Chattenden and Upnor Railway

The Chattenden and Upnor Railway (later known as the Lodge Hill and Upnor Railway) was a narrow gauge railway serving the military barracks and depot at Upnor, Kent and associated munitions and training depots. It was built in the early 1870s as a temporary standard-gauge railway, converted to 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow gauge around 1885, and continued in use until 1961.

Chattenden and Upnor Railway
Overview
HeadquartersChattenden
LocaleEngland
Dates of operation1873–1961
SuccessorAbandoned
Technical
Track gauge2 ft 6 in (762 mm)

History
Locomotive Yorkshire beneath the barracks clock at Chattenden

There are conflicting reports about the early days of the railway. It is said that it was built in the early 1870s partly to aid construction of Chattenden Munitions Depot and the associated Chattenden Barracks, and partly as a training exercise for the Royal School of Military Engineering which was then based at Brompton Barracks, Chatham. According to a report in the issue of "Iron" dated Saturday 29 May 1875: "A detachment of non-commissioned officers and men of the Royal Engineers, commanded by Lieut. Barker, on Saturday left the School of Military Engineering at Chatham for Upnor, where they will be quartered for some time, as they are to be employed to lay down lines of rails to connect forts on the Thames and Medway with the new powder magazines to be constructed at Chattenden Roughs, a few miles from the old magazines at Upnor Castle. It is expected that more than forty miles of these railways will be constructed." [1]

Around 1885 the railway was relaid and converted to 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) gauge by the 8th. Railway Company of the Royal Engineers who managed the line. The line was also used by the REs for training personnel in railway construction and operation, and may have retained some standard-gauge for this purpose. There may also have been some 18 inch gauge track, as the REs had a stock of equipment for this gauge held in reserve for campaign use, some of which was deployed in the Suakin-Berber campaign of 1885.

The line ran from Pontoon Hard by the River Medway to a reversing point south of Tower Hill and climbed steeply past Tank Field and Church Crossing towards Chattenden where in 1877 the War Office built a set of gunpowder magazines. A spur led from Church Crossing to the Lower Upnor Ordnance Depot and until 1895 a branch ran from Chattenden to Hoo. This last had been intended to connect with Hoo Fort on an island in the Medway, but the necessary bridging was never completed. It is seen at its maximum extent on Ordnance Survey 1" map sheet 272 surveyed in 1893, published 1896. Later issues show it cut back to west of Hoo St Werburgh village. It is not known if it ever carried any traffic but it might have been a useful training line.

In 1891 the Admiralty took over Upnor Depot and it became a Royal Naval Armaments Depot. Another armaments depot was constructed at Lodge Hill, north of Chattenden which was also served by the railway. In 1905 the entire Chattenden enclosure was taken over by the Navy, and in 1906 the railway was also taken over by the Navy and renamed the Lodge Hill and Upnor Railway. (The Royal Engineers moved their railway training operations to the new establishment at Longmoor).The Navy built a new 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge line (called the Chattenden Naval Tramway) from Lodge Hill Depot to Sharnal Street on the South Eastern & Chatham Railway's Hundred of Hoo branch.

The railway saw intensive use during the Second World War, but use declined after the end of hostilities and the railway closed in 1961.

Locomotives
Name/Number Builder Type Date Works number Notes
Sulphur Yorkshire Engine Company 0-4-2T 1885 405 Scrapped 1932[2]
Carbon Yorkshire Engine Company 0-4-2T 1886 404 Scrapped by 1914[3]
Yorkshire John Fowler 0-4-4T 1885-7[4] 5350 Scrapped 1930
Cheshire W.G. Bagnall 0-4-2T 1890 1260 ex-War Department, Crewe. Sold for scrap 1931 or 1932
Lancashire Yorkshire Engine Company 0-4-4T 1891 462 Scrapped in 1930[3]
Cumberland Lowca Engineering Company 0-4-2T[2] 1893 220 Scrapped by 1904
Stafford, later Eardley Wilmot W.G. Bagnall 0-6-0T 1897 1513 ex-War Department, South Africa, 1901. Renamed Eardley Wilmot 1915. Scrapped in 1941.[2]
Bagnall W.G. Bagnall 0-6-0ST 1897 1514 ex-War Department, South Africa, 1901. Scrapped 1932[2]
Kitchener Yorkshire Engine Company 0-6-2T 1902 711 New.[4] To Chatham Dockyard for scrap 1948; scrapped 1954.
Pioneer Yorkshire Engine Company 2-6-2ST 1903[2] 757 To War Department, Woolmer Instructional Military Railway, 1905; later to the Pentewan Railway, 1912.
No name[5] Richard Hornsby & Sons 0-6-6-0DM 1903 6234 Hornsby-Akroyd 20 hp compression-ignition (semi-diesel) engine. Underpowered, noisy and difficult to start. Disposal unknown.
Ascension Avonside Engine Company 0-4-2T 1904 1480 To Admiralty, Hoo Ness, by 1928.
Eardley Wilmot McEwan, Pratt & Co 0-6-0PM 1911 not known Unfinished when McEwan Pratt in receivership 1911. Taken by Admiralty and completed at Chatham Dockyard but never successful. 80 hp 4cyl petrol engine. Offered for sale as scrap 1922.[6]
Fisher Dick Kerr and Company 0-6-2T 1915 13996 Scrapped 1954[2]
Chevallier Manning Wardle 0-6-2T 1915 1677 Sold to the Bowaters Paper Railway in 1950, subsequently sold to the Great Whipsnade Railway
Burnett Hall Avonside 0-4-2T 1933 2070 Scrapped 1956. Nameplate on display at Amberley Museum.
Norbury Peckett 0-4-2T 1934 1868 Scrapped 1955. Nameplate on display at Amberley Museum.
83 Ruston and Hornsby 4wDM 1943 213838 Sold 1960[2]
Yard No. 92[2] Hunslet 6wDM 1946 3301 Sold 1961[2]
Yard No. 84 Ruston and Hornsby 4wDM 1947 242919 To RNAD Crombie[2]
Yard No. 85[2] Drewry 6wDM 1949 2263 Transferred to RNAD Ernsettle in 1960,[2] then to the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway in 1968 and named Chattenden
Yard No. 45 Ruston and Hornsby 4wDM 1952 268878 To RNAD Ernesettle 1960
Yard No. 44[2] Hibberd Planet 4wDM 1954 3687 Sold to the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway in 1962,[2] named Upnor Castle, sold to the Ffestiniog Railway and regauged to 1 ft 11 1⁄2 in (597 mm)
Unknown numbers Unknown make, poss. Greenwood & Batley 4wBE 1928-1931 6 battery locos, used for shunting ammunition wagons and sometimes on main line
43, 44, 48, 88-90 Greenwood & Batley 4wBE 1938-1945 6 battery locos, used for shunting ammunition wagons and sometimes on main line
Various numbers between 28 and 285, At least 35 over the years Greenwood & Batley, Wingrove & Rogers and others 2-2-0BE 1918-1946 Battery trolleys, powered flat wagons used to carry items within depots only.

See also

References
  1. "Letters to the Editor". The Industrial Railway Record. 15: 118. September 1967.
  2. Lyne, R.M. (1983). Military Railways in Kent. Ramsgate: North Kent Books. ISBN 0-948305-04-5.
  3. "Letters to the Editor". The Industrial Railway Record. 14: 79. June 1967.
  4. "Letters to the Editor". The Industrial Railway Record. 14: 73. June 1967.
  5. Smithers, M. (2016) The Royal Arsenal Railways, (Pen and Sword) p112
  6. "Ministry of Munitions Locomotives". The Industrial Railway Record. 55: 304. August 1974.
  • Thomas, Cliff (2002). The Narrow Gauge in Britain & Ireland. Atlantic Publishers. ISBN 1-902827-05-8.
  • Yeatman, D. (December 1966). "Lodge Hill and Upnor Railway". The Industrial Railway Record. 12: 277–292.
  • Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith (2000). Kent Narrow Gauge. Middleton Press. ISBN 1-901706-45-1.
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