Canterbury and Whitstable Railway

Canterbury and Whitstable Railway

Invicta preserved at Canterbury in the 1970s
Locale	Kent, England
Dates of operation	1830–1953
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Length	6 miles 0 chains (9.66 km)

The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway, sometimes referred to colloquially as the Crab and Winkle Line, was an early British railway that opened in 1830 between Canterbury and Whitstable in the county of Kent, England.

There are a number of other claimants to the title "first railway in Britain", including the Middleton Railway, the Swansea and Mumbles Railway and the Surrey Iron Railway amongst others.

Samuel Lewis in his 'A Topographical Dictionary of England' in 1848, called it the first railway in South of England.

The initial Act of Parliament for the construction of the line was passed in 1825. Three further acts in 1827, 1828 and 1835 allowed for the issue of a further £80,000 of stock. From the beginning, the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway was a public railway, intended for passengers as well as freight. Indeed, the world's first season ticket was issued for use on the line in 1834, to take Canterbury passengers to the Whitstable beaches for the summer season. Unlike the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which opened four months later, it used cable haulage by stationary steam engines over much of its length, with steam locomotives restricted to the level stretch.

Until the early nineteenth century Canterbury's line of supply for goods had been along the River Stour which flows to Pegwell Bay, near Ramsgate on the eastern cost of Kent. Although this is only seventeen miles (27 km) as the crow flies, the meandering river journey is around seventy miles (110 km). The river was continually silting up, and the cost of dredging such a length was prohibitive. Although turnpikes had been built, four or five carts were needed to carry the load of a single barge.