Two pieces of local news may have an impact on the Heart of Kent Line proposals. Firstly, Arriva have terminated most buses on route 6 at East Peckham, rather than continuing as previously to Wateringbury and Maidstone. Only a few services for school children will continue to the county town. There is therefore no direct… Continue reading Number 6 bus routes and plans for Tunbridge Wells town centre

For two days, and for entirely unrelated reasons, the main lines from Kent to London have been in a state of chaos. On Monday it appears that freezing fog caused trains to fail at Tonbridge and Dunton Green, delaying many services by more than an hour. Today a freight train derailed just south of Lewisham… Continue reading Chaos shows the need to grow our railway – 24th January 2017

Although the focus of this site is on the construction of new stretches of railway line between Tunbridge Wells and Paddock Wood and at Strood, the existing Medway Valley route is worth looking at in light of changes to the population in the years since the line was built (between 1844 and 1856). This used… Continue reading Allington Station

  One of the key points in the scheme is Paddock Wood. Here the existing Medway Valley line runs into a bay platform and connects with the Tonbridge – Ashford route. The existing connection is inadequate for the increased volume of traffic expected here as all Maidstone to Tonbridge services are forced to run ‘wrong… Continue reading How would Paddock Wood change?

One of the most important advantages of this railway scheme will be that Pembury is connected to the national railway network for the first time. The map above gives an approximate alignment of the railway. This emerges from a tunnel (on the left) and passes underneath the A21 London – Hastings road, followed shortly by another… Continue reading Pembury’s opportunity

Having demonstrated that there is just enough room to squeeze two tracks and their associated platforms through the centre of Tunbridge Wells, it is time to show how the new and the old fit together. It will be clear that the above diagram is illustrative only and is not to scale. Due to the problems… Continue reading Around the Tunbridge Wells area

How can more trains run through Tunbridge Wells when the existing two platforms are at capacity? Almost four million people a year use the station to travel towards either Tonbridge, Sevenoaks and London or to Hastings. It takes little for services at this location to grind to a standstill. A few hundred metres to the south, the situation is… Continue reading Going underground – two new platforms for Tunbridge Wells

For clarity, aspects of the scheme will appear at regular intervals once I have written them. I’ll include some nice pictures too!

What is this blog all about? Simply put, the South-East of England is one of many areas in which the railway system, planned by the Victorians to mainly move freight, cannot meet all of the demands of the Twenty-First Century. Society has become more mobile, populations of cities, towns and villages have increased and when we… Continue reading Welcome to the Heart of Kent Line