Closure, Preservation and Uncertain Future
In 1969 a time and motion study by the then owners, Bowater, resulted in the closure of the railway. By this time the railway was the last industrial narrow gauge railway in Britain operating steam locomotives. The Locomotive Club of Great Britain (LCGB) was granted a lease of the southern portion of the railway between Sittingbourne and Kemsley Down in 1970. Much of the rest of the equipment went to form the Great Whipsnade Railway. The LCGB formed the Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway Company to operate the railway. The company operates the railway under the name Sittingbourne & Kemsley Light Railway (S&KLR).
The S&KLR was threatened with closure at the end of 2008. The current owners of the railway land, the Finnish paper company M-real, closed the paper mill at Sittingbourne in 2007 and sold the paper mill at Kemsley to another company. M-real gave the railway company notice to quit the site and to remove all their locomotives and equipment by the end of December 2008, however as of February 2009,although trains are not running during the winter period, negotiations to keep the line intact are continuing.
Read more about this topic: Bowaters Paper Railway
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