Down the Line to Dover

Kent, UK: Midas Books. Very Good/Very Good. 1984. First Edition. Hard Cover. Sm 4to 085936206X Dust jacket complete. Green cloth with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership inscription. 163 pages clean and tight. Two main railways cross Kent from Victoria to the Channel port of Dover: one forging south via Ashford, the other running eastwards through Chatham and Canterbury. For the first twelve miles out of Victoria, however, they share the same metals and the same history. This book is concerned with the second route, whose pre-amalgamation title was self-explanatory: the London Chatham and Dover Railway, colloquially the Land 'Em, Smash 'Em and Over. Its story is punctuated by great trains, including the Night Ferry, Golden Arrow, Sunny South Express and Orient Express. The author has drawn on material from throughout Kent, much of it little used for over a century, including company reports, newspaper accounts, historic advertisements, and accounts of the Ivy Bridge and Beckenham disasters. She has also used many unpublished memories, backing up her own intimate knowledge of local and county history. This is not a technical tome, but a lively human and historic survey of this line; the people and places it serves, its disasters and triumphs, and its growth as a prime approach to and from the Continent of Europe. .