Swale railway station is in north

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, on the Sheerness Line from , at the southern end of the

Kingsferry Bridge The Kingsferry Bridge is a combined road and railway vertical-lift bridge which connects the Isle of Sheppey to mainland Kent in South East England. The seven-span bridge has a central lifting span which allows ships to pass. In 1860, the first ...

which, along with the more modern

Sheppey Crossing The Sheppey Crossing is a bridge which carries the A249 road across The Swale (a tidal strait of the Thames Estuary), linking the Isle of Sheppey with the mainland of Kent. The four-lane crossing measures 21.5 m (71 feet) in width, at a height o ...

, connects the

Isle of Sheppey The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England, neighbouring the Thames Estuary, centred from central London. It has an area of . The island forms part of the local government district of Swale. ''Sheppey'' is derived ...

to mainland Kent. The nearest settlement is

Iwade Iwade is a village and civil parish north of the town of Sittingbourne in the English county of Kent. History Iwade was established in the late Medieval period, when it was a settlement linking Watling Street to the coast via Key Street (a st ...

. Train services are provided 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 ...

Facilities

Swale is a single platform station with one curving platform. It is immediately adjacent to the

A249 road The A249 is a road in Kent, England, running from Maidstone to Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey. It mainly functions as a link between the M2 and M20 motorways, and for goods vehicle traffic to the port at Sheerness. In 2006 an upgraded du ...

which is on a flyover above the station before it crosses

The Swale The Swale is a tidal channel of the Thames estuary that separates the Isle of Sheppey from the rest of Kent. On its banks is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest which stretches from Sittingbourne to Whitstable in Kent. It is also ...

on the Sheppey Crossing. The station is named after The Swale, the channel which separates the Isle of Sheppey from the mainland and connects with the

River Medway The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald AONB, High Weald, East Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a to ...

to the west and

Thames Estuary The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salini ...

to the west. North of the station, the railway line crosses the channel on the Kingsferry Bridge. Ridham Dock lies south-east of the station. Swale Station is the least used station in

History

The station was opened in 1913 as a staff halt, called Kings Ferry Bridge Halt. On 17 December 1922, the Norwegian cargo ship collided with the Kingsferry Bridge, rendering it unfit for rail traffic, and the station was renamed Kings Ferry Bridge South Halt, and opened to the public, who were able to walk across the bridge to a temporary station at to continue their journeys. This arrangement continued until 1 November 1923, when the bridge reopened to traffic and the North halt closed. The station was renamed Kings Ferry Bridge Halt on this date. The name was changed to Swale Halt in 1929. With the building of the new Kingsferry Bridge in 1960, a new station was constructed by

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

ways on a different alignment, opening on 20 April 1960.Kidner, p. 56. In 2005 the idea of closing Swale station, or at least replacing its train service with a token service (e.g. one train a week in either direction), was proposed by the

Strategic Rail Authority The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom set up under the Transport Act 2000 to provide strategic direction for Rail transport in the United Kingdom, the railway industry. Its motto was 'Brita ...

(SRA) but rejected.

Services

All services at Swale are operated by

using

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 * 1 tph to During the peak hours, the service is increased to 2 tph. Connections with trains to and

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 i ...

can be made by changing at Sittingbourne.

References

External links

Video about the station by Geoff Marshall from 2016
{{coord, 51.3892, 0.7471, format=dms, region:GB_type:railwaystation, display=title Railway stations in Swale DfT Category F2 stations Former London, Chatham and Dover Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1913 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1960 Railway stations opened by British Rail Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1960 Railway stations served by Southeastern