Morning I am at St. Pancras about to get the Javelin,
high speed HS1 train down to Folkestone.
When I get there, meaning my friend Chris,
from Network Rail and another colleague of his.
And we're gonna explore the old abandoned line,
used to come off the main line
and serve the boat trains down to Folkestone Harbour.
Folkestone Harbour Station has now been regenerated,
all done up but there's a bit of old abandoned line left
and there's loads to talk about, let's go.
(upbeat hip hop music)
Nowadays there's just the main Folkestone Central Station.
But there was also one to Folkestone East Station
that closed in 1965.
And then more importantly,
the branch down to Folkestone Harbour
that closed to regular traffic in 2001,
to all traffic in 2009
but then was actually not officially closed until 2014.
The harbour has now been redeveloped and looks incredible
and network rail plans to develop the rest
of the abandoned branch.
And my day starts here by this fence.
The sun is out and sunny folks
and behind me you can see here there's a fence
and through there there's a buffer stop.
The line up the Folkestone East is up there,
Folkestone East Station which is now closed was over here.
And there was a level crossing, across the road here.
And this is the branch line that heads down towards the hub.
So as you can see I'm not here alone today.
There's a familiar face and a new face,
let's go meet our team.
Chris has been in all my videos before, probably all,
you're in too many of my videos Chris.
I'm sorry, I'm just a massive tart,
what can I tell you.
But we have a new friendly face, hello.
Hi!
You're Mark.
I'm Mark, I'm from Network Rail, Mark Ellerby.
Thank you mark, what do you do?
I'm a senior sponsor for Network Rail
which doesn't really explain the job role at all
but basically I'm like a super project manager if you will.
So I deal with all the weird and the wacky stuff,
the different stuff that there isn't really a place for,
including closing Folkestone Harbour Branch Line.
So you can answer the question today,
which is why is Folkestone Harbour Branch Line closed.
Don't tell me now.
So this was a foot crossing and you had the up
and the downline.
You could still see the downline,
the old tracks over the check rails.
A couple of years ago we actually took out
the upline itself but we left the downline in place.
And we'll explain a little bit more about that later.
It's been a while since this has been open.
Last time I was on this line I was on the phone.
What year was that?
2009.
So the Orient Express, why is the Orient Express VSOE,
the Venice Simplot Orient-Express last ran down here
in November, 2008.
That's correct. Yeah.
Followed by Hastings Heritage Society ran a diesel unit
in December.
Correct.
But then there was a steam train.
Which was the last ever
and that was Oliver Cromwell.
2009.
2009, March, 2009.
So you, Chris you were on it in 2009.
Yeah absolutely man,
well Folkestone is where I'm originally from that was like,
it was a big deal to be on that train.
(branches breaking)
So if you look over there,
there's the old Semafore signal wires.
So that's where the old sibling system would've run
from Folkestone East box all the way down to the Harbour box
and it ran down and then you've got these repeaters
periodically along the way.
So you can still just about make those out
which is quite interesting, quite cool to see.
The plan originally was that, and still is to an extent
but depending on time, is that it will be a pathway,
a walkway cycle path which goes from the top
where we're at the level crossing earlier,
right the way down into the Harbour area.
And we'll get down to that little bit later,
but the beauty of it at the moment
is you can see how nice it is with all the vegetation
and how pleasant I'll be as a park.
But what we really need to do is get the fences down
so the people can get in and amongst it
and create a really nice, safe walking route.
So the idea was that we'd leave the rails
or at least one of the tracks behind
'cause there were originally two,
so that when it does get developed
into a sort of nicer parkland,
it's got that kind of railway theme.
(car engine roaring)
(seagulls squawking)
I don't know who the Earl of Radnor is.
People in comments would tell me down bellow,
we've come up onto the Earl of Radnor Bridge
and you can see the road there
but you can very clearly see the alignment
with some rails still down there as well,
where it used to run.
Mark I'm starting to see like an embankment form
so this is where, so the railway is levelled
and the road is tipping down.
Exactly, yeah so the road itself
is on a one in 30 gradient but it's=-
It's one in 30?
One in 30.
Isn't that incredibly steep?
Incredibly, it's one of the steepest gradients
of any railway in the UK.
And certainly when he was operational as a result of that
and the fact that it's by the sea,
meant it was the most expensive piece of infrastructure
in the UK to maintain.
Yeah so the road dips down and then we go on a var duct
over and above the Harbour.
So surely we'll see that where we go over the water itself.
(seagulls squawking)
Fact I've learned is that when the trains used to run,
network rail had a boundary
and then the harbour very much owned the area
where the station was and British Rail Networks,
Southeast Network Rail had to kind of like lease that
off the Harbour but they had to hand it back
to Folkestone Harbour before they could redevelop it.
So the boundary is here, literally where this fence is
or maybe that green fence there and there are tracks here.
So mark, this is where it was like your bit of territory
and then Folkestone Harbor's territory.
That's exactly it, yeah so this is the boundary
between the two areas.
But what we did was when we cleared the line itself,
have all the signalling
and the other associated bits and bobs,
we left two sets of tracks in that run up slightly
just around the corner so that in the future,
if someone wanted to turn this into a nice park
and they wanted to do something with it,
they've got those tracks in place
that they could then fill with concrete or whatever it is.
Because actually to instal those tracks again
would be quite expensive.
So it's nice and easy to,
it's actually easier to leave them in.
What's happening Chris,
are you having an emotional moment.
I'm having an emotional moment.
What's going on?
It's really moving to be up here
'cause last time I was up here,
I was hanging out at the window of a steam train
going up there.
What type of train is that?
It's a Britannia Car,
so British Rail standard steam engine.
It's really strange to be here
and also I grew up around here.
So all my life pretty much there was a railway here.
I used to, I remember pitching putting
just up there by then Martello Tower,
my friend Tom and watching the Orient Express
tremble up and down here.
And then obviously when it shut,
this whole area was sort of more abundant.
So it's really, really just wild to come back
and see it looking like this, it's just amazing.
Not everything is better as a railway.
(waves splashing)
It's such a nice day, so the sun is out,
we're walking on the viaduct of the harbour,
heading down towards the swing bridge, we get to a minute.
And the Harbour on where the station was,
the station stood empty for a while
and a splendid job has been done in rejuvenating it.
And we'll get there shortly.
Yeah so the--
For the swing bridge in my lifetime it hasn't swung.
I have a feeling it may not have swung many, many, many,
many years before that either. (Chris laughing)
I'm not sure that it's swung a lot.
I think actually it was installed
then obviously it's really salty water around here
and then may not have done much swinging.
It may not have done a lot.
So, yeah.
It's a swing bridge in theory,
it's a theoretical theoretical swing bridge.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
And then for many years,
I mean the kind of ships that would have needed it
to be swung, haven't moored in the inner harbour for years
anyway so. (Chris laughing)
So it's an interesting thing, but not a functional thing.
Not a functional thing, no but it looks very nice now.
(seagulls squawking)
Coffee has been denied of me.
Is it me or--
Just all day Tuesday.
Is it me or is there a lever frame in there?
And the lever frame and some of the,
I don't think the block instruments are in there,
but some of the indicators and everything
they're in there as well and the signalling diagram.
So it's pretty cool.
(wind blowing)
So 12 years ago the last train ran to from here,
Folkestone Harbour Station.
Mark, the obvious question why did it close?
Was it because it was just too expensive to maintain.
Yeah the economics, just weren't there and--
This is often the way isn't it?
Simple as that, I mean so we made
or the railway made something like 10,000, £12,000 a year
for all of the trains running up and down here.
And yet we had a renewals bill and a maintenance bill
of something like 7 million pounds over a period of time.
Whilst we weren't making a lot of revenue from it,
there are also better uses for it.
So one or two charter trains
wanting to be the last train down here is all very good
but actually it's much better in its new state.
So for lots of community use and a range of people.
And I think that was the more important thing
was not just the economics but the future use of it.
But in its hay day, it did, it met both
they were boat trains so would you get trained
out of Victoria or London Bridge.
Yeah you get boat train from Victoria down to here
straight on the ferry across to Baloise.
And that worked really well
but that was back in the days when they were,
that was a popular thing to do.
And the economics again were slightly different
because it was part of British Rail
so it was part of the whole system.
And yeah, it was a different time
and just a different way of doing things.
This is now a leisure place,
it's something completely different.
So we've got a bit modern war
because the passenger trains came up to this point
obviously where the platform is,
that was the edge of the passenger services.
That Folkestone Harbour,
especially from this inception is extensively for goods
and freight services and so the rails went right on,
they carried right out, right out onto the harbour arm.
And I can see a lighthouse ahead.
They went all the way yeah, out to the lighthouse,
all the way.
Chris why is it like a curve here?
Was it a siding?
Yeah there were carried sidings on the actual beach
'cause obviously it was shingles
so they could just put track down.
So your passenger train's just running,
discourse all their passengers on the platform,
pull forward onto harbour arm
and then reverse round this curve
because this ramp didn't exist,
round the curve and then they were part of the trains--
On the beach.
On the actual beach, yeah amazing.
I've not been on here that much since 2008.
So the whole brunch down to here the arm
is just over a mile long, a little bit we've seen
has been rejuvenated,
turned into that lovely communal area,
you can walk through all the plants and stuff
but the bit that's overgrown that we thought this morning,
how soon before that gets turned over to the community?
It took nine years to get to where we are now.
I expect it to be a lot less than that to get the top part,
to be something like this so that it has a continuity
from the top to the bottom and it's usable
for the general public and.
And will it go all the way to Folkestone East Junction,
how far, how close to the bane line will it go?
Certainly, the plan is to get it all the way out
to a fully road crossing.
So you join there
which is where the national cycle path ends.
and then pick that up all the way down into Folkestone
down into the harbour
where it can then go along the sea from.
And then it becomes one continuous thing from fully road
all the way down.
But this has been a long term project,
there's been a lot of people working behind the scenes
right?
Yeah, absolutely.
So I was one of the people who was fronting this out
but there's a guy called Richard Hawkins
who now works for the department for transport,
absolutely at the front and centre of this
in terms of getting the closure done.
And he was a local person as well
so he grew up in Folkestone
and he was really passionate about it.
And the energy for doing this is all about local people
and really wanting to invest that energy into it.
Mark thank you, Chris is off camera,
you've seen him enough.
Thank you very much.
Come down to Folkestone, he's round rim,
come down to Folkestone, come down to the harbour
come down to the arm, come to it's a beautiful.
It's really nice on an August sunny day like this.
Yeah it is, it's great.
Have a nice day out, se some heritage railways,
walk the old railway line.
Lovely, see ya!
(wind blowing)
(people chattering)