Westerham Valley branch line

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The Westerham Valley Branch Line was a short railway branch line in Kent that connected Westerham, Brasted and Chevening with the village of Dunton Green and the South Eastern Main Line, a distance of 4.5 miles (7.2km).

History

Authorisation for the construction of the line was obtained in 1864, 1867 and 1870 by the South Eastern Railway (SER). No works having been undertaken by 1876, several local inhabitants, aware of the advantages of the railway and impatient for action, rallied together to sponsor a bill similar to the original 1864 bill. The line was to be built in two phases: phase one from Dunton Green via Brasted to Westerham, and phase two covering the 4 miles from Westerham to Oxted, where it would join the Oxted Line, the construction of which had not by then been completed. However, the second phase was never realised due in part to opposition in the House of Commons and in part to the wet and marshy terrain between Westerham and Oxted.

The line was authorised on 24 July 1876 and the Westerham Valley Railway Company was formed to oversee its construction and to take over formal ownership. An an agreement was then concluded in 1879 with the South Eastern Railway by which the latter would undertake the construction works and eventually operate the line. The actual cost of construction was in the region of £70,000 and the line opened on 7 July 1881. Initially, the service ran only from Westerham to Dunton Green where passengers wishing to travel to London Charing Cross (via Cannon Street) would have to change. Formal ownership of the line was transferred to the South Eastern Railway in August 1881 at which point the Westerham Valley Railway Company was dissolved.

In 1899, SER merged with its bitter rival, the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR) to form the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SECR).

In 1923, the Westerham Valley Branch, together with its operators the SECR, became part of the Southern Railway at the grouping. Although plans had been drawn up prior to the grouping for the electrification of the line, this was never done.

Decline

Southern Railways was nationalised in 1948 and became the Southern Region of British Rail.

The line began to suffer competition with buses, notably the 403 route which ran from Croydon via Sanderstead, Chelsham and Westerham to Sevenoaks, and as train fares rose dramatically from 1938, passenger numbers fell. By 1955 the line was reported to be losing £11,600 per month and a proposal was made to close it in April 1960. However, the Central Transport Users' Consultative Committee argued against this move, claiming that 200 passengers per day used the line.

This advice was rejected by the then Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, and the last day of operation of the line would be 28 October 1961. He rejected a petition against closure signed by almost 2,500 local inhabitants and presented by the MP for Sevenoaks, John Rodgers. The Minister claimed that service was losing £26,000 per year which was equivalent to £150 per passenger. One of the last trains to run was the "Westerham Flyer", a Class H 0-4-4T No. 31518 flying a Union Jack and bearing the notice "Flyer 1881-1961". Nowadays, the former site of Westerham station is now covered by a road known as "The Flyers Way".

Attempted Revival

In 1962, the Westerham Valley Railway Association, born of a merger between two local interest groups, the Westerham Branch Railway Passengers' Association and the Westerham Valley Railway Society, began to investigate the possibility of re-opening the line, staffed by volunteers, for commuters on weekdays and as a heritage railway at weekends between April and October. British Railways offered the ownership of the line for £30,000 on the basis that a commuter service would be provided, thereby allowing it to cease its subsidies of bus services which were now over-subscribed following the closure of the Westerham branch. In July 1962, British Railways granted a lease of Westerham Station building, which became the Headquarters of the Association.

However, plans had been drawn up for an "Orbital Motorway", what would later become the M25 motorway, and the Kent County Council was keen to implement the scheme, converting as much railway to motorway as possible. The threat of a Compulsory Purchase Order by the County Council led to the withdrawal of British Rail's offer to sell the land, although the Council did offer to allow the Association's activities to continue on condition that an amount of £26,215 was paid towards the cost of a bridge to allow the motorway to pass over the railway at Chevening Halt, equivalent to £355,800 in modern currency. This amount was to be paid before 23 August 1964 or works would commence to infill the railway cutting at Chevening.

The Association were unable to meet this deadline and, realising that their plans to re-open the Westerham Branch could not be realised, sought instead to merge with the Kent & East Sussex Railway Preservation Society. By March 1967 the railway track had been lifted and Westerham Station demolished. Works on the section of the M25 from Sundridge Road to Westerham commenced in December 1976 and were completed in December 1979.

The Line Today

Save for the section taken by the M25, a surprising amount of the line still remains and it is possible to walk from Dunton Green as far as junction 5 on the motorway which is situated near Chevening. Nothing remains of the three stations, save for several houses in Railway Terrace, Westerham, near the site of the old station.

References

Winkworth, D.W. (September 1952). "The Westerham Valley Branch" (PDF). The Railway Magazine: 624–6. Retrieved 2007-09-08. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Gould, David (1974). Westerham Valley Railway. Lingfield, Surrey: The Oakwood Press. ISBN 0-8536-1147-5. {{cite book}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
"Walking part of the Westerham Branch Line". Retrieved 2007-08-09. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)

External links