Ramsgate Town railway station is a former railway station in

Ramsgate Ramsgate is a seaside resort, seaside town in the district of Thanet District, Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century. In 2001 it had a population of about 40,000. In 2011, according to t ...

, in the

Thanet Thanet may refer to: *Isle of Thanet, a former island, now a peninsula, at the most easterly point of Kent, England *Thanet District, a local government district containing the island *Thanet College, former name of East Kent College *Thanet Canal, ...

district of

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. It was the seaside resort's first station, but was closed in 1926 when a new, more direct railway line bypassed it and the town's other station,

Ramsgate Harbour The Port of Ramsgate (also known as Port Ramsgate, Ramsgate Harbour, and Royal Harbour, Ramsgate) is a harbour situated in Ramsgate, south-east England, serving cross-Channel freight traffic and smaller working and pleasure craft. It is owned ...

History

Ramsgate developed as one of

South East England South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the ITL 1 statistical regions of England, first level of International Territorial Level, ITL for Statistics, statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of england, ...

's main seaside resorts in the 19th century. It became a natural target during the "

Railway Mania Railway Mania was an instance of a stock market bubble in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the 1840s. It followed a common pattern: as the price of railway shares increased, speculators invested more money, which further incre ...

" period of the 1840s, and the South Eastern Railway company was the first to reach it when it built a route which branched off from the

South Eastern Main Line The South Eastern Main Line is a major long-distance railway route in South East England, UK, one of the three main routes crossing the county of Kent, going via Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Ashford and Folkestone to Dover. The other routes are the C ...

at Ashford. This reached

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...

on 6 February 1846 and Ramsgate on 13 April of that year. Ramsgate station, as it was then called, was built as a

terminus station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing such ...

: when a further extension was built to Margate Sands station on 1 December 1846, trains had to reverse at Ramsgate to continue their journey. Ramsgate Harbour station opened on 5 October 1863; it was much closer to the seafront and the town centre than the Town station. Both stations bore the name Ramsgate until 1871; the Harbour station was then renamed Ramsgate & St Lawrence-on-Sea. On 1 July 1899, it became Ramsgate Harbour, and Ramsgate was renamed Ramsgate Town. The Southern Railway company took over the South Eastern Railway's operations on 1 January 1923 as a result of the

Grouping Act The Railways Act 1921 (c. 55), also known as the Grouping Act, was an Act of Parliament enacted by the British government and intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, by "grouping" them into four la ...

. On 2 July 1926, it opened a new line, long, to connect the previously separate routes to the Town and Harbour stations. The route bypassed both stations, and two new stations— Dumpton Park and

—were built on it to serve the town. From that date, the section of line between the new junction and Ramsgate Town station, and the station itself, were closed. The station was demolished immediately after closure and the site of the station is now covered by housing development, erasing all trace of the railway. A stub end of the line remains as two carriage sidings adjacent to the south of the present station terminating at Wilfred Road. The route of the line to Ramsgate Town station lies about where Station Approach Road has now been built. The station stood on the west side of Margate Road, at what is now the junction with Station Approach Road.

Accidents and incidents

*On 11 August 1858, a passenger train collided with the buffers. Twenty people were injured. *On 11 March 1913, a passenger train failed to stop at the station. It pushed a van through the buffer stops. Ten people were injured. The accident was caused by the failure to connect the brake pipe between the locomotive and its train.

References

Notes

Bibliography

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External links

1872 map of the neighbourhood of the station
{{Closed stations Kent Ramsgate Disused railway stations in Kent Former South Eastern Railway (UK) stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1846 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1926 1846 establishments in England