User:Swiveler/Mid-Kent Railway

The Mid Kent & North Kent Junction Railway (usually called just the Mid Kent Railway) was an early railway company in Kent England. (Note the name is given both with and without the hyphen in different sources.)

Origins
The Mid Kent Railway was formed on 23 July 1855 to construct a 4.75-mile line between the South Eastern Railway (SER) at Lewisham and the Farnborough Extension of the West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway (WEL&CPR) at Beckenham, later renamed Beckenham Junction. The intention then was to extend this line to Croydon at a later date. The line opened 1 January 1857 and was operated by the SER under a ten-year agreement.

Extensions
The planned extension to central Croydon was never built. Instead, an 1862 Act authorised an extension from a junction at New Beckenham, just before Beckenham Junction, to "Croydon (Addiscombe Road)" (renamed Addiscombe by the Southern Railway in 1925). It opened in 1864; in the same year the Mid-Kent company was leased by the SER.

The remaining interests of the company were taken over by the SER in August 1866. A branch from Elmers End to Hayes was completed by the SER in 1882.

In 1885 a link from Woodside to Selsdon (the Woodside and South Croydon Joint Railway) was built jointly by the SER and the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR).

The Crays Company
In 1856 an Act was passed authorising the Mid Kent (Bromley & St Mary Cray) Railway to construct a four-mile line between the terminus of the Farnborough Extension of the WEL&CPR at "Bromley" (now Shortlands) and St Mary Cray. The MK(B&SMC)R was commonly referred to as "The Crays Company".

It was assumed that the Crays line would be operated by the SER in conjunction with the Lewisham to Beckenham line, and eventually acquired by them. But the shareholders heard that the SER was planning a competing line and transferred their allegiance to the East Kent Railway (EKR).

The Crays line made more sense as part of the EKRs drive towards Central London. After negotiation with the EKR, the Crays Company only built the line from the WEL&CPR at Bromley to "Southborough Road" (Bickley). St Mary Cray to Southborough Road was built by the EKR as part of their "Western Extension" from Strood. The Crays line was leased to the London, Chatham & Dover Railway (LC&DR, successor to the EKR) in 1862.



Thus despite the similarity of name, the "Mid-Kent and North Kent Junction Railway" and the "Mid-Kent (Bromley & St Mary Cray) Railway" remained separate and independent until absorbed by the SER and LC&DR respectively.

Legacy
The Lewisham to Elmers End route now forms part of the Hayes line. The southward extension to the LBSCR Oxted Line closed in 1983, and the Addiscombe branch in 1997. Parts of the trackbed were used for the Croydon Tramlink.

The Crays line was of strategic importance in providing a link between the EKR and the WEL&CPR, creating an alternative connection between London and Dover (the Chatham Main Line) to the roundabout route of the SER. This enabled the creation of the LC&DR in 1859, and provoked the SER into building a cut-off via Orpington and Sevenoaks, which opened in 1868.