This article is about a closed railway station of the South Eastern Railway.

For the current light railway station at Dungeness, see Dungeness railway station

Dungeness railway station

Dungeness railway station is a station on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway on Romney Marsh in Kent.-History:The line to Dungeness was opened on 24 May 1928, a year after the line reached New Romney...

.

Dungeness was a railway station which served the Dungeness headland in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Opened in 1883 by The Lydd Railway Company, it closed to passengers in 1937. Part of the line which served the station is converted to the main access road as a means of transporting atomic waste from nearby Dungeness nuclear power station.

History

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

Lydd Town railway station

Lydd Town was a railway station which served the town of Lydd in Kent, England. Opened on 7 December 1881 by The Lydd Railway Company, it closed to passengers in 1967 leaving the line through the station to remain open for freight.- History :...

, although a goods service operated as far as Dungeness. The line was opened throughout to passengers as from 1 April 1883. A second branch was opened the following year from a point just south of Lydd

Lydd Town railway station

Lydd Town was a railway station which served the town of Lydd in Kent, England. Opened on 7 December 1881 by The Lydd Railway Company, it closed to passengers in 1967 leaving the line through the station to remain open for freight.- History :...

 to New Romney

New Romney and Littlestone-on-Sea railway station

New Romney and Littlestone-on-Sea was a railway station which lay in between the villages of New Romney and Littlestone-on-Sea in Kent, England. The station opened in 1884 and closed in 1967.- Early years :...

. The railway terminated almost at the foot of Dungeness lighthouse (1901) where very basic facilities were provided in the shape of a single platform on which was perched a small arched roof weather-boarded

Weatherboarding

Weatherboarding is the cladding or ‘siding’ of a house consisting of long thin timber boards that overlap one another, either vertically or horizontally on the outside of the wall. They are usually of rectangular section with parallel sides...

 shed comprising a ticket office, waiting room and ladies and gents toilets. A run-round loop

Passing loop

A passing loop is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at a station, where trains or trams in opposing directions can pass each other. Trains/trams in the same direction can also overtake, providing that the signalling arrangement allows it...

 was provided to facilitate engine reversals and a siding led to the lighthouse.

The promoters of the line had hoped that linking Dungeness, one of the largest expanses of shingle

Pebble

A pebble is a clast of rock with a particle size of 4 to 64 millimetres based on the Krumbein phi scale of sedimentology. Pebbles are generally considered to be larger than granules and smaller than cobbles . A rock made predominantly of pebbles is termed a conglomerate...

 in the world, with London by rail would lead to its development as a port from which cross-channel steamers could operate to the small French fishing port of Le Tréport

Le Tréport

Le Tréport is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France.-Geography:A small fishing port and light industrial town situated in the Pays de Caux, some northeast of Dieppe at the junction of the D940, the D78 and the D1015 roads...

, 60 miles distant and 114 miles from Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. Proposals to construct a harbour at Dungeness had been around since the 1870s and received support from South Eastern Railway

South Eastern Railway (UK)

The South Eastern Railway was a railway company in south-eastern England from 1836 until 1922. The company was formed to construct a route from London to Dover. Branch lines were later opened to Tunbridge Wells, Hastings, Canterbury and other places in Kent...

 chairman Edward Watkin

Edward Watkin

Sir Edward William Watkin, 1st Baronet was an English railway chairman and politician.- Biography :Watkin was born in Salford, Lancashire, the son of a wealthy cotton merchant, Absalom Watkin who was noted for his involvement in the Anti-corn Law League.After a private education, he returned to...

; the inexhaustible supply of shingle could, if dug out, have been used for track ballast and to form the basin of what could have been one of the most cheaply built dock systems in the world.

The development of Dungeness failed to materialise and the South Eastern Railway, which had taken over the Lydd Railway Company in 1895, was left with two short branch lines in a remotely populated area, with the Dungeness branch carrying the lightest of traffic; shingle did provide some traffic, including flints for the Potteries

Staffordshire Potteries

The Staffordshire Potteries is a generic term for the industrial area encompassing the six towns that now make up Stoke on Trent in Staffordshire, England....

 which used them to provide glaze on china. The line survived for a further fifty years, aided somewhat by holiday camp

Holiday camp

Holiday camp, in Britain, generally refers to a resort with a boundary that includes accommodation, entertainment and other facilities.As distinct from camping, accommodation typically consisted of chalets – small buildings arranged either individually or in blocks. Some had three or four storeys,...

 development along the coast which prompted the Southern Railway (which had taken over the line upon the railway grouping of 1923

Railways Act 1921

The Railways Act 1921, also known as the Grouping Act, was an enactment by the British government of David Lloyd George intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, move the railways away from internal competition, and to retain some of the benefits which...

) to realign the New Romney branch closer to the sea (approximately 1¼ miles towards Dungeness) in 1937. The realignment coincided with the closure of Dungeness branch to passengers, leaving it open for goods until May 1953. To make up for the closure of Dungeness, the Southern Railway opened a new station at Lydd-on-Sea

Lydd-on-Sea Halt railway station

Lydd-on-Sea Halt was a railway station which served the modern village of Lydd-on-Sea in Kent, England. The station opened in 1937 and closed in 1967.- History :...

 (½ mile away) whose running-in board read "Lydd-on-Sea (for Dungeness)".

Present day

The Dungeness branch remains open from Appledore to sidings on the site of the old Romney Junction where the original branch to Dungeness left the line to New Romney. Atomic Waste is taken one mile by road from the Dungeness Power Station and is transported away by rail. About half mile of the trackbed of the branch has been converted into the main access road to Dungeness power station. Another half mile section is walkable towards the site of Dungeness station which is approximately 50 yards to the west of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway

Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway

The Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway is a gauge light railway in Kent, England. The line runs from the Cinque Port of Hythe via Dymchurch, St...

's own Dungeness station

Dungeness railway station

Dungeness railway station is a station on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway on Romney Marsh in Kent.-History:The line to Dungeness was opened on 24 May 1928, a year after the line reached New Romney...

. As at 2010 the station site and trackbed is still undeveloped with degraded remains of the clinker

Clinker (boat building)

Clinker building is a method of constructing hulls of boats and ships by fixing wooden planks and, in the early nineteenth century, iron plates to each other so that the planks overlap along their edges. The overlapping joint is called a land. In any but a very small boat, the individual planks...

 and timber

Timber

Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...

 platform after years of coastal erosion. The small shelter building has now gone, but its concrete base can still be seen. Many of the shacks scattered around the southern end of Dungeness arrived in the 1920s when Southern Railway workers purchased old rolling stock

Rolling stock

Rolling stock comprises all the vehicles that move on a railway. It usually includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for example locomotives, railroad cars, coaches and wagons...

which were dragged off the end of the line to be used as holiday shacks.