The renovations of the Chartham railway crossing allow us to remember the history of the station whilst looking into the importance of the work finished this last December.

 First opened to the public in 1859 by the South Eastern Railway, the signal box seen beside the tracks was built in 1888, due to an in-house upgrade programme undertaken by the South Eastern Railway. It was a typical South Eastern Railway building of the time, two stories high of clapboard and a slated pyramid-shaped roof with sash-style windows. The station had only a signal box, Station Master’s house and a Crossing Keeper’s house at the time; however, after its passing into British Railways ownership in 1955, a concrete footbridge was built between the two platforms in 1960 with regular electric working along the line in October 1961. The Station Master and Crossing Keeper’s houses were demolished in the spring of 1969, though the waiting shelters remained until 1987 when they were replaced. Red-painted bus shelters were built, replacing many of clapboard shelters across the country. Shortly before the signal box was reduced to a gate box in 2003, the timber lattice gates were replaced by metal equivalents with only the signal box remained as a testament to the South Eastern Railway.

 With the aim to improve the traffic and pedestrian flow, a new Manually Controlled Barrier CCTV Level Crossing was introduced to the station on the 19th December 2022, costing £2.5 million for each of the barriers. Following safety concerns after an employee was seriously injured on a manual crossing in Maidstone in 2018, Network Rail aim to improve user safety with a sound that will be made as the train approaches, as well as reducing the time in which Station Road is closed to pedestrians and vehicles. After resident campaigns, the Chartham signal box will remain as a testament to the history of the station and the village, though it will be decommissioned. Since the introduction of these barriers, residents say that, although it broke down at first, the waiting times are much shorter and there is less traffic – as well as better air quality due to the reduced number of idling cars.

 The history of the station shows that with the many changes and improvements made over the years, this latest change, albeit a big one, is simply another moment in the history of the village, a movement towards the modernisation of Britain’s countryside villages.