Folkestone East is a former railway station in

Folkestone Folkestone ( ) is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20 ...

, England. Opened by the South Eastern Railway in 1843 as part of its main line from London, it was Folkestone's first station and handled substantial

boat train A boat train is a passenger train operating to a port for the specific purpose of making connection with a passenger ship, such as a ferry, ocean liner, or cruise ship. Through ticketing is normally available. __NOTOC__ Notable named boat trains ...

traffic travelling to

the Continent Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...

via Folkestone Harbour. Passenger traffic declined in later years with the opening of other more convenient stations in the town and the station eventually closed in 1965.

History

The South Eastern Railway (SER) opened the first permanent railway station in Folkestone in December 1843. Constructed high above the shore at the rear of the town, it was initially named ''Folkestone'' and replaced a temporary station built to the west pending the construction of Sir William Cubitt's 19-arch Foord viaduct. To the north of the station, the SER constructed a branch line to Folkestone Harbour which the railway company had purchased earlier the same year. The branch had no direct connection with the main line and instead trailed into a

siding Siding may refer to: * Siding (construction), the outer covering or cladding of a house * Siding (rail) A siding, in rail terminology, is a low-speed track section distinct from a running line or through route such as a main line, branch ...

near Folkestone station requiring trains to reverse in order to join the main line; this arrangement (which once existed at

Tonbridge Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated populati ...

) was a safety measure as the line to the harbour descends on an incline of 1 in 30 for . Until the harbour was provided with its own

Harbour station TD Station, formerly known as Harbour Station, is an arena located in the uptown area of Saint John, New Brunswick. The arena is the home of the Saint John Sea Dogs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. It was once the home of the American Ho ...

in 1849, the SER's first station handled all the passenger traffic for both the town and the harbour, including the

traffic from Folkestone to

Boulogne Boulogne-sur-Mer (; pcd, Boulonne-su-Mér; nl, Bonen; la, Gesoriacum or ''Bononia''), often called just Boulogne (, ), is a coastal city in Northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department of Pas-de-Calais. Boulogne lies on the ...

which was said to have carried over 20,000 people in the short space of five months. Eight trains each way ran per day, the fastest trains covering the from

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

in 3 hours, 5 minutes at an average speed of . Following the opening of the Harbour station, Folkestone station was renamed ''Folkestone Old'' and then ''Folkestone Junction'' in recognition of its status at the head of an important branch leading to the now busy port. The opening of Folkestone Harbour took away all of the boat-train traffic and much of the town traffic from Folkestone Junction, the remainder being lost with the opening of Shorncliffe Camp (now known as Folkestone West) in 1863. Goods traffic became the most important business at Folkestone Junction and extensive goods facilities were provided in the 1890s on the former site of the line's coking ovens which had become redundant when the perfection of coal-burning techniques put an end to the production of coke for locomotives. A

shed A shed is typically a simple, single-story roofed structure that is used for hobby, hobbies, or as a workshop in a back garden or on an allotment (gardening), allotment. Sheds vary considerably in their size and complexity of construction, fr ...

was established on the down side of Folkestone Junction where a small stud of locomotives was kept to help services travelling to the harbour gather the necessary momentum to climb the 1 in 30 incline on the harbour branch. The shed closed in 1961 with the introduction of electric traction on the line. In September 1962, Shorncliffe was renamed ''Folkestone West'' and Folkestone Junction became ''Folkestone East''. The station closed to passengers three years later.

Present and future

All the original station buildings dating from 1844 were demolished shortly after the station closing. A short length of the down platform remained outside the

signal box In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

and was retained for use by staff. As at March 2017 most of the up platform was still in situ. Various schemes for the re-use of the remaining land at Folkestone East have been proposed, from the site of a new depot, sidings for stabling and maintaining

CTRL In computing, a Control key is a modifier key which, when pressed in conjunction with another key, performs a special operation (for example, ); similar to the Shift key, the Control key rarely performs any function when pressed by itself. ...

services and a new passenger station. The site of the former goods yard was offered for sale in January 2008.

References

External links

List of persons living at the station in 1861
{{Closed stations Kent Disused railway stations in Kent Former South Eastern Railway (UK) stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1843 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1965 Folkestone 1843 establishments in England 1965 disestablishments in England