South Eastern Railway (UK)

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For the railway in India, see South Eastern Railway (India)
The South Eastern Railway's crest
The South Eastern Railway's crest
The South Eastern Railway's former headquarters in Tooley Street, London, near London Bridge station.
The South Eastern Railway's former headquarters in Tooley Street, London, near London Bridge station.
Railways in the South East of England in 1840
Railways in the South East of England in 1840
Railway lines in Kent, SER lines can be seen alongside LCDR, LBSCR, etc lines
Railway lines in Kent, SER lines can be seen alongside LCDR, LBSCR, etc lines

South Eastern Railway (SER) was a railway company in the United Kingdom, which linked London with Kent.

The company was formed from the London and Greenwich Railway (LGR) and the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway (CWR). At Bermondsey there was a junction for the London & Croydon Railway, opened in 1839.

Contents

[edit] London & Greenwich Railway

The LGR opened its first section, between Spa Road (Bermondsey) and Deptford, on 8 February 1836, the line being extended westwards to London Bridge on 14 December 1836, and eastwards to a temporary station at Greenwich on 14 December 1838. The present Greenwich station opened in 1840. This was the terminus until 1878, when the final cut-and-cover tunnel section between Greenwich and Maze Hill (beneath the grounds of the Queen's House and Greenwich Hospital - where the graveyard was excavated, remains being reinterred in East Greenwich Pleasaunce approximately one mile to the east) was opened, linking it to the North Kent Line just west of Charlton. The section between Charlton and Maze Hill opened in 1873, with Maze Hill functioning as a terminus until 1878. Westcombe Park railway station opened in 1879.[1]

The layout of Greenwich station still partly betrays that fact. The line from London, built on a continuous viaduct, is perfectly straight, but after Greenwich it makes a sharp turn and dips into a tunnel. There also used to be a space between the two tracks for the locomotive 'escape route' to reverse the trains, but this disappeared when the station was reorganised to accommodate the Docklands Light Railway.

[edit] Canterbury & Whitstable Railway

Main article: Canterbury and Whitstable Railway

The CWR (known locally as the Crab and Winkle Line, from its initials and fact that Whitstable was a fishing port) opened on 3 May 1830 between Canterbury and Whitstable Harbour, a distance of six miles. It was the first regular passenger steam railway in the world. It was built as part of a plan to improve the access of the city of Canterbury to the sea,and involved much work improving Whitstable harbour, engineered by Thomas Telford, which opened in 1832 and is still essentially intact. In its early days it employed a variety of means of traction: on the inclines at Tyler Hill and Clowes Wood winding engines were used, with horses on the section in between; and the locomotive Invicta - built by Robert Stephenson, unsuccessful and disused by 1839 - being employed at the Whitstable end. In spite of its short life, Invicta has been preserved.

The line included the world's first passenger train tunnel, the 800-yard Tyler Hill Tunnel, and both its portals are still visible. One entrance is behind the University of Kent, and the other in the grounds of the Archbishop's School. Until the 1970s it was possible to walk through it, but it became unsafe and collapsed shortly after, causing structural damage to the university buildings above.

Normal steam engines were introduced on this line in 1846 halving the journey time to 20 minutes. The engines had to be specially cut down in size in order to get through the tunnel, and the carriages were lower than normal.

The line closed to passenger traffic on 1 January 1931, and entirely in 1953. The site of the first Canterbury station was immediately to the east of Canterbury West station and for many years was used as a coal yard and goods station. Trains ran into a bay platform at the West station when that opened in 1846.

[edit] The Main Line

Main article: South Eastern Main Line

The SER original main line was given sanction by Act of Parliament in 1836, running from London Bridge via Redhill, Tonbridge, Maidstone and Ashford to Folkestone and Dover. This circuitous route was the result of insistence on the part of Parliament that only one southerly route out of the capital was necessary; since the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway already had a line through Redhill, the SER perforce had to follow it. This ignored the fact that the main London - Dover road had, since ancient times, followed a much more direct route, and the fact that the other great railway building projects took direct routes whenever feasible. A train passenger to Dover had a journey 20 miles longer than by stagecoach.

The main line reached Ashford on 1 December 1842; the outskirts of Folkestone by 28 June 1843; and Dover by 7 February 1844. Their locomotive works was built in 1845, moving from New Cross in London.

As a result of competition with the LCDR (who had constructed the more direct Chatham Main Line and Maidstone East Line (to Sevenoaks, Canterbury, Dover, Ramsgate, Ashford and Maidstone), the SER built a very expensive cut-off line through the North Downs via Sevenoaks and Orpington (see below). Some services continued to use the Redhill to Tonbridge Line to access the Brighton Main Line.

[edit] Branch lines

The SER system spread out, opening branch lines to connect with major towns along its route.

[edit] Dates of opening

[edit] Locomotive Superintendents/Chief Mechanical Engineers

[edit] The SER and other railways

[edit] The SER and the LCDR

By 1853 the SER had almost completed a network of lines encompassing mid-Kent, though much of the North Kent coast was still not served by rail. In 1853 the East Kent Railway was incorporated; by various amalgamations and using running powers it gained access to the new Victoria station. Other extensions brought the railway to Dover and Ramsgate and it changed its name to the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR) in 1859.

The LCDR had a much more direct access to London than the SER, and it was imperative to the SER that this situation was improved. The direct line via Sevenoaks to Tonbridge was therefore constructed by the SER. It involved huge earthworks, crossing the North Downs by means of summits and long tunnels at both Knockholt and Sevenoaks. The latter was the longest tunnel in southern England at one mile, 1691 yards. This cut-off line, 24 miles long, reached Chislehurst on 1 July 1865, and took three more years to reach Orpington and Sevenoaks (2 March 1868) and Tonbridge (1 May 1868).

Many of the LCDR's lines served towns already served by the SER. Ashford, Chatham, Dover, Gravesend, Margate, Ramsgate, Rochester, Sevenoaks and Whitstable's second stations have subsequently been eliminated but Bromley, Canterbury and Maidstone still have more than one station.

The LCDR was always in financial difficulties, and for years the amalgamation of the two Kent routes was mooted. On 1 January 1899 this was achieved when the two companies joined for working under a Management Committee. On 5 August 1899 the South Eastern and London, Chatham and Dover Railway Companies Act was passed, which resulted in the formation of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway.

[edit] The SER and the LBSCR

The relationship with the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR) was often bitter - sometimes almost all-out war. The main sites of that war were in London, Redhill and Hastings, the three locations where the two railway companies met.

In London, at both London Bridge and Victoria the rivalry between the two companies came to such a head that both stations even today show the existence of two separate stations at each location, with a wall between them. At Redhill the two companies' stations were placed at an inconvenient distance for passenger exchange; when a new station was built, the SER gave preference to its own trains through the station. This led the LBSCR to build the Quarry Line, avoiding Redhill altogether. At Hastings, where they joined for the final section through the town, the troubles were even more direct. In their desire to secure the business, the SER was determined to keep the LBSCR out. The latter had opened its line from Brighton on 13 February 1851, connecting with the SER at Bo-peep Junction. After preventing some Brighton trains from passing the junction, the SER blocked in at Hastings those that had and removed track at the junction, putting up barriers to stop the LBSCR coach link from operating. An LBSCR injunction eventually put matters to rights, but until the 1923 amalgamation relations were still bitter.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://rail.felgall.com/ser.htm SER Lines and Stations

[edit] Publications

  • (1912) The Railway Year Book for 1912. The Railway Publishing Company Ltd. 
  • Nock, O.S. (1961). The South Eastern and Chatham Railway. Ian Allan Ltd. 
  • S.G.McRae, C.P. Burnham et al (1973). The Rural Landscape of Kent. Wye College. 
  • Body, Geoffrey (1984). Railways of the Southern Region. Patrick Stephens Ltd. 
  • Gray, Adrian (1985). The London, Chatham & Dover Railway. Meresborough Books. 
  • Gray, Adrian (1990). The South Eastern Railway. Middleton Press. 
  • Gray, Adrian (1995). The South Eastern & Chatham Railways. Middleton Press. 

[edit] See also

[edit] External links


The "Big Four" pre-nationalisation British railway companies
v • d • e

█ Great Western • █ London Midland & Scottish • █ London & North Eastern • █ Southern

GWR constituents: Great Western Railway • Cambrian Railways • Taff Vale Railway
Barry Railway • Rhymney Railway • (Full list)
LNER constituents: Great Central • Great Eastern • Great Northern • Great North of Scotland
Hull & Barnsley • North British • North Eastern • (Full list)
LMS constituents: Caledonian • Furness • Glasgow & South Western • Highland
Lancashire & Yorkshire • London and North Western • Midland • North Staffordshire • (Full list)
SR constituents: London and South Western Railway • London, Brighton and South Coast Railway
South Eastern Railway • London, Chatham and Dover Railway • (Full list)

See also: History of rail transport in Great Britain 1923 - 1947 • List of companies involved in the grouping