Good morning.
It is a chilly, grey December morning in 2022
6 years ago, which is a shocking amount of time
when I think about it, I made a little video called
"The Least Used Station in Surrey: Longcross"
and the second one I made was called
"The Least Used Station in Kent"
And that was a station called Swale
And I started my day here at Bromley South Station
and my friend, Martin
joined me, who is back
Morning, Geoff
And the exciting news is, in the recent ORR stats
is that Swale is no longer Kent's least used station
It is now
Kemsing
And that is where we're going
this morning now
This morning
Should we go? Let's go
Let's go
(upbeat music)
Already, we've had a small problem
in that over our pre-trip cup of tea
Martin was looking at real time trains
notice that our train was cancelled.
But like the expert you are, you were like,
"Let's jump on the Thameslink
and get the Sevenoaks Thameslink
and we can get out at Otford and maybe walk or taxi
or bus to our destination and then get the train back
What do you remember of doing Swale six years ago?
There was nothing there
It was somewhat bleak
I seem to recall it was somewhat grey and overcast
And we had tea
But I've also asked you
to do a special thing today
Have I not?
You have asked me and I'm wearing the same clothes
for this rail trip
It is a proper deja-vu moment
No, just the same T-shirt
Not like, not like
I've got the same pants on
So you are wearing the same t-shirt
and I'm wearing the same - We will be
shortly arriving at St Mary Cray
Oh, we've got the t-shirt out
It's the same t-shirt
You've still got it after six years
I have indeed
Still fits you
Just about (laughs)
At least it's not started raining
Oh, hang on
(laughs)
It totally has.
We're Otford, that's like Oxford, but with a 'T'
Martin has ordered a taxi, but the taxi has not arrived
I tried doing an Uber
Uber wasn't interested
It's raining, another train is cancelled
and at the moment we're thinking
will we actually make it to the station?
We will
It's very rapidly turned into one of those days
where it's not gonna be straightforward
but we will make it
Ah, welcome to Kemsing station
Eventually
It's this lovely day
Lovely
Lovely day
We picked a cracker
What I thought was interesting
is that on the Swale video, 6 years ago...
6 years, where's the time gone?
My editing is so poor in that video
It's a little bit better now
There's a station on that branch
Can you name any other stations?
I think I wanna say Queensborough
Queensborough
Kemsley
Kemsley, yes
So there's a Kemsley, but this is Kemsing
Zing
Zing! Zing!!
Martin's been checking out
What you found?
What's on the other side?
Nothing?
An industrial estate
That's it
It's one of those stations which is sort of
it's not like a remote or barren location
but it reminds me of Faygate
least used stationed in
Sussex Sussex
Sort of, it feels like a pointless station
I'm not sure who would use it?
I mean's it's a couple of miles
from the station it's named after
or the village it's named after.
Well that's the key thing is, so the village of Kemsing
I almost said Kemsley, is over there
Over there, a couple of miles
It's not even the nearest hamlet
It's the other side of the M25, yeah
M26
26? No, 25
M26
Have I got my motorways wrong?
That's the M26 over there?
I thought it was 25
Brilliantly, the nearest hamlet slash village is called ...
Noah's Ark
And it's raining
(Geoff laughs)
Find a boat
Come on
Let's have a wander
Not that there's much to see
So there's one for your bingo
Look, there's a defibrillator
I was gonna point out the fact
that it's got an exciting side entrance on this side
which I didn't realise was gonna be a thing
Not step free.
Not step free
We're on the north side of the station
There's a tile sale now on according to Rovic Tiles
So maybe the employees of Rovic Tiles use Kemsing station
and that's-
I suspect anybody in it is in Brussel now
In this district uses Kemsing station
Yeah
Come and be a good railway nerd
and tell the internet what these are
That is a mile post
Go on. From the datum point
which will be in this case London, Victoria
So that means we are 27 miles
from London, Victoria by Swanley and Bromley South
I found another sign, Martin
What's this 558 mean, please?
So SBJ is the engineer's line reference
which is the code that every line
has on the national network
In this case SBJ is Swanley to B junction at Ashford
'cause the junctions at Ashford are lettered A, B, C, and D.
558B will be the bridge number because every structure
whether it's over or above or underneath the railway
has a number, so they're all uniquely identified
from one to whatever
Hence why it's attached to the bridge
Yes And again
it's the 27 miles and zero 27 miles zero chains
Learning so much
Thanks
So we've had a couple of cancellations today
So with my sarcasm hat on I'm thrilled to announce
that a train is actually stopping
Is this the 12:37 to Ashford?
I got no one this side
Oh no, hang on
Yes, I have
No, one person
Where are they going?
Exit's not that way
Mate, the exit is this way
Where you...
No, what
What?
Oh, into the shelter
What?
Suspicious
Just kind of get me in shot sort of
Geoff, what are you doing?
We
Uh-oh
are doing station stats
'Cause I want to draw you a graph
So in 2018, it was below 5,000
And then again in 2020 Swale went up to 8,000
So Kemsing in blue here was
and then in 2019 it dipped at like 22,000
On the slide, it got hit massively
They were almost identical around the 3,120 mark
to like the 9,000 9,478 mark
Kemsing was already in decline
and hasn't recovered to the point where Swale
which was going up, has become more
In a way, we've come to the wrong station
because we are here to be like, "Woo hoo Kemsing!
New least used station.
But the real question is
is not why has Kemsing become the least used station
but why has Swale increased?
It's an interesting question.
What has happened?
Has there been development or housing
or industry at Swale for Swale?
If anybody knows why Swale has gone up
that's more important than knowing why
Kemsing has gone down Kemsing has declined
Yeah.
Just come in slightly, Martin
Sort of lean in, I don't know
Well that's fine
So in case you missed that, it was 9,478 passengers a year
If I surreptitiously hold up my calculator
can you read what that says?
That says there's 26 people per day
I'll take that
That's a rounded up pretty close, 25.96
We did just see somebody enter this side of the station
across the footbridge and go to the other side
So you can also use it as a cross
As a footbridge to cross the railway
But goodness knows where he came from
The field?
(both laugh)
Gone for a picnic
Great
If you were Dan Spence, which you're not, are you?
Are you Dan Spence?
No, no, not last time I looked
I would get you to count the number of car parking spaces
There are eight car parking spaces out there
plus one accessible wheelchair friendly space
which is not the nearest space to this station
Now, that's interesting
You've got one wheelchair accessible parking space
Is the station wheelchair accessible?
No, very much not
It can be extremely, extremely not
Stairs that side, stairs this side
And a footbridge
So are there dot matrix indicators?
There are dot matrix indicators
Is there a ticket machine?
There is a ticket machine
A solitary single ticket machine up front
Is there a help point?
Yes, there is a help point
It's two
One on each platform One on each side
And there's the defib of course
And a defibrillator, yes
What else has Kemsing got, Martin?
This is great
We're sat in the shelter
Oh it's got a waiting shelter, of course it has
And it's got like a bus stop style shelter on that side
And * BEEEP *
I can't use that bit in the video!
Do you know what?
I'm gonna blank that out and everyone's gonna be like
"What did Martin say that you blanked out?"
Can't use that bit.
I can't put that in!
That's why I said it at the end
I can't use that!
(both laugh)
See, I have some editorial discretion
(train horn honks)
Now whilst I was getting
some sexy cutaway shots just then
Martin went for a little wander down the lane
and he said he's found an exciting discovery
You've found an exciting thing?
Well exciting is the wrong word
Exciting
Exciting is the word
What other words?
What other words do you have?
In the middle of this bleakness
we found what I believe to be remains
of the Old Goods Yard on the station
And you can see there
the brick wall on the top
which would've been a good platform at one point
So even Kemsing had a little goods yard siding
On the upside of the line, yes it did
And that is definitely some remnants, isn't it?
It looks like it, yeah.
Hello, I left my camera here
Martin, could you summate your Kemsing experience?
Would you be in a rush to return?
No, I expect not No.
It's lovely, the scenery is lovely
but once you've been, you've been, haven't you really?
I think so, yeah, that's kind of it
Okay, but another one ticked off for me
And we did Otford as well
We did Otford as well
That was a new one for you
Okay, we had a plan to go to Borough Green and Wroutham
but because the southbound train is late
obviously, there's not enough time just switch back
So I'll come back and do that some another time
I'm slowly ticking off
all the Kent stations if nothing else
Thanks very much
Our trains in about nine minutes
We can go home
Yeah, let's do that
Let's dry off