Trains at: Tonbridge, SEML, 20/04/19

A very pleasant afternoon spent at Tonbridge on the South Eastern Mainline where we see no end of services from South Eastern, Southern and a Network Rail test train courtesy of GBRF.

The South Eastern Railway reached Tonbridge in 1842 when it was first known as Tunbridge, when the station was built it demolished the remains of the Tonbridge Priory. The station served as a terminus only for a few months before the line was extended towards Ashford and then a couple of years later the line finally reached Dover, there was a small engine shed located at Tonbridge built around the time that the station was opened. Due to the length of the journey taken by the trains at the time it meant that they would get regularly serviced there.

Three years later a junction line was built to Tunbridge Wells which eventually resulted in the renaming of the station to Tunbridge Junction. For a while the South Eastern Railway ran its route along the Brighton mainline from London Bridge via Croydon and Redhill, couple that with the competition that the company was receiving from the London, Chatham and Dover Railway it meant that the SER finally decided to build its own decided route from London Bridge that would run via Orpington and Chislehurst, the join for this met at Tonbridge station which meant that a whole new look was needed for the station.

The station was demolished and rebuilt on the same sight now with four platforms, A bay platform, and 3 through platforms however platform 1 is used as a terminus platform even though it can be used as a through route. In 1868 a much larger engine shed was constructed.

There wasn't much else to happen for a fair few years until 1958 when the original brick station was rebuilt into a tiled facade to give it a more modern look at the time, the Sevenoaks to Dover line was electrified in 1961 when the Southern Region was getting improved for faster journey times and improve train frequencies from the capital to the south east of the country. The line going to Tunbridge Wells and Hastings was electrified by British Rail in 1986 meaning that diesel trains were now a very rare sight down that end of the country. Everything was operated by third rail trains when in 1993 the line to Redhill was electrified for the Eurostar/Channel Tunnel route improvement works.

Until High Speed 1 was completely you could regularly find Eurostars running through Tonbridge.

My next station is Nuneaton on the West Coast Mainline.

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