightly, this would be a four car set which would couple up at Herne Bay to one or two four car sets that have come from Thanet.
• Peak hour services from platforms 3/4 to London Cannon Street made up of older compartment stock. In my mind these would couple up at Strood with a similar train coming up from Paddock Wood and Maidstone
• The most obvious service from Platforms 1/2 would be a two car unit shuttling back and forth to Canterbury West. A bit boring to my mind and also not that believable given that the bus services in East Kent were generally much better for these short runs. Canterbury's stations aren't that well situated either. I'd say that you have that sort of service once a day as a schools service, anyone that passed the 11plus had to attend grammar or technical high schools in Canterbury or Faversham, and there was at that time a special train from Herne Bay to Faversham for pupils at Faversham grammar
• If the third rail is present on the platform 1/2 side, and we assume the junction at Grove Ferry permits it (Grove Ferry station itself was closed in the 1960s btw) then another possibility is a Reculver-Grove Ferry-Minster-Sandwich-Deal-Dover Priory service

How does that all sound?

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, C126 said:

As to Suder's business, think of 'anything in a van'.

 

I think Suder is a bit of a Del Boy; the business name just has that feel about it.

 

Maybe he periodically buys large consignments of army-surplus stuff, or bankrupt factory stock from "Up North", at auctions, has it shipped to Reculver, and then acts as a supplier to army-surplus emporia across North Kent.

 

So, maybe the odd van-load of musty old blankets and baggy green trousers every few months.

 

 

Edited February 14, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Nearholmer]

8 minutes ago, whart57 said:

How does that all sound?

 

Despite my passion for the EKLR, and a junction halt called 'Snake Island', to match 'Poison Cross' for un-welcoming-ness, it actually sounds very plausible in railway terms.

 

The route along the former-shore from Grove Ferry certainly begs for a railway, and was my thought too (even if mine started from the EKLR and had to cross the marsh and river).

[whart57]

1 minute ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Despite my passion for the EKLR

 

 You are talking to someone who has walked along the remaining stretches of the EKLR trackbed, built a 3mm scale model of EKR No.2 and has wondered about how to reproduce the gravity shunting at Canterbury Road ........

 

[Rivercider]

54 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Perectly reasonable considering Weston super Mare ( a loop but a spur is just as feasible) and other short "seaside" spurs from Brighton Kemptown to Ramsgate Harbour.  I'm not sure it would have been any shorter than the Littlehampton branch off the Coastway Line * The idea of developing Reculver as a resort sounds very promising had better coastal defences than those that failed to protect it in the 18C  been developed.

 

*OT but I've just discovered that Littlehampton once had a cross Channel ferry link to Honfleur in Normandy (a larger town but sadly without a station since it was closed to make way for improved road access) .

There is certainly justification for a short seaside branch off a main line.

When Brunel was surveying the Bristol and Exeter route he wanted the line to go through Weston-super-Mare (which was already starting to develop as a tourist location), his preferred route was just inland of the coast. He was prevented by some of the land owners, so the main line ran inland of the town and a short 2 mile long single track branch was opened in 1841, one of the earliest seaside locations to be rail connected. The branch line was doubled in 1866, and then abandoned in 1884 when the double track Weston loop line was opened.

 

cheers

[Ray Von]

4 hours ago, whart57 said:

OK, I have had a thought, and one a little less radical than changing the entire coastline. It does involve the fiction that Reculver was a more important settlement at the dawn of the railway age than it was in reality. In reality Reculver's glory days were in Anglo-Saxon times, things went downhill after King Ethelbert. Which was incidentally the name of the pub in Reculver.

 

So first a map:

 

 

Let's go through the growth of Reculver first, using the example of next door Herne Bay as our guide. We start with the old town which we suggest grew around the church and the Roman fort. Let's say medieval monks set up shop inside the ruins of the Roman Fort which would have provided ready made walls and after Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries that became the basis of the post-Tudor town. I've given the North Stream a bit bigger role, one that permits a small barge harbour, typical of the North Kent coast, in the shadow of the town. In Victorian times land speculators laid out a new town on the clifftop. We can gloss over the fact that these cliffs are unstable and tend to fall into the sea, but that speculative development is what actually happened in Herne Bay in the 1840s. Any one interested can look at Googlemaps for Hanover Square, Brunswick Square and Oxenden Square in Herne Bay. They were meant to become smart squares like those in London. In reality those clifftops were covered with caravan camps after WW2. An indication of the passenger potential of those camps can be found from East Kent bus company services in the 1950s. Summer service, a 20 minute headway on the 39 route to Reculver using double deckers. Winter service a small 29 seat single decker shuttling back and forth four or five times a day.

 

Now unlike with Herne Bay it would have been an easy route for a railway from the SER mainline to Reculver. Sturry to Herne Bay would have required some hefty earthworks, Grove Ferry to Reculver can follow the Roman coast line. So in 1846 or thereabouts you get a single track branch from Grove Ferry.

 

In 1861 the East Kent Railway - the later LCDR - turns up with their Kent Coast line from Faversham to Thanet. Now, I have pushed this a little further south, closer to the present day A299 road, my excuse being that the need to pass under the SER branch forced this. Would the LCDR pass by Reculver without trying to steal traffic from the SER? Would they hell. So they lay a branch from Roman Galley Junction (I give you that name, it has a nice ring I think) to terminate next to the SER station. This again would be fairly easy to lay out and would be laid out as double track.

 

After World War One, land speculators lay out more plots for people to build houses on - again just as at Herne Bay, the residential streets around the station and at Hampton are these - and after WW2 there is the usual 1960s and later development. I haven't drawn it in but a light industrial estate next to the railway is a highly likely development, again that happened between Sea Street and the railway in Herne Bay.

 

So where does that leave you with your layout? I would say platforms 1/2 are the old SER station and platforms 3/4 the later LDCR station. Platforms 3/4 would certainly have been electrified in 1959 when the Kent Coast Railway was, but the old SER line to platforms 1/2 might not have been. If you want more than a two car Thumper in those platforms though then you need the third rail there.

 

So your operation patterns c1979 would in my opinion be:

• A frequent service from platforms 3/4 to London Victoria. To my mind, and only bending reality slightly, this would be a four car set which would couple up at Herne Bay to one or two four car sets that have come from Thanet.
• Peak hour services from platforms 3/4 to London Cannon Street made up of older compartment stock. In my mind these would couple up at Strood with a similar train coming up from Paddock Wood and Maidstone
• The most obvious service from Platforms 1/2 would be a two car unit shuttling back and forth to Canterbury West. A bit boring to my mind and also not that believable given that the bus services in East Kent were generally much better for these short runs. Canterbury's stations aren't that well situated either. I'd say that you have that sort of service once a day as a schools service, anyone that passed the 11plus had to attend grammar or technical high schools in Canterbury or Faversham, and there was at that time a special train from Herne Bay to Faversham for pupils at Faversham grammar
• If the third rail is present on the platform 1/2 side, and we assume the junction at Grove Ferry permits it (Grove Ferry station itself was closed in the 1960s btw) then another possibility is a Reculver-Grove Ferry-Minster-Sandwich-Deal-Dover Priory service

How does that all sound?

Great stuff, thank you! (I don't know why the "funny" reaction came up! Sorry about that!

I know the King Ethelbert pub well, at least I used to....

[Ray Von]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

I think Suder is a bit of a Del Boy; the business name just has that feel about it.

 

Maybe he periodically buys large consignments of army-surplus stuff, or bankrupt factory stock from "Up North", at auctions, has it shipped to Reculver, and then acts as a supplier to army-surplus emporia across North Kent.

 

So, maybe the odd van-load of musty old blankets and baggy green trousers every few months.

 

 

Love it! Thanks for the idea, I'm indebted to you for a great deal.

[Ray Von]

Time for a quick bit of summation, copy and pasting a lot of Whart57's ideas!

 

Platform 1, freight distribution - Zanussi and Suder's "varied" merchandise.  (Frequency?)

 

Platform 2, Reculver-Grove Ferry-Minster-Sandwich-Deal-Dover Priory plus Canterbury or Faversham (four car EMU an acceptable stretch?)

 

Platform 3 and 4, Peak hour services from platforms 3/4 to London Cannon Street via Strood made up of older compartment stock, plus a frequent service (EMU?) from platforms 3/4 to London Victoria. 

 

A further question, could platform one be used for passenger trains when there's no freight activity?

 

 

 

Edited February 14, 2021 by Ray Von

[C126]

6 minutes ago, Ray Von said:

Time for a quick bit of summation, copy and pasting a lot of Whart57's ideas!

...

Platform 2, Reculver-Grove Ferry-Minster-Sandwich-Deal-Dover Priory plus Canterbury or Faversham (four car EMU an acceptable stretch?)

...

 

Sorry to make things more boring for the sake of 'realism', and I stand to be corrected, but I think the service would be a simple shuttle to a junction at Grove Ferry and no further, for a change onto the train to Canterbury West.  In the late '70's, things were being run down, as the future was the motor-car.  The only occasion which springs to my mind (admittedly of limited knowledge) of a branch-line train going onto a larger station as it were is Seaford-Brighton, connecting at Lewes for the Hastings/Eastbourne-Victoria.

 

I am not sure why you would want pl.1 to be used for passengers; please could you elaborate?

[Nearholmer]

I think the shuttle goes to Canterbury, partly because Grove Ferry is shut, and partly because it’s only a short distance and gets to an actual destination. Provided it can do the circuit in an hour, there’s no saving by terminating short - just need a 2-Hap and crews. That bit of line wasn’t so busy that it would obstruct traffic.

 

Eridge-Tonbridge didn’t terminate at T W Central, and the Brighton-Portsmouth route had trains that dived-off to Littlehampton.

Edited February 14, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Rivercider]

1 hour ago, Ray Von said:

Time for a quick bit of summation, copy and pasting a lot of Whart57's ideas!

 

Platform 1, freight distribution - Zanussi and Suder's "varied" merchandise.  (Frequency?)

 

Platform 2, Reculver-Grove Ferry-Minster-Sandwich-Deal-Dover Priory plus Canterbury or Faversham (four car EMU an acceptable stretch?)

 

Platform 3 and 4, Peak hour services from platforms 3/4 to London Cannon Street via Strood made up of older compartment stock, plus a frequent service (EMU?) from platforms 3/4 to London Victoria. 

 

A further question, could platform one be used for passenger trains when there's no freight activity?

 

 

 

The passenger side of things in that part of the country is outside my expertise, but around 1980 although

the freight network was contracting there was still some variety at the tail end of the vacuum braked network, combined with the growth of Speedlink.

The last knockings of the vacuum braked network around 1980 mostly conveyed house coal, scrap, and cement. Sometimes around that date a yard was served MWFO by a vacuum braked train, and SX by an air braked Speedlink trip. (The SR was a fully fitted railway by then, so trains would be vacuum or air, not mixed).

As has been mentioned before by 1980 BR would probably no longer be carrying out cartage and cranage at a freight terminal, but other freight handling firms acted as  agents for BR handling a variety of traffic, sometimes in association with UKF fertiliser terminals.

 

EDIT - here is a photo at Bridgwater where M Thomas were the goods agents who handled the unloading of the weekly fertiliser train of palvans from Ince and Elton. Here the forklift is unloading VGAs of 1 tonne bags of adipic acid from ICI Wilton. They also handled steel wire, Showerings cider, glass bottles for Showerings, and fruit in ferry vans from the continent was also unloaded. 

 

Bridgwater UKF siding 9/8/83,

 

cheers

Edited February 14, 2021 by Rivercider

[Ray Von]

1 hour ago, C126 said:

 

Sorry to make things more boring for the sake of 'realism', and I stand to be corrected, but I think the service would be a simple shuttle to a junction at Grove Ferry and no further, for a change onto the train to Canterbury West.  In the late '70's, things were being run down, as the future was the motor-car.  The only occasion which springs to my mind (admittedly of limited knowledge) of a branch-line train going onto a larger station as it were is Seaford-Brighton, connecting at Lewes for the Hastings/Eastbourne-Victoria.

 

I am not sure why you would want pl.1 to be used for passengers; please could you elaborate?

Just thinking aloud really!  Thanks for that info though, very useful - googling 2-HAP in N Gauge as we speak...

[whart57]

18 hours ago, C126 said:

 

Sorry to make things more boring for the sake of 'realism', and I stand to be corrected, but I think the service would be a simple shuttle to a junction at Grove Ferry and no further, for a change onto the train to Canterbury West.  In the late '70's, things were being run down, as the future was the motor-car.  The only occasion which springs to my mind (admittedly of limited knowledge) of a branch-line train going onto a larger station as it were is Seaford-Brighton, connecting at Lewes for the Hastings/Eastbourne-Victoria.

 

I am not sure why you would want pl.1 to be used for passengers; please could you elaborate?

 

I would disagree. For one thing there is no station at Grove Ferry by this period so the shuttle would have to go all the way to Canterbury West. If there was a shuttle service it would more likely be to Minster. However the line going from Minster to Deal and Dover was also one that was off the everything to London model of everywhere else. So running to Reculver after Minster is not that bad an idea. The layout of the junction at Minster means that trains from Deal to Ramsgate either avoid the station or they have to reverse. I stand to be corrected but I thought the preferred route from Deal to London was via Dover Priory, but the trains doing that ran on to Ramsgate so they also served Sandwich. Minster was in the middle of nowhere which is why it was often by-passed, however it was the junction where you changed for a train to Canterbury (Ashford was reachable via Dover) so some Deal and Sandwich trains did go there. I think they terminated there, so it is not inconceivable that instead of terminating in a station by an empty field they ran on the extra few miles to a town

Edited February 15, 2021 by whart57

[whart57]

58 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 That bit of line wasn’t so busy that it would obstruct traffic.

 

 Only the traffic on the A28 (Canterbury-Margate) and A291 (Canterbury-Herne Bay) wanting to cross the level crossing at Sturry. Many's the time I was sat at the front of the No.6 bus seeing the signalman scoot down the steps of the box and thinking "will we get through before he starts swinging the gate?"

[Nearholmer]

12 minutes ago, Ray Von said:

N Gauge as we speak...

 

Is your layout N-gauge?

 

I thought it was 00. 

 

That conductor rail must have taken masses of effort to install!

[Ray Von]

6 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Is your layout N-gauge?

 

I thought it was 00. 

 

That conductor rail must have taken masses of effort to install!

It is and it was! That's a bit of a fib, I managed ok with some help from Blue-tak!

There's a blog here:

covering the layout from inception, up to what I did today...

If it were 00 it would be 12 feet in length, space I don't have.

 

 

[Ray Von]

All that remains is timetable....

 

[C126]

15 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I think the shuttle goes to Canterbury, partly because Grove Ferry is shut, and partly because it’s only a short distance and gets to an actual destination. Provided it can do the circuit in an hour, there’s no saving by terminating short - just need a 2-Hap and crews. That bit of line wasn’t so busy that it would obstruct traffic.

 

Eridge-Tonbridge didn’t terminate at T W Central, and the Brighton-Portsmouth route had trains that dived-off to Littlehampton.

 

14 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

I would disagree. For one thing there is no station at Grove Ferry by this period so the shuttle would have to go all the way to Canterbury West. If there was a shuttle service it would more likely be to Minster. However the line going from Minster to Deal and Dover was also one that was off the everything to London model of everywhere else. So running to Reculver after Minster is not that bad an idea. The layout of the junction at Minster means that trains from Deal to Ramsgate either avoid the station or they have to reverse. The trains that went onto London from Dover by-passed Minster so it isn't impossible to think that the stoppers serving Minster went onto Reculver to avoid that reversal.

 

Fair enough.  I was acting under the assumption Grove Ferry remained open, as a 'Barnham-style' junction station.  This was the example I was trying to remember.

[Ray Von]

ROUTE TAKEN QUERY-

Am I right in the assumption that the following list of stations would be the ones called at, given the time period of approximately 1976-1980?

 

Firstly (the one I'm the more sure of) trains from platforms 3 and 4 - to Cannon Street and Victoria:

 

Herne Bay

Chestfield & Swalecliffe

Whitstable

Faversham

Sittingbourne

Rainham

Gillingham

Chatham

Rochester

Strood

Gravesend

*At this point the modern timetables state Ebbsfleet International as the next stop, given the destinations from these platforms are Cannon Street and Victoria, what stations would be called at in the period?

 

Platform 2 (fictional line) to Canterbury West, calling at(?) - from which trains can proceed to Hastings via Ashford (I can look up the stations on these routes I think) and alternatively to:

 

Minster

Sandwich

Deal 

Walmer

Martin Mill

Dover Priory

 

I'm hammering out a timetable (of sorts!) and, as I've never attempted it before - I'd like to be as accurate as possible.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Ray Von

[whart57]

From the best of my memory, in your period the fast trains on the Kent Coast line (platform 3-4) would be:

 

 

Your peak hour trains to the City would likely be:

 

Reculver

Herne Bay

Chestfield & Swalecliffe

Whitstable

Faversham

Teynham

Sittingbourne

Newington

Rainham

Gillingham

Chatham

Rochester

Strood

Gravesend

Dartford

Erith

Belvedere

Woolwich Arsenal

Charlton

Blackheath

Lewisham

London Bridge

London Cannon Street

 

Not a fast service but if you worked in the City at the time it did at least land you near your office door and you wouldn't need the tube. That was before they all decamped to Canary Wharf of course.

 

The shuttle services from platform 1-2 would be:

 

Reculver

Sturry

Canterbury West

Chartham

Chilham

Wye

Ashford

 

I've added the last stations in italics as you don't have carriage stabling on your Reculver so your shuttle would have to start its day somewhere where there was, i.e. Ashford

 

Personally I think the Deal and Dover option is more likely. I've amended my earlier post to suggest that this was an extension from Minster of a train that terminated there. So that would be:

 

Reculver

Minster

Sandwich

Deal

Walmer

Martin Mill

Dover Priory

 

You mention Ashford-Hastings in various postings. I would say not. That line has never been electrified and as a result has always been run as a self-contained railway. Likewise there is no sensible routing to Canterbury East.

 

Does this help?

Edited February 15, 2021 by whart57

[Ray Von]

3 minutes ago, whart57 said:

From the best of my memory, in your period the fast trains on the Kent Coast line (platform 3-4) would be:

 

 

Your peak hour trains to the City would likely be:

 

Reculver

Herne Bay

Chestfield & Swalecliffe

Whitstable

Faversham

Teynham

Sittingbourne

Newington

Rainham

Gillingham

Chatham

Rochester

Gravesend

Dartford

Erith

Belvedere

Woolwich Arsenal

Charlton

Blackheath

Lewisham

London Bridge

London Cannon Street

 

Not a fast service but if you worked in the City at the time it did at least land you near your office door and you wouldn't need the tube. That was before they all decamped to Canary Wharf of course.

 

The shuttle services from platform 1-2 would be:

 

Reculver

Sturry

Canterbury West

Chartham

Chilham

Wye

Ashford

 

I've added the last stations in italics as you don't have carriage stabling on your Reculver so your shuttle would have to start its day somewhere where there was, i.e. Ashford

 

Personally I think the Deal and Dover option is more likely. I've amended my earlier post to suggest that this was an extension from Minster of a train that terminated there. So that would be:

 

Reculver

Minster

Sandwich

Deal

Walmer

Martin Mill

Kearsney

Dover Priory

 

You mention Ashford-Hastings in various postings. I would say not. That line has never been electrified and as a result has always been run as a self-contained railway. Likewise there is no sensible routing to Canterbury East.

 

Does this help?

Great, thank you! Food for thought there.  I was just considering removing Hastings from the equation (passengers could always change at Ashford for this service?) 

Thank you for the information on the London route too, that's a great help.

Just one point of clarification, re: stabling -

Your proposal was for a service to be stabled at Dover Priory, which would call at all stations to Minster and then (on a fictional line) up to my station?

I just wondered if that service couldn't carry on from Minster to Sturry and Canterbury West?

Cheers.