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1957 - H Class on the Marshes.

Ex-South Eastern and Chatham Railway Wainwright 'H Class' 0-4-4T 31521 - with a mixed train - at New Romney and Littlestone-on-Sea station, on a bright sunny day in 1957. The hose connections for push-pull controls have been carefully labelled in elegant script, on the buffer beam.

The first carriage is an ex-SECR 'birdcage' brake-third, with the raised guards lookout on the roof. Some of these ended up on the Longmoor Military Railway, and a few others were later preserved.

The grass-covered 'platform' on the right is not exactly derelict, as it had been like that for decades, probably to facilitate loading of sheep. The 15'' gauge Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway line runs parallel to these tracks, just to the right of this photo.

Passenger services were later taken over by SR DEMUs, and the line from Lydd - and this station - closed completely in March 1967.

31521 was withdrawn in May 1962, and scrapped in June. One example of the class has been preserved, at the Bluebell Railway.

Today (2019) all traces of the station have gone, and this is the site of a small industrial estate.

Restored from a speckled blue-colour-shifted original..

Original slide - photographer unknown

 

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Uploaded on March 31, 2019
Taken sometime in 1957