IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Colwyn Close, SHEERNESS, ME12 3UB

The safety barrier on the opposite side of the road marks the end of a footpath that follows the course of The Sheppey Light Railway (which would have crossed the road at this point) and emerges beside Power Station Road. According to http://www.sheppeywebsite.co.uk/index.php?id=95 the railway opened on 1 August 1901 and closed on 4 December 1950. The total length was 8 miles 52 chains. It ran from Queenborough (where there was a north-facing bay platform on the east side of the station) to Leysdown with intermediate stations at Sheerness East, East Minster-on-Sea (which was actually west of Minster), Minster-on-Sea (they're only given as Minster in the link), Brambledown Halt, Eastchurch and Harty Road Halt. Today, one can trace most of the route from the air and on the Ordnance Survey map (Explorer 149). On the ground, one can find sections overgrown with grass, brambles and trees, sections built over, sections concreted over to form a permanent way or landscaped to form paths for pedestrians.

The Sheppey Light Railway ran from Queenborough to Leysdown-on-Sea. It was built to the designs of the renowned light railway engineer, Colonel Fred Holman Stephens, and was opened in 1901. Traffic was never busy on the line and it was taken over by the South Eastern and Chatham Railway in 1905, finally closing in 1950. The photographer is uncertain as to whether the crossing was made by a bridge or a level crossing, and the situation is not helped by the fact that the Ordnance Survey large scale maps available online either show the railway as working and the road as a track before the houses were built (1933), or the railway dismantled but with the houses built and the road formalized (1965).