Leigh’s Own Railway Station: The History of the Redhill to Tonbridge Line
Leigh’s Own Railway Station: The History of the Redhill to Tonbridge Line
Our station on the Tonbridge to Redhill line is vulnerable to service cuts and has become a withered arm of the Southern franchise. There has been a steady deterioration of passenger services over the last 15 years and every effort needs to be made to save the route, indeed to improve it.
The history of the line starts with the London and South Eastern Railway which shared London Bridge as its London terminus. Initially, they had powers over the London and Brighton Railway as far as Redhill and in 1842, they completed a new route 45 miles to Ashford via Tonbridge, which served as the main line from the South East to London for 26 years. In 1868 a more direct route to London was opened through Chislehurst and Sevenoaks which became the main line to London, although the Redhill line remained a significant route, particularly for passenger and freight traffic avoiding London, even if for sixty years, trains did not stop at Leigh. However, in 1911 “Lyghe Halt” opened, eventually renamed Leigh.
The route played a crucial role in the Second World War, as one of “Alternative Routes for Traffic Across the River Thomes” for directing traffic around London. It played a major part in the movement of troops evacuated from Dunkirk. Even Leigh ladies remember throwing things through the windows to the troops as the trains slowed down through the village; and the current sidings west of Tonbridge were built to accommodate this traffic in 1942.
The route was not included in the “Kent Coast Electrification Scheme” completed in 1962. The infamous Beeching Report proposed the closure of the intermediate stations including Leigh, which was not pursued in part due to strong public pressure to retain them. However, the stations were subsequently de-staffed, and their buildings demolished, to be replaced by the small shelters we have today. Steam was replaced with diesel in January 1965 and a new service from Tonbridge to Reading was started. In 1994 the route was electrified and this meant that in 1999 an hourly service to Maidstone West and an hourly service from London Bridge to Tunbridge Wells via Redhill were introduced.
However, the line has suffered from changing franchise operators, and perhaps also from being on the periphery of Kent and Surrey and from not being championed by any leading local authority. Since 2018 it has become largely a shuttle service between Redhill and Tonbridge.
It remains a vital local service of social need in an area of poor roads and bus services, but as the Kent County Council’s 2021 Rail Strategy recognized, there is a strategic need for a new regional rail service that would link together the counties of south-east England outside Greater London with each other and with Gatwick Airport. Although no longer a main line, the Tonbridge to Redhill route could, with suitable investment, enhance the public transport connectivity of the region and help to meet the needs of the growing population of the communities it serves.
Philip Gale, Tonbridge Line Commuters, adapted by Chris Rowley (Parish Magazine Article October 2024)