Dymchurch railway station - 01797 362353

Dymchurch railway station is on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway in Kent, England. It is five miles (eight km) south of Hythe, and surrounded by flat countryside.The station opened on 16 July 1927 as Dymchurch (Marshlands), to distinguish it from a nearby station called Burmarsh for East Dymchurch and later as Dymchurch Bay.The station has two platforms connected by a footbridge. On the 'up' platform there is a shelter and a station master's house. On the 'down' platform is a station building incorporating a booking office and staff room, a shop selling souvenirs and refreshments, and a women's toilet. The men's toilets are in the supporting pillars of the footbridge, although only that on the 'down' platform is in use.There are four signals on the Dymchurch control panel - an up home, an up starter, a down home, and a down starter. All of these are three-aspect colour-light signals. All four signals are linked to the lights at the level crossings on either side of the station. The signals are controlled from a panel in the booking office. This control panel also incorporates an Annetts Key which is interlocked with the running signals and allows access to the ground frame controlling a siding at the St Mary's Bay end of the station beside the Up line.Originally larger, the 1920s station had three platforms (two through platforms and a bay platform), a signal box, a turntable, and a mainline crossover to allow shuttle trains from New Romney. These never happened, and the turntable was removed in the 1930s. A second crossover was installed before the war and shuttles worked between Dymchurch and Hythe via Burmarsh Road. The signalbox was removed in the 1960s, and the remaining four switches bolted in the normal position, primitive colour-light signals being worked by domestic light switches from the booking office for normal block operations. They were not interlocked with the points, or each other!

Tags: Train Station