Appledore railway station is a Grade II listed station east of Appledore in

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 is on the

Marshlink line The Marshlink line is a railway line in South East England. It runs from Ashford, Kent via Romney Marsh, Rye and the Ore Tunnel to Hastings where it connects to the East Coastway line towards Eastbourne. Services are provided by Southern. Th ...

, and train services are provided by Southern. The station was constructed in 1851 by the South Eastern Railway and designed by William Tress. It became a junction station in 1881 when a branch line opened to Lydd and New Romney; this closed to passengers in 1967 following the

Beeching Report Beeching is an English surname. Either a derivative of the old English ''bece'', ''bæce'' "stream", hence "dweller by the stream" or of the old English ''bece'' "beech-tree" hence "dweller by the beech tree".''Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames' ...

, though the line remains open for goods traffic to

Dungeness Nuclear Power Station The Dungeness nuclear power stations are a pair of non-operational nuclear power stations located on the Dungeness headland in the south of Kent, England. Dungeness A is a legacy Magnox power station consisting of two 250 MWe reactors which w ...

. Despite a recommendation in the report that Appledore should also close, it has remained open into the 21st century.

Name and location

According to

National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the ...

, this station's official name is Appledore (Kent), despite the other Appledore station in Devon having closed in 1917. On official documents and railway company websites, the station is referred to as Appledore (Kent), although signs at the station simply list 'Appledore'. The station is located almost two miles from Appledore village and south of , on the B2080, a local road. Owing to its distance from the village, it is in the Parish of Kenardington, not Appledore. Appledore is just north of a junction of a freight branch line running to

Dungeness nuclear power station The Dungeness nuclear power stations are a pair of non-operational nuclear power stations located on the Dungeness headland in the south of Kent, England. Dungeness A is a legacy Magnox power station consisting of two 250 MWe reactors which w ...

via

Lydd Lydd is a town and electoral ward in Kent, England, lying on Romney Marsh. It is one of the larger settlements on the marsh, and the most southerly town in Kent. Lydd reached the height of its prosperity during the 13th century, when it was a c ...

. Appledore is also the start of the single track section of the Marshlink line, which runs through to

Ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit.Encyclopædia Britannica. "Ore". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 7 Apr ...

near

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 ...

with a passing loop at Rye. Along with several other stations on the line, the platforms are staggered. When British Rail introduced widespread provision of enamel totem station signs Appledore was one of very few that had some wooden ones fitted.

History

The station was first proposed by the South Eastern Railway (SER) in June 1848 as a stop on the Ashford to Hastings line. That September, hop planters near Appledore petitioned the early construction of the line to help with harvest; however a formal decision to build a station was not taken until June 1850. The station was designed, along with others along the line, by William Tress. The main building was built in an

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

with red brick with a Welsh slate roof. It opened, along with the rest of the line on 13 February 1851. A pub, the Man of Kent Railway Tavern was built in 1853 on the opposite side of the road (now the B2080). It was rebuilt adjacent to the station in the late 19th century. A waiting room was built in 1894, followed by a goods shed in 1896 and a station master's house the following year. In 1881, Appledore was upgraded to become a junction station to cater for a branch line to

, with new signals installed. The branch line opened on 7 December, and was further extended to New Romney in 1884. The station platforms were widened in June 1887 to accommodate longer trains. A line was also proposed from Appledore to , but this was never built. The SER subsequently merged with the

London, Chatham and 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 no ...

to form the South Eastern and Chatham Railway. It became part of the Southern Railway during the Grouping of 1923. The station then passed on to the

Southern Region of British Railways The Southern Region was a region of British Railways from 1948 until 1992 when railways were re-privatised. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right in the 1980s. The region covered south London, southern England and the south ...

on nationalisation in 1948. The goods shed was closed in 1963. Appledore ceased to be a junction station for passengers when the branch line to Lydd and New Romney closed in 1967. However, it continued to be used for goods traffic to Dungeness. When Sectorisation was introduced in the 1980s, the station was served by

Network SouthEast Network SouthEast (NSE) was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982. NSE mainly operated commuter rail trains within Greater London and inter-urban services in densely populated South East England, although the net ...

until the

Privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the indust ...

ways. In 2001, the station building and goods shed were Grade II listed. The main building is in good condition and has been largely unaltered since its original 1851 construction.

APTIS APTIS was the Accountancy and Passenger Ticket Issuing System used on the British Rail/National Rail network until 2007. It was originally called "Advanced Passenger Ticket Issuing System" as it was being developed at the time of the Advanced P ...

was once provided here until the booking office closed in the very early 1990s leaving no ticketing facilities. In 2016 Southern installed a new self-service ticket machine. The office buildings on the Ashford-bound platform are unused.

Accidents and incidents

*On 14 March 1980, an empty stock train comprising five Hastings Unit vehicles derailed due to excessive speed through a set of points. The driver was killed. A motor coach was consequently withdrawn from service due to extensive damage. *On 31 July 1989, 2H

diesel-electric multiple unit A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are als ...

205 101 collided with a van on the

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The term a ...

Services

All services at Appledore are operated by Southern using DMUs. The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is: * 1 tph to via * 1 tph to Previously, westbound trains ran as an express service to although this was changed to a stopping service to Eastbourne in the May 2018 timetable change.

References

Citations Sources * * * * *

External links

Appledore at Disused Stations
- history about the station and lines {{TSGN and SE Stations, Coastway East=y, FCC None=y, SE None=y Transport in the Borough of Ashford Railway stations in Kent DfT Category F2 stations Former South Eastern Railway (UK) stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1851 Railway stations served by Govia Thameslink Railway 1851 establishments in England Grade II listed railway stations