Appledore railway station (Kent)

Appledore National Rail
Location
Place Appledore
Local authority Ashford
Coordinates 51°01′59″N 0°48′59″E / 51.0330°N 0.8164°E / 51.0330; 0.8164Coordinates: 51°01′59″N 0°48′59″E / 51.0330°N 0.8164°E / 51.0330; 0.8164
Grid reference TQ975297
Operations
Station code APD
Managed by Southern
Number of platforms 2
DfT category F2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections
from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2012/13 Increase 36,908
2013/14 Increase 40,116
2014/15 Decrease 37,464
2015/16 Increase 39,190
2016/17 Decrease 35,886
History
Key dates Opened 13 February 1851 (13 February 1851)
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Appledore from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Appledore railway station lies east of Appledore in Kent, England. It is on the Marshlink Line, and train services are provided by Southern. The station is located almost two miles from Appledore village and 8 1⁄2 miles (13.7 km) south of Ashford.

Description

It is at a junction of a freight branch line running to Dungeness nuclear power station via Lydd. Appledore is also the start of the single track section of the Marshlink line, which runs through to Ore near Hastings with a passing loop at Rye.

APTIS was once provided here until the booking office closed in the very early 1990s leaving no ticketing facilities. In 2016 Southern installed a new self-service ticket machine. The office buildings on the Ashford-bound platform are unused.

Trains serving the station are Southern diesel Class 171 Turbostars, used on the non-electrified Ashford-Rye-Hastings (Marshlink) route.

A rail track engineering company occupies the yard just south of the station.

History

Opened by the South Eastern Railway, which then merged with the London, Chatham and Dover Railway to form the South Eastern and Chatham Railway, it became part of the Southern Railway during the Grouping of 1923. The station then passed on to the Southern Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948.

When Sectorisation was introduced in the 1980s, the station was served by Network SouthEast until the Privatisation of British Railways.

Accidents and incidents

  • On 14 March 1980, an empty stock train comprising five Hastings Unit vehicles derailed due to excessive speed through a set of points. The driver was killed. A motor coach was consequently withdrawn from service due to extensive damage.[1]
  • On 31 July 1989, 2H diesel-electric multiple unit 205 101 collided with a van on the level crossing.[2]

Name and signage curiosities

According to National Rail, this station's official name is Appledore (Kent), despite the other Appledore station in Devon having closed in 1917. On official documents and railway company websites, the station is referred to as Appledore (Kent), although most locals know it as just 'Appledore'. When British Rail introduced widespread provision of enamel totem station signs Appledore was one of very few that had some wooden ones fitted, for no explained reason. An illustration of one is shown here.[3]

Services

Trains run once every sixty minutes during the day in each direction, north to Ashford and south to Hastings and beyond to/from Eastbourne via Bexhill

Preceding station National Rail Following station
Rye   Southern
Marshlink Line		   Ham Street
Disused railways
Terminus   BR Southern Region
Marshlink - Dungeness branch		   Brookland Halt
Line and station closed

References

  1. ↑ Beecroft 1986, p. 63.
  2. ↑ McCrickard, John P (6 October 2016). "January 1989 to December 1989". Network South East Railway Society. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
  3. ↑ "Appledore had wooden totems". Railwayana website. 4 May 2018. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  • Beecroft, Geoffrey (1986). The Hastings Diesels Story. Chessington: Southern Electric Group. ISBN 0-906988-20-9. OCLC 17226439.
  • Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199.
  • Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 978-0-906899-99-1. OCLC 228266687.
  • Station on navigable O.S. map.
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