South Eastern Main Line
The South Eastern Main Line is a major long-distance railway route in South East England, UK, one of the three main routes crossing the county of Kent, going via Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Ashford and Folkestone to Dover. The other routes are the Chatham Main Line which runs along the north Kent coast to Ramsgate or Dover via Chatham and High Speed 1 which runs through the centre of Kent to the coast at Folkestone where it joins the Channel Tunnel.
History
Construction
The line was built by the South Eastern Railway, which was in competition with the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, hence the duplication of routes in Kent.The original main line was given sanction by act of Parliament, the South Eastern Railway Act 1836. The route first authorised was from via Oxted, Tunbridge, Maidstone, Ashford and Folkestone. The route was to make use of the existing London and Croydon Railway and London and Greenwich Railway companies' tracks. The did not have much spare capital. As a cost-cutting measure, authorisation was secured in 1837 to make the junction with the London and Croydon Railway at Norwood, Surrey instead of at Corbett's Lane. However, the London and Brighton Railway was authorised to build from Norwood southwards in 1847. Parliament suggested that further savings could be made by avoiding having lines running in parallel valleys for if the were to make its junction further south. The London and Brighton were to construct the line, and the were to purchase it at cost on completion. Both companies would operate trains over the route. The London and Brighton took advantage of this to ensure that gradients would be kept as shallow as possible, even at the expense of substantial earthworks and a mile-long tunnel at Merstham. The main line diverged from the London and Brighton's line at Reigate Junction, which the London and Brighton opened to traffic on 12 July 1841.
Leaving the Brighton line, the railway took a direct route to Folkestone; plans to serve Maidstone were abandoned. A branch line was to be built from Maidstone Road instead. The line was almost direct between Redhill and Ashford, not deviating by more than in either direction. The engineer was Sir William Cubitt. To facilitate fast running,, Maidstone Road and Ashford stations were built with through roads. station was to be rebuilt on a similar plan in 1924. Construction began in November 1837 from Reigate Junction eastwards, and in both directions from Tunbridge. The line from London Bridge to Tunbridge opened on 26 May 1842. The line between Tonbridge and Ashford opened on 1 December 1842.
East Kent
No major engineering works were needed until Folkestone was reached, where a high viaduct was needed to cross the Foord Gap. A temporary station was provided at Folkestone, which opened on 28 June 1843. With the completion of the viaduct, Folkestone station opened on 18 December 1843. East of Folkestone, a hard gault ridge was bored through by the Martello Tunnel, which took its name from a nearby Martello Tower. Between Folkestone and Dover, there were three headlands, Abbott's Cliff, Round Down Cliff and Shakespeare's Cliff. The first and last were of sound chalk, but Round Down Cliff's chalk was of a different character, and was found to be unstable. Cubitt sought the advice of Lieutenant Hutchinson, Royal Engineers, who had experience in using dynamite in the clearing of the wreck of in 1840. It was decided to blow the cliff away over a distance of. On 18 January 1843, a total of of gunpowder was used in three charges to blow away the cliff face. An estimated 1,000,000 tons of chalk was dislodged. As the chalk in Shakespeare's Cliff was not as strong as that of Abbot's Cliff, two single line tunnels were bored. East of Shakespeare Tunnel, a low trestle bridge was built across the beach to gain access to Dover. The line between Folkestone and Dover opened on 7 February 1844.In 1843, permission was obtained to build the branch line from Paddock Wood to Maidstone. It opened on 25 September 1844. In May 1844, permission was gained to build a railway from Ashford to the Isle of Thanet, serving both Margate and Ramsgate. The line opened as far as Canterbury on 6 February 1846. In 1845, permission was obtained to build a branch line to Tunbridge Wells. This line opened on 19 September 1845, and was extended to, East Sussex in 1852. Also in that year, permission was obtained to build a railway from Ashford to Hastings, which opened on 13 February 1851. Tunbridge station was renamed Tunbridge Junction on 1 February 1852.
Both Dover and Folkestone provided access to the English Channel, and thus to the French ports of Calais and Boulogne. At Folkestone, the Pent Brook stream that ran through the Foord Gap had built up a spit of shingle, which acted as a breakwater and provided an anchorage. The built a steeply-graded branch line to the harbour, with a reversal required to reach it. It opened to freight in 1843. Passengers were transferred from Folkestone station to the harbour by bus, with mail and freight going by rail. A swing bridge was constructed in 1847, and station opened in 1850. Ships could berth at any state of the tide. The started a cross-channel steamship service to Boulogne. At Dover, the River Dour had formed a shingle spit and thus a small harbour which required constant dredging to keep open. Cross-Channel traffic was operated by Admiralty ships to Calais. Neither French port was connected by railway at the time. The partly financed the construction of the Boulogne & Amiens Railway, which opened in 1848. Calais was reached by rail in that year. Larger and larger ships were built for the cross-Channel service; these could use Folkestone Harbour only at high tide in the 1860s whilst the pier was extended. Trains connecting with cross-Channel ships thus ran according to the state of the tide, not to a fixed timetable. This was a factor in a serious accident at Staplehurst on 9 June 1865.
The development of Dover Harbour was largely out of 's hands. The harbour itself was under the control of the Harbour Commissioners, who were deputies of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Other land that might be developed was in the hands of the Admiralty. Dover Corporation had no influence over either body. They were forced to watch the development of Folkestone as a port whilst little was done to improve things in what was the premier of the Cinque Ports. As far back as the reign of Elizabeth I, there had been plans to build a breakwater at Dover. In 1836, a parliamentary inquiry was set up, and eventually construction of a breakwater was begun in 1847. The Admiralty Pier was to be wide enough for two railway lines to be accommodated. In use by 1864, the pier was completed in 1871. Another problem was a lack of decent hotel accommodation in Dover. The Harbour Commissioners had sold the a parcel of land on which the station was built. The wanted to build the hotel at a position where it would serve both cross-channel and local traffic. They approached the Harbour Commissioners for permission to buy the desired site, but were refused on the grounds that they had not built on land they had previously purchased. Thus the Lord Warden Hotel was built, opening in 1851. Through the 1850s, Folkestone saw more traffic than Dover, although the latter port was growing at a faster rate.
Further connections
In 1857, a new direct connection was put in at Tunbridge Junction, enabling trains to reach Hastings without reversing. The station at Tonbridge was rebuilt on a new site just west of the original. The built their line to Dover, which opened in 1861, providing a route to London that was shorter that the line via. In May 1862, authorisation was obtained to construct a new railway from, London to Tonbridge, which reduced the distance from London to Tonbridge and points east by about. Construction of the tunnels was well supervised by the, for it had been discovered by then that the contractors who had built the tunnels on the Hastings line had skimped on the construction by using an insufficient number of rings of bricks to line the tunnels. Rectification resulted in a restricted loading gauge on that line, a situation that was to last until 1986. This "cut-off" line, in length, reached on 1 July 1865. This station was replaced with a new one further south, which opened on 2 March 1868 when the line was extended to and. The line between Sevenoaks and Tonbridge opened to freight in February 1868, and to passengers on 1 May 1868. Sevenoaks Tunnel took five years to build, from 1863 to 1868, It is long. On opening, it was the fifth longest railway tunnel in the United Kingdom. This new line meant that the old main line from Redhill was relegated to branch line status.In 1872, construction began on a branch line from to, near Folkestone. Proposals to extend this, or to build a line from Shorncliffe which would have passed under the Foord Gap Viaduct, to Folkestone Harbour, were defeated by local opposition. Much of the land required was owned by the Earl of Radnor, who was opposed to the schemes. In 1881, powers were obtained to build the Elham Valley Railway. It opened between Canterbury and Shorncliffe in 1889, stopping the from building its rival scheme, to which there was much opposition amongst the residents of Folkestone. The line opened in 1889. On the main line, two stations were built west of Folkestone: and, which replaced the earlier station. Cheriton Arch opened on 1 September 1884. The new Shorncliffe Camp opened a month later, on 1 October.
The reached Ashford in 1884 from via. They built their own station,. It was not until 1 November 1891 that a connection was made between the two lines. On 1 October 1892, the Cranbrook and Paddock Wood Railway opened their branch from Paddock Wood to. It was extended to on 4 September 1893. In 1905, the Kent and East Sussex Railway extended their line from to Headcorn. A junction was built just east of the station. In 1910, work began on the construction of station, groundwork for which was to take three years to complete. The station opened on 2 January 1915 for ambulance trains.