Aylesford railway station

Aylesford
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Location
Place	Aylesford
Local authority	Tonbridge and Malling
Coordinates
Grid reference	TQ720586
Operations
Station code	AYL
Managed by	Southeastern
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	F2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2004/05	62,484
2005/06	83,218
2006/07	80,375
2007/08	92,776
2008/09	97,694
2009/10	96,178
2010/11	96,396
2011/12	98,924
2012/13	0.107 million
2013/14	0.113 million
History
Key dates	Opened 18 June 1856 (18 June 1856)
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Aylesford from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Aylesford railway station first opened on 18 June 1856. It is on the Medway Valley Line in Kent, England, and serves Aylesford. Train services are provided by Southeastern.

History

Aylesford was opened by the South Eastern Railway, which merged with local rival London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR) on 1 January 1899 to form the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SECR). The station became part of the Southern Railway during the Grouping of 1923, and passed on to the Southern Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948.

When sectorisation was introduced in the 1980s, the station was served by Network SouthEast until the privatisation of British Railways.

The ticket office, in a building on the northbound platform, closed in September 1989 and an Indian restaurant—now incorporating a fried chicken takeaway—was subsequently established in the building, which had been extensively renovated in a prizewinning scheme in 1988. In 2007, a PERTIS (Permit to Travel) ticket machine was installed just inside the entrance to the station, on the northbound platform.

Services

The typical off-peak service from the station is two trains per hour to Maidstone West, with alternate trains extended to Paddock Wood and Tonbridge, and two trains an hour to Strood, for connections to London.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
New Hythe		Southeastern Medway Valley Line		Maidstone Barracks

Station Building

File:Aylesford Railway Station, Kent, UK.jpg

Aylesford Station building

The section of the line surrounding Aylesford Station passes through what was part of the Preston Hall Estate, the then home of Edward Betts, the railway contractor who built this part of the Medway Valley Line. Consequently, the station building is much grander than other country stations along the line. The station buildings are gabled and highly decorated, built in Kentish ragstone with Caen stone dressings, in part reflecting a simplified version of the style of Preston Hall. Windows replicate those at Aylesford Priory.

Following restoration and refurbishment, the station building received an Ian Allan award in 2001, commemorated by a plaque in the waiting room/booking office, which is now in use as an Indian Takeaway Restaurant.

References

Bibliography

• Station on navigable O.S. map

External links

• Train times and station information for Aylesford railway station from National Rail
• Aylesford railway station in the 1863 edition of Bradshaw's Descriptive Railway Hand-Book of Great Britain & Ireland