Railways of Kent

The county of Kent possessed a railway network of complexity with a great variety of traffic. Commuter links served the Metropolis though longer distance trains covered the coastal resorts of Margate and Ramsgate as well as the important Channel ports of Dover and Folkestone. There were the rural branches to places such as Westerham and Hawkhurst, lines that grew in importance during the hop-picking season. Kent also had two light railways, the Kent & East Sussex and the East Kent, which retained their independence up to the formation of British Railways. Although much of the economy was based on agriculture, there was also the Kent coalfield, the Royal Navy at Chatham, paper mills north of Sittingbourne. Whilst the London commuter services were, by the 1950s, provided by EMUs, it was not until the end of the decade that the main lines were electrified and the demise of steam on boat trains such as the legendary 'Golden Arrow'. The bulk of freight traffic remained steam-hauled into the 1960s.