Proposed new railway (1872)

Post date: Aug 05, 2012 11:21:2 AM

Extract from Dover Express 22 November 1872:

The South-Eastern Railway Company intend apply to Parliament next session for leave to bring in a bill construct ........... (4), a railway to commence by a junction with the line near Sevenoaks. and pass thence through Tunbridge, Leigh, Seal, Shipbourne, Hadlow, West and East Peckham, and Nettlestead, terminating in latter parish by junction with the Paddock Wood and Maidstone line, near Wateringbury station.

The following is a summary from page 89 of Adrian Gray's book "The London, Chatham and Dover Railway" (LCDR).

In 1872 hostilities broke out over the question of lines to Maidstone. The Sevenoaks, Maidstone and Tonbridge Railway (SMTR) had received an act of Parliament to complete the Otford to Maidstone line (abandoned in 1866).

The South Eastern Railway (SER) served Maidstone via Strood or Paddock Wood on the Medway Valley line (through Wateringbury) so it found prospect of competition over the shorter SMTR line very threatening. In 1873 SER therefore planned a new line from Sevenoaks to Wateringbury which roused the fury of the LCDR. But a truce was arranged and the line never built.