Folkestone Harbour Branch

In a local paper the owners of Folkestone Harbour have stated that they dont see any use for a ferry service or the supporting railway , the only interest appear to be in the development potensial of the land

They state that they asked operators from Dover about the theasability of a service from folkestone , of course these operators have invested huge ammount of money and time in Dover so you can guess what the responce was,
The latest is that they cant see any reason for the railway to be incorporated into the plans but have asked the representaves from the RL to attend a meeting to descuss this , the most likily out come would be that whilst Network rail own the track bed it would be just another disussed track bed and turned into a foot path or cycleway , which would of course not cost FHC or its billionaire owner a penny ,
a recent development has seen a modernist totally out of characher resturant, catering for a very high class customer base being planned for a part of the fish market which is almost totally un spoilt by modern buildings , this seems to be to me the end design , for this part of Folkestone to build high end attractions where no one bothers to go, you cant turn round 50 years of neglect by only catering for a select few
Folkestone has a problem with its heritage, the people it looks to , to get it out of resession, does not value history indeed the family of the billionaire have in the past demolished several historic buildings and erected buildings that removed dacades of past history at a stroke and appear to be set on removing all of folkestones historic areas that are in its ownership

 

I'm sure these high class people that are going to live in the new development would need a direct rail link to London. We should not be closing railways at this time.

 

Have you got a link to the local paper story?

 

Its in the Km Extra from this week , page 3 or 4 i think if you google km group you should find it , what i should have also said is that there is already a very good fish and chip shop in the fish market, that happens to be very supportive of us , the strange thing is folkestone is a port that was set up by act of parlement and it would take another to close it , and its the last rail connnected port in the south east, but all this doesnt seem to count for much, we have consultants who have an interested party who would be willing to set up a fast ferry service between folkestone and Bouloine and they are backed by the boloine chamber of commerce and have access to EU funding, a plan for an interchange station at folkestone junction where you would have direct cross platform connection with the fast train to st pancress off the main line or a feeder service that would enable stations not served by the hi speed to connect at ashford this could terminate at folkestone junction the hi speed service though is the ace, the returning trains would bring in day trippers , what would you prefer, a fast run to folkestone straight onto the cat across to bouloine a very shot bus ride to the gare de bouloine , or trapped in kent in a eurostar, or stuck in traffic in dover and missing your ferry, oh yes and after a couple of years steam trains between the harbour and the junction station with a bit of a hill to climb

 

Hi y'all -
you guys would appear a more professional crew if you could learn to spell Boulogne and St Pancras
(Oh, and while you're at it, how about recession, parliament, character, resataurant, etc etc!!)

 

Those in glass houses......

 

touché!!

 

Can't find the local news story on their website, so any assistance would be appreciated.

Not knowing the area its difficult to say, but is there really a market for ferry services from Folkestone, or is it sound commercial sense to focus further investment on the larger port at Dover? Right along the south coast ferry services are being rationalised; is Folkestone another victim of this?

 

dover tend to concentrate on the calais route Folkestone always used to serve boulogne which has gone down hill very much the same as Folkestone has i know the boulogne chamber of commerce think its viable, so do Shepway council , as dover reaches saturation point a car and passinger only service would take some of the slack allowing dover to deal with more freight , at least thats what we have been told but FHC dont want to know, only recently LD lines offered to run their fast cat service from here and even offered to pay for the work necessary but were turned away because the owner does not want to keep it as a port just a marina for very expensive yaghts
and to martin ball, if all you can do is to pick up on spelling mistakes then find a more constructive thing to post about i know that my spelling needs work, but there is a reason for this, i am doing this to try to bring it to peoples notice , the folkestone harbour branch was very popular because of what it is and some of us dont want to see a usefull rail link be lost because once the bull dozers move in its too late ,and there is enough concrete in this town and past mistakes that have been made, this is the last bit of the town that still has any atmosphere left

 

I really don't see the potential of this line to carry regular commuters, it's simply not physically set up for that. The area has pretty good rail connections to London and the rest of the South-East already. I can't see a Javelin train coming down the CTRL from London running into Dover, and then down down the harbour branch. There's no business case.

As a heritage line I can't see any potential either. The redevelopment plans look to make sense. The locals don't need a mothballed railway. In terms of local public transport they need good buses, on a regional level they need commuter trains. I can see no business case for its retention.

It's only another line, like hundreds of others that were closed by Beeching. It's not that important. You can't save everything and so let's try to save something worth saving. Concentrate on improving what is already there, e.g. the K&ESR.

 

I used to live in Folkestone when there was a proper ferry service, and I must say that branch only makes sense if it leads somewhere, i.e. to a boat. So if the owner of the harbour rejects all approaches from ferry companies, he'll find it easy to make a case to the council about chopping up the track below the last road bridge.
And with 37 Tory councillors out of 46 on Shepway District Council, I hardly think they'll be putting up fierce resistance to development plans in what is surely the least prosperous area of Folkestone, do you?

 

You would think yes, but in this case a recent vote by the council voted 36 to 0 in favour of re instating the ferry service . and network rail wont sell the track bed, so they cant remove the viaduct or the swing bridge , of course, there is always the chance, even if it is remote that network rail could sell the lease to the preservationists rather than see the line lost

 

Well RESPECT to the good men of Kent! I'm genuinely surprised. It's such a pity that any local shuttle service from the lower town to Central station would have to reverse on the main line, which must make it virtually a non-starter as far as scheduling is concerned.

It's back to those nice YouTubes of 34067 and 850, I suppose.

 

long term,our plan is for a new station where the former east station used to be with a cross platform connection , short term a platform could be put in where the interchange lines are to separate the branch traffic from the main line one idea we are working on with south eastern is for a service to terminate at the junction, either a local ashford to folkestone feeder ,or for the hi speed if ferries do come back, we have double track and we are thinking along the lines of one is kept electrified to allow a javelin to reach the harbour station some may say its too far fetched, but the east side of folkestone has grown to a point where a station could be needed and then central might be closed at least thats the plan

 

I agree completely, it's yet another case of the combined 'Save everything' and 'Look, here's our opportunity to have our own 12-inches-to-the-foot-scale train set' mentality. I also have a major problem with the name the 'Remembrance Line'. It's not 'honouring the dead of WW1', it's using the mmory of the dead of WW1 to further some idiotic and pointless 21st century ideal for a preserved railway, that all those allegedly 'rich' people allegedly flocking to their allegedly new 'rich' restaurant in a particularly run down part of a run down town ain't gonna use.

Why does the word 'Luton' keep running through my head?

The best use of the Folkestone Harbour branch is as a footpath, saving what buildings can be saved, not the whole lot.

 

Disused branch, seems to think that every branch should be disused , having read his posts on the Luton to dunstible line , if i wanted to work at the KESR i would have joined them , we currently have a membership of about 400 and rising, backing from some council members and now that we are getting our message across locally far more local support , its precisly the issue of the "rich resturant thinking" that we are fighting, everyone can see how wrong it is except 2 people, the person who drew up the plans and the one who paid him to draw up the plans.

In folkestone there is a major problem, the owner has in most peoples eyes un limited funds, but tends to use more grants and government aided funding for his plans and so planners tend to draw up what they think he would like, not what 99% of the people want its due to the fact that we are being taken seriously now by the council that we have at last got talks with the owner of the harbour .Its an undenyable fact that something needs to be done with the area and turning the trackbed into a foot path ,i dont think is in Network rails best interests as they will still own the structures such as the viaduct and swing bridge and will get no income from them, where as the Rememberance line would hope to generate income for folkestone and what if the case for a ferry can be prooved over the longer term, how much more expensive would it be if to re lay the track and build a new station, Network rail also has a very long term lease(999 years) on the station building so are they prepared to do something that is going to cost them more in the possible longer term?

 

No Martin, you're wrong mate. Please see my post in the Luton thread, which explains my reasons:

http://railways.national-preservati...-proposal-website-updated?p=338735#post338735

 

Mr May -you are wrong.So what needs improving about the KESR?-its been aropund for 50 years for goodness sake -it can look after itself and doesn't need you pontificating about its status.
You sound just like those bigots in 1983 who said-oi! we've got enough Bulleid pacifics,we can't save everything-cut everything else up at Barry up now!

In case you didn't know Network rail are committed to closing lines only under exceptional circumstances-in any case The Remembrance Line would make a superb community rail partnership project. Of course the locals don't need a mothballed line-they need an operational one! You talk pompously about business cases-do you honestly think that those great guys who started off the KESR considered the business case for doing so? ...and do you really think that those behind the Folkestone Harbour Branch revival in 2010 have not considered the businees case required? Come on Mr May -this is an exciting project-why not join us?

 

LETS SEE OUR BUSINESS PLAN, right, we can only estimate what the appeal would be but i deal in possibilities, the branch is very steeply graded and can take anything upto a MN, and has a main line connection, thats a plus, it runs onto a harbour, with a very nice sandy beach not far way and a nice fish market so there is something to see at the end, we along with historical history groups would like to see a museum and links with the many first world war interest groups, where else can you actually visit somewhere where your grandad, or great granddad would have stood, and know for sure he did so, we would have the books to show who was going through the station on a set day in a set year folkestone and the area has a wealth of history that doesnt get spoken about and ignored .
where we are differant from the harbour owner is that we want something that will appeal to anyone it doesnt matter what they are or where they come from, where as the harbour plans only are aimed at a select few and they openly admit that they and the creative foundation planners are not interested in those who are already here, only in those who they want to attract in who they think can afford the harbour company's dream the upper part of the line from the junction is fairly safe, the harbour dont own it, only the viaduct onwards is owned by FHC, but network rail has a very long term lease on the formation and station.
the plans for the new buildings for the site dont seem to look at the past history of the area and the type of land and as far as i can tell are going to proove to be posibly very expessive to build and could turn out to be unsellable if any delvelopers decide to take the concideable risk involved, its one thing to draw up plans , its something else to risk vast funds when the owner of the land seems unwilling to put his own vast sums behind it we are of the opinion that he infact wants to sell it on once he gets planning permision , so therefore not risking his own funds