More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
Home Sittingbourne News Article
One of Kent's oldest rail bridges has been demolished.
Network Rail engineers used a crane to take down the iron pedestrian bridge at Sittingbourne railway station in St Michael’s Road over Saturday night.
The Victorian bridge was lifted out of the way and will be taken away for scrap. A Network Rail spokesman said: "It had come to the end of its life and was not safe to continue to use. It will be scrapped."
The work came just after the station, which celebrated the 163rd anniversary of its opening on January 25, had been named Station of the Year by the Kent Community Rail Partnership.
It has three platforms serving Southeastern's High Speed service between London and the Kent coast and a link to the Isle of Sheppey.
The first that passengers heard that the bridge would be pulled down was in January when a sign was strapped to the steps warning: “Please be advised this footbridge will be closed from January 18 for pre-demolition works. Please use new footbridge to cross between platforms.”
Photographer Richard Cook said: "A shame in some ways, as it was one of the oldest footbridges on the network. I wonder if there will be a replacement bridge so that the station can have two bridges again? That was very convenient, especially with the long platforms."
The station had a replacement pedestrian bridge built in 2011 at the other end of the platform with two lifts as part of a £370m government Access For All programme.
Replacement bus services between Sittingbourne and Gillingham during the weekend's demolition work were already in place because the line at Newington, the next station on the route to London, is closed as engineers rebuild a 40-metre embankment after a landslip. It is not expected to reopen the line until Monday, February 8.
The landslip happened on a 13-metre deep cutting built in 1858 and affects the line between Sittingbourne and Medway.
After days of heavy rain, the top section gave way and slid onto the tracks. More than 300 tonnes of soil are being removed.
Thameslink trains from London to Rainham terminate one station earlier at Gillingham.
Southeastern train service director Scott Brightwell said: “There is never an ideal time to close the railway but this work by Network Rail is essential to ensure that this stretch of track can reopen for trains as soon as possible allowing passengers’ journeys to continue without delay.
The line is protected with a series of one-tonne bags of stone which will be replaced with a 60-metre wall of 12-metre long steel piles.
VIDEO: Network Rail engineer Derek Butcher explains work on the landslip at Newington
