The Elham Valley Railway was a line connecting Folkestone and Canterbury in Kent, England. It opened between 1887 and 1889 and closed in 1947.
The line was originally proposed by the independent Elham Valley Light Railway Company in the mid-19th century. After the project was cancelled owing to financial difficulties, it was revived by the South Eastern Railway who were competing with the rival London, Chatham and Dover Railway for railway traffic. The scheme was complicated by the imposing geography of the Elham Valley and the construction of two significant tunnels. The southern section from Cheriton to Barham opened in 1887, with the northern section to Canterbury opening two years later.
The Elham Valley Railway was never commercially successful as it passed through predominantly rural areas. During World War II it was appropriated by the War Department who used it for defence, including a large rail-mounted gun stationed on the line. After the conflict, the line passed back into civilian use, but the route now had competing bus traffic. A shuttle service from Folkestone to was reinstated in 1946, but closed the following year; the remainder of the line never re-opened. Some of the railway has been demolished, including Elham railway station, but parts of the infrastructure including the two tunnels have survived. The history of the line is commemorated in a local museum.
Background
The South Eastern Railway opened the main line to Ashford in 1842. A connection to Folkestone opened the following year and to Canterbury in 1846. At the same time, the East Kent Railway was constructing a line from Canterbury to Dover. However, the imposing geography of the Elham Valley that connects Canterbury to Folkestone meant that unlike much of Kent, no railway line was proposed to run through it during the Railway Mania of this time.
The valley was poorly connected to the nearest market towns, Ashford and Canterbury, with the main road being little more than a dirt track. Landowners and residents saw that they were isolated in the absence of a railway, and proposed an independent scheme for a line. The first prospectus was presented to Parliament in 1865, outlining an "Elham Valley Light Railway Company" which would build a single-line railway starting at Hythe on the coast, running up through the Seabrook valley, through Newington and joining the existing SER and East Kent lines. The line was planned as a light railway with a maximum speed of . It was authorised by Parliament (as the Elham Valley Railway) on 6 August 1866, but serious financial difficulties plagued the scheme due to the national financial crisis, and the project was cancelled. It was abandoned by a Board of Trade Order on 30 August 1873 because of to "failure to raise sufficient capital".
The East Kent Railway had since been renamed as the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR), and developed ideas for a new line from Folkestone to Canterbury. The LCDR's chairman James Staats Forbes argued this would provide better connections between Folkestone and Canterbury as passengers would not need to change trains. The route would compete with the coastal SER line via Dover that passed by unstable chalk cliffs. On 14 November 1875, a severe storm damaged the SER line towards Dover, and in January 1877, a series of storms flooded the track, culminating in the collapse of the Martello Tunnel on 12 January. The line was shut until 12 March and did not recover full operation until 30 May. During this outage, the LCDR billed the SER for temporary use of its lines.
To compete with the LCDR, the SER proposed a line from Cheriton to Canterbury in 1879. This project was rejected by Parliament the following year, but it was reintroduced in a modified form as the Elham Valley Light Railway Company, which received Royal Assent on 18 July 1881. Despite an authorised capital of £150,000 (£ as of ), no construction took place. The rival SER and LCDR schemes were advocated locally, with posters displayed around Folkestone supporting both, while Forbes and the SER's Edward Watkin accused each other of sabotage. In order to strengthen their case, the SER agreed to take over the Elham Valley Railway, and construct it as a double-track line to standard gauge like the rest of its network. The SER scheme was authorised on 28 July 1884 by the South Eastern Railway (Various Powers) Act 1884. It was nominally independent, with power adopted by the SER on completion.