This aerial photograph taken circa 1947 shows the railway with the ‘Buffer Depot’ of a large Nissen Hut and several sheds just visible under the wing-strut of the plane. Buffer Depots were where rationed food supplies, building materials and fuel were stored. An important element of the branch line’s social and commercial history, depots such ...
Reference: WH0115
Clearly an example of ‘time on your hands’, the attractive station garden opposite the platform at Brasted. With one train an hour, plenty of time to do the weeding.
Reference: WH0118
Brasted station master Mr. E.W. Howard poses with two of his staff around 1912. By 1924 Brasted and Westerham had lost their station masters and the whole branch was now managed by the Dunton Green station master Frederick William Brockman.
Reference: WH0114
Introduced in the early 1930s, ‘H’ Class locomotives were popular amongst the crews from Tonbridge shed. Being of 0-4-4T wheel configuration and tank-engines (no tender), they were stable and easy to manoeuvre in both directions, there being no turntable on the line.
Reference: WH0116
This locomotive worked out of Tonbridge shed between January 1950 to October 1951 and then again between June 1955 to June 1961. It was ‘Push-and-Pull’ fitted in December 1949. This meant the driver could operate the controls (Regulator, Reverser and Brake) from a compartment at the back end of the train, meaning time was saved ...
Reference: WH0117
This locomotive worked out of Tonbridge shed between July 1953 to June 1956 and then again between March 1961 to the end of operations in October 1961. It was ‘Push-and-Pull’ fitted in June 1953 for branch-line use.
Reference: WH0120
The ‘tablet’ was part of an electrical blocking system used to ensure there was only one moving locomotive on the branch-line at any moment in time. The large loop handle of the tablet made catching easier if this had to happen while the train was moving.
Reference: WH0119
Like Edwin Hollingworth, Charles Aubrey Botley had his own nursery to supply his greengrocer’s business at the bottom of Vicarage Hill, in the quirky lattice-fronted building which is today called simply ‘Darenth’ after Botley’s Darenth Nurseries shown here.
Reference: 0053