Sittingbourne & Kemsley Railway

Описание: I made a visit the the Sittingbourne & Kemsley Railway on Wednesday 6th August 2025. The Locomotive running was Kerr Stuart 886 of 1905 "Premier". The railway was once a 2f 6in narrow gauge Bowater's Railway built to move the raw materials for paper making and also the finished products around the mill at Sittingbourne. The mill at Sittingbourne relied heavily on raw materials being brought in by barge. Milton Creek had gradually been silting up and always had a white colour due to the amount of clay and other by products of the papermaking process that were discharged into the creek. By 1913 this, together with the need for a greater volume of raw materials, saw plans for the building of Ridham Dock and Tramway. Building of this was hindered by the First World War, but the tramway was completed by 1916 and the dock was finally finished by the end of the war. This included a viaduct which, although originally designed as a steel construction, was actually built in reinforced concrete. This viaduct is over ½ mile long and is still in use today, but over the last 10 years more than £100,000 has had to be invested on its repair.

The development of the mill at Sittingbourne was restricted by the Southern Railway on one side and the creek on the other. So in 1923 a new mill was built between Ridham and Sittingbourne at Kemsley. At the time this was the largest paper mill in Europe . The railway was eventually a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week operation which maintained a passenger service for mill employees. The ‘main line’ was 3½ miles long and there was more than 10 miles of track. There was also an internal standard gauge line that branched off the Sheerness line.

The company changed hands a number of times, passing from the Lloyd family in 1927 to the Berry family, and was finally purchased by the Bowater family in 1936. The Bowater Corporation was still in charge of the mills in 1965 when a study of internal transport was made which concluded that this would be better done by road transport which forced the railway to close in 1969. However the southern half of the railway was preserved and the line ran as far as Milton Regis Halt (Asda) until the line reached Sittingbourne in 2012 on the site of the paper mill which was demolished in 2010 and now the site is Morrisons supermarket. The railway ran special events like Steam and Beer, Jack the cat and Ivor the engine. The line ran on Sundays between Easter and September plus Wednesdays during School Holidays so ideal for afternoon visits saw many visitors and will continue to do so for the see able future.