Dungeness was the terminus of the Lydd Railway Company's branch from Appledore which opened on 7 December 1881. Passenger services initially terminated at Lydd, although a goods service operated as far as Dungeness.
Opened to passengers on the 1st April 1883, the single platform terminus at Dungeness lay at the end of a branch line from the South Eastern Railway's station at Appledore.
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| Dungeness railway station, 1905 |
Built by the Lydd Railway Company, the service was provided by the South Eastern Railway who eventually absorbed the smaller company in 1895.
The eight mile branch had no less than 12 level crossings, with stations at Appledore, Brookland Halt, Lydd Town, (Lydd-on-Sea Halt and Greatstone-on-Sea Halt from 4 July 1937) and New Romney & Littlestone-on-Sea and Dungeness.
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A large army camp and military ranges at Lydd kept the line busy until the end of WW1, but by the 1920's Dungeness was served by just three trains a day, while New Romney station enjoyed 9 trains a day.
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A realignment of the line along the coast to New Romney in 1937, saw passenger services being withdrawn from Dungeness on the 4th July, 1937
The growing popularity of driving a car saw passenger numbers rapidly decline along the rest of the line in the 1950s, with the Dungeness freight service being withdrawn in 1952.
Work on the Dungeness Nuclear Power Station in the early Sixties brought a new, albeit brief, lease of life to the line, with two-car diesel-electric trains providing 11 trains a day in 1962, most running through to Ashford.
Proposed for closure in the infamous Beeching Report of 1963, passenger services managed to cling on to life until the 6th March 1967, with goods services to New Romney already being withdrawn three years earlier.
Goods services to Lydd continued until 1971, with the line remaining in use for the removal of ballast aggregates and waste from Dungeness B nuclear power station.
All track beyond Romney Junction has now been lifted with the remaining track only seeing very occasional troop trains and railtours.
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