History
In 1905, the horse-drawn tramway operating around the paper mill was upgraded to steam operation with the purchase of two steam locomotives - Premier and Leader - which celebrated their 100th birthday in 2005. Other locomotives were bought for use on the railway as the network expanded.
In the 1960s a time and motion study was undertaken by the owners, Bowaters UK, and the railway was deemed to be more expensive than road transport and was closed. However, Bowaters UK offered the main line, some of the locos and rolling stock of the railway to the Locomotive Club of Great Britain for preservation as a tourist railway. Other locomotives and rolling stock were sold to the Great Whipsnade Railway and the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway. The SKLR is now the longest continuous operator of the Railway.
In January 2007, the Railway entered another era as M-real closed Sittingbourne Paper Mill, however, as one door closes, another opens - Church Marshes Country Park now has a managing committee and will see the surrounding area between Milton Regis Halt and Kemsley Down being turned into a fully-fledged country park.
Read more about this topic: Sittingbourne And Kemsley Light Railway
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“History takes time.... History makes memory.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)