Appledore (Kent) railway station

Appledore
Location
Place	Appledore
Local authority	Ashford
Coordinates
Grid reference	TQ975297
Operations
Station code	APD
Managed by	Southern
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	F2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2004/05	21,126
2005/06	20,718
2006/07	25,693
2007/08	31,457
2008/09	32,856
2009/10	31,488
2010/11	34,182
2011/12	31,346
2012/13	36,908
2013/14	40,116
History
Key dates	Opened 13 February 1851 (13 February 1851)
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Appledore from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Appledore railway station lies east of Appledore in Kent, England. It is on the Marshlink Line, and train services are provided by Southern. The station is located almost two miles from Appledore village and south of Ashford.

Description

It is at a junction of a freight branch line running to Dungeness nuclear power station via Lydd. Appledore is also the start of the single track section of the Marshlink line, which runs through to Ore near Hastings with a passing loop at Rye.

There are no ticketing facilities at Appledore, although APTIS was once provided here until the booking office closed in the very early 1990s. The office buildings on the Ashford-bound platform are unused.

Trains serving the station are Southern diesel Class 171 Turbostars, used on the non-electrified Ashford-Rye-Hastings (Marshlink) route.

A rail track engineering company occupies the yard just south of the station.

History

Opened by the South Eastern Railway, which then merged with the London, Chatham and Dover Railway to form the South Eastern and Chatham Railway, it became part of the Southern Railway during the Grouping of 1923. The station then passed on to the Southern Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948.

When Sectorisation was introduced in the 1980s, the station was served by Network South East until the Privatisation of British Railways.

Name curiosities

According to National Rail, this station's official name is Appledore (Kent), despite the other Appledore station in Devon having closed in 1917. On official documents and railway company websites, the station is referred to as Appledore (Kent), although most locals know it as just 'Appledore'.

Services

Trains run once every sixty minutes during the day in each direction, north to Ashford and south to Hastings and beyond to/from Brighton via Lewes and Eastbourne.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Rye		Southern Marshlink Line		Ham Street
	Disused railways
Terminus		BR Southern Region Marshlink - Dungeness branch		Brookland Halt Line and station closed

References

• Station on navigable O.S. map.

External links

• Train times and station information for Appledore (Kent) railway station from National Rail