East Kent Light Railway - Operations

Operations

• Coal Traffic.

This was the railway's reason for existence. It charged a fixed rate per ton for taking loaded coal wagons from Tilmanstone Colliery to Shepherdswell (no further) for switching onto the main line and for returning empties. Since the colliery possessed no locomotives, it also performed necessary shunting duties at the mine, including taking coal from the screens to the power station that ran the electric drainage pumps. Tonnage was over 200,000 after 1926. Rates agreed in 1932 were £0.0315 per ton to Shepherdswell, internal shunting at the colliery at £0.0126 per ton, 1,000 tons of free coal per year for railway use and £0.90 per ton over that. In return, the railway had to obtain all its coal from the colliery, and bad quality was to be a problem. The Southern Railway credited the EKLR £0.042 per ton of coal forwarded to them.

Export traffic from Snowdown Colliery to Richborough Port from 1929 to c1937 was greater than previously thought, peaking at c30,000 tons in 1933.

Tilmanstone coal was taken to customers elsewhere on the main line in the EKLR's own wagons. The major ones were Hammill brickworks and Wingham Engineering. Since Kent coal was friable and not suitable for all purposes, the railway also handled coal ordered from other coalfields. There was a coal merchants' located at Staple station.

Tilmanstone coal was also taken to Shepherdswell for the locomotives and for the steam engine running the lathes, etc. in the workshops. Kent coal was not very suitable for steaming, tending to break up and form dust, and this may account for anecdotal evidence that the engines sometimes had difficulty maintaining steam pressure while on service.

• Other minerals

The nature of these are not identified in the records, but fireclay and gravel are noted as having been carried from time to time. Colliery spoil had some value in surfacing country paths and lanes. Sugar beet was listed as a "mineral", probably because it could be shipped loose and tipped.

Something called "Stonar Blue" was shipped from a pit at "Richborough" to potteries at Stoke-on-Trent. Published sources variously describe this as clay or flints, from the castle or the port. Obviously no-one knows for certain what this was or where it came from.

• General goods

This was between 5,000 and 8,000 tons per year. The train guard was expected to do the shunting at unstaffed stations.

Fruit, vegetables and flowers were important in season, the traffic concentrating at Staple where there was a wholesale greengrocers'. These were carried in boxes and baskets in open wagons, the empties being returned. Some potatoes, grain and hops were carried in sacks.

The Hammill brickworks shipped some bricks, but their product was of high quality and vulnerable to the jolting it might endure on the railway. Just under 4,000 tons were carried in 1930, but output after that tended to go by road.

Wingham Engineering received their supplies of steel plate, bar etc. by rail.

There was almost no livestock traffic, since the area has no tradition of stockbreeding. Twenty-two cattle were carried in the EKLR's lifetime. In 1935 336 pigs were carried and in 1936 353, which looks like the establishment or liquidation (or both, in quick succession) of a pig farm. Some wool was carried, because sheep were used to keep the grass down in orchards.

The railway is known to have stabled wagons not in use on the "North Bank Spur" at Shepherdswell, also on the Guilford spur near the junction. The sidings at Richborough Port were also probably used.

After passenger services ceased on the Richborough Port branch, it was worked "on demand" to the facilities at Sandwich Road and Richborough Castle. The siding at Poison Cross amounted to Eastry's goods yard, so main line train engines ventured this far to handle vehicles if necessary (the short distance was a separate block section). Alarmingly, towards the end main line trains could be left waiting, even if they had passengers, for the engines to run as far as Richborough Castle and back if need be.

• Passengers

Interest obviously focuses most on passenger traffic, but it was of secondary importance and towards the end was trivial (three passengers every four trains in 1947). The established timetable pattern was three trains each way daily to Wingham and another to Eastry, running on to Wingham on Saturdays. When miners' trains ended in 1929 there were four each way, terminating in the colliery yard. (In previous years, before 1927, some of these ran on to Eastry, in which case they stopped at "Tilmanstone Colliery Halt" at Elvington -a serious source of confusion.) The basic service became two each way in 1931.

Mostly, except in the early years, there were no proper passenger trains but a passenger coach attached to a goods train (forming the so-called "mixed train"). Since the EKLR had no guard's vans until the 1940s, the passenger coaches performed this function (being independently braked). The obvious disadvantage was that shunting made the passenger timetable a work of fiction. One way of making up time was by not stopping at stations where no passengers were waiting. There is anecdotal evidence that sometimes train crews ignored prospective passengers anyway if no goods traffic was to be handled at that stop.

The service from Eastry to Sandwich Road involved one train each way on weekdays in 1926, two on Wednesdays and Saturdays 1927, and one only on Saturdays 1928. Since the passenger coach doubled up as the brakevan, the published assertions that it was left at Sandwich Road (while the rest of the train went on) need confirmation (this statement may have been for official ears). It is likely that anybody actually wishing to go on to Richborough Port would be allowed to travel free "at own risk", although there is no actual evidence that anybody did.

The EKLR never ran passenger trains on Sundays, nor did it sell First Class tickets (even though some carriages had first-class accommodation).

• Tickets

Oddly, given the volume of traffic, the EKLR did not use paper tickets but proper Edmondson card ones, of different colours according to the destination. Return tickets had the two appropriate colours. Train guards had to carry these for issue, since only the two terminal stations held stocks.

Ticket arrangements for the Richborough Port branch service are unknown.

There was a sixpenny (£0.025) catch-all ticket for dogs, bicycles, items of luggage and prams. Apparently the EKLR did not forward luggage.

There was no through booking onto the main line; passenger travelling to, say, Dover had to buy another ticket at the SECR/SR station at Shepherdswell.

• Other revenue activities

The famously frugal Colonel Stephens made a point of selling the hay resulting from the mowing of the railway's verges.

A row of three bungalows at Golgotha, above the tunnel, were built by the EKLR in 1933 and rented to employees. These have recently been demolished and redeveloped. Some land purchased for the Deal extension was also rented out, notably a terrace called "Fairlight Cottages" at Sholden.

A Chevrolet lorry was purchased in 1933 for a collection and delivery service at Staple, especially for the fruit and vegetable farmers. This was apparently a success, but the service seems to have ceased in the early part of the Second World War. The Station Agent at Staple used his own lorry after that, but was sacked in 1947 for moonlighting; he had been driving produce to the London markets overnight instead of forwarding it to the railway at Staple.

Advertising rights along the right of way were rented to "Partington's Kent Billposting Co" in 1934. As a result the stations at Canterbury Wingham Road, Richboro Port and Sandwich Road received double-sided roadside billboards.

• Ancillary businesses

The EKLR attracted no shop or pub to any of its stations. In fact, there is no evidence of any retail activity at any of them, not even a newspaper stand. Only three businesses seem to have been set up in response to the presence of a railway, all at Staple. A coal merchant operated there (elsewhere they stayed in the villages), and a trug basket manufacturers briefly operated in a large corrugated iron shed next to the sidings before this was taken over by a wholesale greengrocers' (C.W. Darley Ltd).