Birchington-on-Sea railway station is on the

Chatham Main Line The Chatham Main Line is a railway line in England that links London VictoriaQuail Map 5 – England South ages 2–13Sept 2002 (Retrieved 14 December 2011) and Dover Priory / Ramsgate, travelling via Medway (of which the town of Chatham is ...

in England, serving the village of

Birchington-on-Sea Birchington-on-Sea is a village#United Kingdom, village in the Thanet District, Thanet district in Kent, England, with a population of 9,961. The village forms part of the civil parish of Birchington. It lies on the coast facing the North Sea ...

, Kent. It is down the line from and is situated between and . The station and all trains that serve the station are operated by

Southeastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

. The station is located at one end of the high street and a short distance from the village square. Buses operate from the station to

Minnis Bay Birchington-on-Sea is a village in the Thanet district in Kent, England, with a population of 9,961. The village forms part of the civil parish of Birchington. It lies on the coast facing the North Sea, east of the Thames Estuary, between the ...

and

Margate Margate is a seaside resort, seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. The town is estimated to be 1.5 miles long, north-east of Canterbury and includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay, UK, Palm Bay and Westbrook, Kent, ...

on weekdays during peak hours; at other times buses can be caught from the village square.

History

The station was opened on 5 October 1863 by the Kent Coast Railway (KCR). The KCR was operated by the

London, Chatham & Dover Railway The London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR or LC&DR) was a railway company in south-eastern England created on 1 August 1859, when the East Kent Railway was given parliamentary approval to change its name. Its lines ran through London and nor ...

(LCDR), which absorbed the KCR on 1 July 1871, and the station was renamed ''Birchington-on-Sea'' by the LCDR in October 1878. From the start of 1899, the LCDR's services were operated by the newly formed

South Eastern & Chatham Railway The South Eastern and Chatham Railway Companies Joint Management Committee (SE&CRCJMC),Awdry (1990), page 199 known as the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SE&CR), was a working union of two neighbouring rival railways, the South Easte ...

, which the LCDR co-owned with the South Eastern Railway (SER). At the start of 1923, the LCDR amalgamated with other railways (including the SER) to form the Southern Railway. Two ''Pullman''

camping coach Camping coaches were holiday accommodation offered by many railway companies in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland from the 1930s. The coaches were old passenger vehicles no longer suitable for use in trains, which were converted to ...

es were positioned here by the Southern Region from 1963 to 1967. A small goods yard was situated on the Up London bound side of the station which closed in the 1970s and operated by the signalbox located midway on the down platform closed about the same time during a resignalling programme. The wire and rod cutout can still be seen within the brick face of the down platform. The 2007 Budget plan of

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

allows for the removal of the remaining manual turnround and it is believed short residual siding occasionally used for storing tamping track maintenance units, 'tampers'. Birchington-on-Sea Station 1800741 37d2e5ec

Birchington-on-Sea Station 1800741 37d2e5ec

A junction existed to the west of the station to serve RAF Manston until the 1930s operated from a Ground Frame Birchington B located some upside of the station - a plan of which can be seen in the

RAF Manston Royal Air Force Manston or more simply RAF Manston is a former Royal Air Force station located in the north-east of Kent, at on the Isle of Thanet from 1916 until 1996. The site was split between a commercial airport Kent International Airpor ...

Museum.

Services

All services at Birchington-on-Sea are operated by

using and

EMUs Emus may refer to: * Emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the g ...

. The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is: * 1 tph to

London St Pancras International St Pancras railway station (), also known as London St Pancras or St Pancras International and officially since 2007 as London St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden. It is ...

* 1 tph to * 2 tph to Additional services including trains to and from and

London Cannon Street Cannon Street station, also known as London Cannon Street, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in Travelcard zone 1 located on Cannon Street in the City of London and managed by Network Rail. It is ...

call at the station in the peak hours.

References

External links

{{TSGN and SE Stations, Chatham=y, High Speed=y, FCC None=y, SN None=y Thanet Railway stations in Kent DfT Category E stations Former London, Chatham and Dover Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1863 Railway stations served by Southeastern