Dollands Moor Freight Yard is a railway freight yard near

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 20t ...

in Kent, and was purpose built in 1988 for the

Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (french: Tunnel sous la Manche), also known as the Chunnel, is a railway tunnel that connects Folkestone (Kent, England, UK) with Coquelles ( Hauts-de-France, France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover ...

. It is to the west of the Eurotunnel Folkestone Terminal, and just to the south of the

M20 Motorway The M20 is a motorway in Kent, England. It follows on from the A20 at Swanley, meeting the M25, and continuing on to Folkestone, providing a link to the Channel Tunnel and the ports at Dover. It is long. Although not signposted in Eng ...

Description

Dollands Moor has eight roads in the yard with an additional five roads which are through lines and run-round loops. All lines are electrified at 25 kV overhead wires and connections to the west of the yard are also dually electrified with a

third rail A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway ...

(750 V). This is to allow access to the South-Eastern Main Line at Saltwood Junction just to the east of Sandling Station. Dollands Moor was operated by Railfreight Distribution from its opening, then EWS and now DB Cargo UK. Other freight operators pass through the yard, but do not stop there. The function of Dollands Moor is for locomotive and crew changes rather than marshalling. Most trains operating from Dollands Moor are of the Trainload variety and if any marshalling is required, this was historically undertaken at European Freight Operating Centre in

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

, but with the drawdown of the Wagonload network in the UK they now go to

Didcot Didcot ( ) is a railway town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Oxfordshire and the Historic counties of England, historic county of Berkshire. Didcot is south of Oxford, eas ...

. At the time of writing (October 2015) just one Fridays only working Wagonload train goes through Dollands Moor to Didcot The lines from Dollands Moor and the

Channel Tunnel Rail Link High Speed 1 (HS1), legally the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), is a high-speed railway linking London with the Channel Tunnel. It is part of a line carrying international passenger traffic between the United Kingdom and mainland Europe; ...

are measured in kilometres whereas Network Rail lines are measured in miles and chains.

Migratory activity

Illegal immigrants have been a problem for Dollands Moor; and

stowaway A stowaway or clandestine traveller is a person who secretly boards a vehicle, such as a ship, an aircraft, a train, cargo truck or bus. Sometimes, the purpose is to get from one place to another without paying for transportation. In other ...

s have caused increased security and safety incidents.

References

External links

Dollands Moor @ Kent Rail
Rail transport in Kent Rail yards in the United Kingdom Railway freight terminals in the United Kingdom {{England-rail-transport-stub