Queenborough railway station is on the Sheerness Line, on 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 derive ...

in northern

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 ...

, and serves the town of

Queenborough Queenborough is a town on the Isle of Sheppey in the Swale borough of Kent in South East England. Queenborough is south of Sheerness. It grew as a port near the Thames Estuary at the westward entrance to the Swale where it joins the R ...

. It is down the line from . 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

On Platform 2 (Sheerness bound), there is a substantial and historic two-storey building which contains a ticket office on the ground floor; this is staffed on a part-time basis. There is a self-service ticket machine by the side gate beside the station building to Platform 2. New train information displays with announcements have been installed on each platform replacing the old display on platform 1 which used to show trains in both directions. There are also signals at either end of each platform so if there was a problem with one of the platforms, trains could use the other for services in either direction.

Services

All services at Queenborough are operated by

using EMUs. 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.

History

Queenborough was opened on 19 July 1860 by the Sittingbourne and Sheerness Railway (S&SR), a nominally independent company which had powers to construct a

branch line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industr ...

from across the

River Swale The River Swale in Yorkshire, England, is a major tributary of the River Ure, which becomes the River Ouse, that empties into the North Sea via the Humber Estuary. The river gives its name to Swaledale, the valley through which it flows. ...

to a terminus near the entrance of . The line was worked from the outset by 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 ...

which absorbed the S&SR in 1876. On 15 May 1876, Queenborough became a junction station with the opening of a short spur to to serve steam ship services. A second line was added on 1 August 1901 with the opening of the

Sheppey Light Railway The Sheppey Light Railway was a railway on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, England, which ran from Leysdown to Queenborough, where it connected with the South Eastern and Chatham Railway's Sheerness Line. It was engineered by Holman Fred Stephens a ...

, a

light railway A light railway is a railway built at lower costs and to lower standards than typical "heavy rail": it uses lighter-weight track, and may have more steep gradients and tight curves to reduce civil engineering costs. These lighter standards allow ...

across the Isle of Sheppey to . There was no direct connection with the Sheerness Line and trains for Leysdown departed from the outer face of a newly constructed

island platform An island platform (also center platform, centre platform) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular on ...

at Queenborough. An iron footbridge was erected at the southern end of the platforms to facilitate passengers changing between main line and branch services. Services on the Sheppey Light Railway ceased as from 4 December 1950. Until the opening of Swale Halt in 1922, Queenborough was the only intermediate station on the Sheerness Line. The imposing two-storey station building has a strong Victorian character with their high-pitched

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

s and round-headed

sash windows A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History T ...

. The building is in a similar style to Lymington Town railway station which dates from the same period, a resemblance which may be explained by the fact that the construction of both the Lymington Branch Line and the S&SR was overseen by John Cass Birkinshaw who was replaced as engineer on the S&SR after the company's directors blamed him for the line's slow construction. A wooden waiting shelter was provided on the Up side but not on the Down side. The station also had a sizeable

goods shed A goods shed is a railway building designed for storing goods before or after carriage in a train. A typical goods shed will have a track running through it to allow goods wagons to be unloaded under cover, although sometimes they were built ...

and

goods yard A goods station (also known as a goods yard or goods depot) or freight station is, in the widest sense, a railway station where, either exclusively or predominantly, goods (or freight), such as merchandise, parcels, and manufactured items, are l ...

on the Up side adjacent to the main station building. Sidings on the Down side served the Sheerness Steel plant and provided connections for MCD car traffic and shipbreaking activities. There was a signal box on the Up side which was located at the point where the Sheppey branch curved away to the east; this closed on 24 May 1959. By this time, the goods shed had already been demolished although the goods yard remained open until 16 August 1971. The line through Queenborough was electrified and the platforms were lengthened in 1959 as part of phase I of the Kent Coast Electrification. By 1993, much of the station building was no longer in use and only the booking office was staffed on weekdays until mid-morning.

References

Sources

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External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Queenborough Railway Station Railway stations in Swale DfT Category E stations Former London, Chatham and Dover Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1860 Railway stations served by Southeastern Isle of Sheppey