I've added a lengthy comment of my childhood memories on the photo of the engine and coaches at Leysdown. But seeing this brought it all back to me. My mother's sister and husband lived at one of the houses close to the level crossing and as a young boy (1946-1950) I loved watching the trains as they crossed the Halfway Road. A pickup goods train used to shunt at the East Station and I well remember standing with my parents under the awning of the platform building (pictured) waiting for our train. The wooden structure is a standard design found on most of the light railways operated by the late Colonel Holman Stephens.
The Artful Codger
11-Mar-2011 14:44
Strewth what memories, My Dad Percy (Len) August used to work the Sheppey light as Footplateman,Shunter,Stoker etc, and was on the last ever train before they shut the line.
when the 53 floods hit we lived on the corner of power station road, and were totally unaware that the house was full of rising water. enter Tubby Ward and mate who lifted me from me bed - which was almost overlapping in water - and took Mum and me up to the Bus depot which amazingly was untouched by the flood waters. Tubby Ward went back to the house many times to retrieve our clothes and save what he could - including our Dog Rex. At first light they put us on a double decker bus and took us to my Nans at halfway, where we spent the next 6 weeks. When we eventually went back to visit the house to see what the damage was Mum remembered that she had left a joint in the oven, she opened the oven and the joint floated out, it was the first time for some weeks that I had seen Mum laugh - and then she cried.
David Thurman-Newell
18-Apr-2010 17:13
The biulding in the background was indeed the bus/tram depot.which now is occupied by chainstore massacre!
Graham
12-Dec-2009 00:52
Yes, that is the bus depot in the background. Where they did all the maintenance. I never saw the station like this, I can only remember the remains of the platform. My dad was a bus driver, so I used to come here a lot.
Tom Burnham
29-Aug-2008 20:25
Classic light railway corrugated iron buikding, although the platform looks like a Southern Railway rebuild. Is that the former tram sheds (later bus garage) in the background?
