An animated look at the lost railway line that ran between Canterbury and Whitstable harbour! (“Crab and Winkle Line”)
It was an early British railway that opened in 1830 between Canterbury and Whitstable in the county of Kent, England. By 1948, when it became part of British Railways, Whitstable Harbour had fallen into disuse and what was left of the line’s trade had disappeared.
The final scheduled freight train ran on 29 November 1952.
In 1997, a charity, The Crab and Winkle Line Trust, was formed to reopen the route as a footpath and cycleway, ‘The Crab and Winkle Way’. In 1999, a 7 mile long footpath and cycleway was opened between Canterbury and Whitstable, running along part of the original trackbed. There are plans to allow public access to more of the line.
Feel free to subscribe and explore other lost lines!
10 Comments
Walked this line as a young lad back in the late sixties. I think it had two claims of fame, one was the oldest rail bridge, the first railway tunnel and the first official passenger line. Though I must admit my memory isn’t what it was so please correct me on these details.
2 make that 3.
In the 80,s i remember the station platform still being there before they built the oysters retirement flats and the original railway crossing gate was still at south street road crossing. used to use part of the line in whitstable as the school cross country course
Excellent video, as usual! Thank you for uploading!
Can you find ghost train fron Salisbury to Bournemouth via downton please
Clever!
Thank you😊❤
No mention of the tunnel. Here it is. The line closed in 1952 and in the 1960s the University of Kent at Canterbury was built above the tunnel. Unfortunately in 1974 this led to the collapse of part of the northern tunnel beneath the campus. The building above ironically included the engineering faculty! The portion of the tunnel affected was infilled with a small amount of concrete and a larger amount of ash.
These videos are absolutely superb. Very well made. Thank you.
The rails ere still embeded in the tarmac in 1968 at the harbour gates