The Hawkhurst Branch Line - 48 years after closure

[lewisner]

0.48 that signalbox needs to be on an RPS earning it's keep.

[Henry24542]

One small point; the building at Hawkhurst mistakenly labelled "Old Engine Shed" was, in fact, the goods shed.

jazzsteamer

[HORLEYFC]

I did the walk a vey enjoyable day out

[Hexachloraphine]

Unfortunately the destiny of this trackbed is probably to be a middle class serving "cycle path"

Oppose railtrails, turn these lines back into actual railways and reduce car usage.

brilliant video by the way.

[Manu7128]

he got closed in the year were my brother have born

[AG3304]

Many years back l went to a Christmas Fair at Finchcocks,near Goudhurst.Somewhere in the grounds of that place l'm sure l went over the old trackbed of this line.

[bitgood]

I hear from a local that the line was primarily used for transporting produce and more prominently, flowers and potted plants. Special trains were also run for bringing Londoners down for hop picking for most of September.

[anzac2404]

Its sad that an old line was shut down but it happened I think nearly everywhere world-wide around the early 60's & they didn't stop till the early 80's.

*Am I correct in saying that this is in England? Good to see someone recorded history for the younger ones, & us arm-chair back-packers ;-)

[steamhauled68]

Yes it was in county of Kent in South East England - Thanks for your comments

[aahmau]

@anzac2404 some countries were not so narrow-sighted....Germany for example retained branch lines , trams and even gas Lamps to a large extent ....though the threat remains ....For me I am so saddened thinking of the efforts of the navvies putting this infrastructure in place-only for the same to be squandered by disgraceful ...shameful and corrupt goverment officials and their sycophantic policy makers!

[SiriusHardware]

I sat down earlier to watch a DVD (Trains Remembered Vol 3) which included some comprehensive last day footage of running on the line. I then went looking for details of the line which I found in a great entry on Wikipedia (yours perhaps?) , which then linked to your footage here - I live in the far north so I wouldn't have been able to investigate the remains of the line myself, so many thanks for posting, appreciated.

[broadoakaces]

Enjoyed this very much - thank you.

Robin Richardson