The Kent History Forum
Travel and Transport => Railways => Topic started by: Sphene on August 23, 2023, 12:36:00 PM
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Installed in the mid-noughties, there is a section of railway track built underneath a roundabout that was created. Unconnected to the mainline it has sat unused for almost 20 years.
Does anyone happen to know its intended purpose?
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This might have something to do with it.
https://democracy.kent.gov.uk/Data/Planning%20Applications%20Committee/20030318/Agenda/$Item%20C4%20-%20Medway%20Cement%20Works%20Snodland.doc.pdf
Clicking on the link doesn't work for some reason, you have to highlight it and then select Go to.
Looks like it never went ahead.
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I think the funny little bit of road, almost like a hammerhead turning point, behind the Costa is the "A gated private service road connection would also be made to the Christian Salvesen access road." (¶10). For "Christian Salvesen" throughout the document read "Swegon" and "Must Have Ideas". ¶8 and ¶9 give details of the scheme, sidings along side the track and a single track branching off under Peter's Bridge roundabout before becoming a double track loop line. Very interesting.
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If you follow the general direction of the hammerhead road to the left, you will notice a very straight line, which is the old tramway that served the cement & lime works at the SE of Halling.
In the mid 70s my girlfriend, now long suffering wife, kept her horse in some rather makeshift stables up that track. We would walk the horse and a companion, usually a shetland called Captain Pugwash (Puggy) down the track and across the road to some grazing between the A228 and the cement works. I got the Shetland, just like walking a grumpy dog - think Thelwell!
There was a farm house, Whittings Farm, set back slightly from the road on the west side. This was a victim of the building of the new road and for some time one of my Service Engineers rented it cheaply as the future was not rosy.
The old maps at nls maps, look under Snodland, the 25inch show the detail of the extensive tramway and works sidings.
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I've been looking at the 25" overlaid on the modern view: https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16.8&lat=51.34245&lon=0.44372&layers=168&b=1 (https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16.8&lat=51.34245&lon=0.44372&layers=168&b=1) and note a few points:
- Whitting's Farm is still there, it appears to house two outfits: "Station Cabs" and "Fitted Doors - Kitchen Transformations"
- The hammer head I was referring to was at 51°20'25.5"N 0°26'48.4"E between the A228 and the railway, south of Peter's Bridge. I think you are referring to the loop road at the roundabout.
- The line of the old tramway does indeed align with the loop, just as you say, and crosses the southern edge of the roundabout whereas the proposed line (and its isolated segment) crosses the centre.
- The tramway didn't make a connection (at least not before 1895) with the North Kent Line, whereas the 2003 proposal that Smiffy found and Sphene spotted was explicitly designed to join the main line and not go beyond.
Ah Thelwell! A man who could make a fringe on girl or pony speak volumes.