Talk:Westerham Valley branch line

If anyone knows what happened to the Westerham Flyer locomotive, please do not hesitate to add that information in. Ravenseft 09:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Thornbury Branch Line which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 00:17, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Closure Reasons
The building of the M25 was not the sole reason for the closure of this line. It was closed in October 1961 as being unremunerative, by the then Minister of Transport Earnest Marples. I fail to see how closure of this line was done for the construction of the southern section of the proposed M25 Orbital motorway, which had not yet been surveyed and the route or line of the motorway had not been agreed at that time in the 1960s. I would add that construction of the M25 started at Dunton Green east and west sections in June and December 1976, some 15 years after the lines closure. It would be useful for the date of when the surveys were done to be included in this section of the article, as the references themselves provide contradictory information on this point. The failure of the Westerham Associations bid to reopen the line was because Kent County Council had purchased the line in order to demolish a bridge to make way for the A21 Sevenoaks bypass, and the Association could not raise the funds (£14,000) to replace the bridge. I recognise that the M25 motorway was built over a section of the route of this line much later in the mid to late 1970s but it was not the main cause of closure in 1961. I would also add that the lines closure could be coincident with the commissioning of Kents electrified lines and the removal of steam from all BR lines in Kent. This needs to be confirmed. Aquizard 15:32, 15 November 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aquizard (talk • contribs)