Lydd Town station a forgotten relic

Lydd Town Station a forgotten relic

Lydd station today

The Lydd Railway Company (LRC) obtained authorisation to construct a standard gauge single track line from Appeldore to Dungeness with stops ay Lydd and Brookland . the line opened in December 1881

Dungeness station today 

Many Army trains traveled to Lydd , where a private military railway system had a connection onto the main line

This saw the ''Lydd Military Railway'' come into use, which connected the nearby Army Camp with the branch, via the goods yard. As this connection was southward-facing, as per the goods sidings, a reversal manoeuvre was required to proceed from the Army Camp, to Appledore. The Army Camp did provide an interesting traffic of regiment horses in box vans, these quite often being handled at Lydd station itself.

Following the opening of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway in 1927, the extra holiday traffic generated persuaded the Southern Railway (who had taken over the line upon the railway grouping) to realign its branch to New Romney by moving it nearer to the sea and opening two new halts 



 Lydd-on-Sea and Greatstone-on-Sea - in 1937. The opening of Lydd-on-Sea Halt led to the renaming of Lydd station as "Lydd Town" to avoid any confusion. 

lydd on sea halt today

The station closed on 6 March 1967 in the face of dwindling passenger traffic and insignificant freight returns, yet the line remained open through Lydd Town as far as a siding near Dungeness for freight traffic to serve the BNFL nuclear power plant at Dungeness.


The future who knows !!
I think it will come down to the outcome of Lydd Airport myself

Booking.com

The video below shows the history of Lydd Station

Initially passenger trains terminated at Lydd. 

The line's promoters hoped that creating a rail link between London and Dungeness would lead to the development of a port from which cross-channel steamers could operate. 

But this grand plan failed to materialise and the branch was left to stagnate. It did though carry some shingle traffic as well as flints for the Potteries .