Canterbury East railway station

Railway station in Kent, England

Canterbury East

Station building

General information

Location

Canterbury, City of Canterbury
England

Grid reference

TR146572

Managed by

Southeastern

Platforms

Other information

Station code

CBE

Classification

DfT category C1

History

Opened

9 July 1860

Passengers

2018/19

1.144 million

Interchange

16,163

2019/20

1.097 million

Interchange

15,740

2020/21

0.280 million

Interchange

6,273

2021/22

0.771 million

Interchange

8,680

2022/23

0.936 million

Interchange

9,490

Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Canterbury East railway station is on the Dover branch of the Chatham Main Line in England, and is one of two stations serving the city of Canterbury, Kent.

The station and all trains that serve the station are operated by Southeastern.

Location

The station is 61 miles 65 chains (99.5 km) down the line from London Victoria (measured via Herne Hill) and is situated between Selling and Bekesbourne.^[1] All serving trains are operated by Southeastern.^[2]

The station is approximately 1⁄2 mile (0.8 km) to the south of Canterbury’s other station, Canterbury West. Both stations are located due west of Canterbury’s city centre; in fact, despite their names, the two stations lie on the same line of longitude.

History

The station and its line were built by the London, Chatham & Dover Railway and opened on 9 July 1860 as Canterbury. To avoid confusion with the older station also called Canterbury, built by the South Eastern Railway, it was renamed to Canterbury East on 1 July 1889 while the SER station was renamed Canterbury West.^[3]^[4]

The framework of the platform canopies were originally installed at the never-opened station at Lullingstone.

The semaphore signals at the station were replaced with coloured lights in December 2011. The elevated signal box remains but is no longer in use, with signalling on the line operated from a control room at Gillingham.^{[citation needed]} The signal box was given Grade II listed building status in 2013.^[5]

Canterbury East's ticket barriers were removed in early 2011, as they were the only ones of the kind in the country and spare parts were no longer easy to obtain. Work began to install a new gate-line in October 2016. Coventry and Earlsfield are the only other stations to lose their ticket barriers.^{[citation needed]}

The station has a ticket office, an electronic ticket machine, a cafe and toilets. A footbridge and lifts were opened in 2021.^[6] There is also a connection to local buses including buses to Faversham, London Road Estate, Ashford and Triangle Buses to Whitstable and The University of Kent.

Services

All services at Canterbury East are operated by Southeastern using Class 375 EMUs.

The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:^[7]

1 tph to London Victoria via Chatham
1 tph to Dover Priory

Additional services including trains to and from London Bridge and London Cannon Street call at the station in the peak hours.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Selling		Southeastern Chatham Main Line - Dover Branch		Bekesbourne

References

^ Yonge, John (November 2008) [1994]. Jacobs, Gerald (ed.). Railway Track Diagrams 5: Southern & TfL (3rd ed.). Bradford on Avon: Trackmaps. maps 8B, 9B. ISBN 978-0-9549866-4-3.
^ "Canterbury East". Southeastern. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
^ Butt 1995, p. 53.
^ McCarthy & McCarthy 2007, p. 122.
^ Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1413579)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
^ Harper, Brad (26 August 2021). "New footbridge and lifts open at Canterbury East railway station after £4.8 million upgrade". Kent Online. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
^ Table 212 National Rail timetable, December 2022

Bibliography

Butt, R. V. J. (October 1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199. OL 11956311M.
McCarthy, Colin; McCarthy, David (2007). Railway of Britain : Kent and Sussex. Ian Allan Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7110-3222-4.