Staplehurst railway station is on 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 ...

in England, serving the village of

Staplehurst Staplehurst is a town and civil parish in the borough of Maidstone in Kent, England, south of the town of Maidstone and with a population of 6,003. The town lies on the route of a Roman road, which is now incorporated into the course of the A ...

, Kent. It is down the line from London Charing Cross . 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 opened in August 1842. It is well known for the

Staplehurst rail crash The Staplehurst rail crash was a derailment at Staplehurst, Kent, on 9 June 1865 at 3:13 pm. The South Eastern Railway Folkestone to London boat train derailed while crossing a viaduct where a length of track had been removed during eng ...

on 9 June 1865 on which

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

was a passenger.

History

The station was opened by the South Eastern Railway on 31 August 1842, when the line was extended from to . The platforms were widened in 1889. A footbridge over the platforms was installed in 1961, in preparation for the electrification of the South Eastern Main Line. A coal depot was established at Staplehurst in September 1965. All goods facilities were withdrawn on 4 October 1971.

Facilities

Staplehurst is located in the north of the urban area on the

A229 road A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...

which runs from Chatham to

Hastings Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...

via Maidstone. The ticket office is located on the London-bound platform 1. A passenger-operated self-service ticket machine is located next to the station. The station is used by commuters to London from Cranbrook,

Sissinghurst Sissinghurst is a small village in the borough of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. Originally called ''Milkhouse Street'' (also referred to as ''Mylkehouse''), Sissinghurst changed its name in the 1850s, possibly to avoid association with the smu ...

and

Hawkhurst Hawkhurst is village and civil parish in the borough of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. The village is located close to the border with East Sussex, around south-east of Royal Tunbridge Wells and within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Na ...

, which have no stations of their own. Arriva Southern Counties bus 5 links these three settlements to the station.

Services

All services at Staplehurst are operated by

using EMUs. The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is: * 2 tph to London Charing Cross * 1 tph to * 1 tph to via During the peak hours, there are additional services to and from London Cannon Street and the service to Dover Priory is extended to and from Ramsgate via .

Incidents

The stretch of line near the station which crosses the

River Beult The River Beult ( ) is a tributary of the River Medway in South East England. Course The Beult has several sources west of Ashford, including one at Woodchurch. It then flows through Headcorn. At Hunton, above Yalding, it is joined by the ...

was the site of a fatal train accident on 9 June 1865, which killed ten people and injured forty. This accident is well known in literary circles as

was on the stricken train and survived. The accident left Dickens very anxious about rail travel. On 21 January 1960, the up platform buildings were destroyed by fire. They were replaced by a modern construction. On 14 September 1996, a train derailed at the station. The cause of the accident was excess speed.

References

Citations Sources * * *

External links

Signal box diagrams for 1950 and 1962
{{coord, 51.171, N, 0.550, E, type:railwaystation_region:GB, display=title Borough of Maidstone Railway stations in Kent DfT Category C2 stations Former South Eastern Railway (UK) stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1842 Railway stations served by Southeastern