ROTHER VALLEY BIDS FOR EXTENSION PERMISSION

The Rother Valley Railway is poised to make its long-awaited application to Parliament for a Transport & Works Act Order. This is expected to be lodged with the Rail Minister during July or August, with an estimated timescale of between one and two years for the order to be granted. It will give the RVR statutory powers to rebuild the missing two miles of railway between Northbridge Street and Junction Road, completing the three-mile extension to the Kent & East Sussex Railway between Bodiam and the main line junction of Robertsbridge. The legal powers sought include the construction of three new level crossings across Northbridge Street, the A21 bypass and the B2244 at Junction Road. Planning approval for the reconstruction was granted on March 16 (SR466). The TWAO will also give the RVR legal title to the five steel bridge decks on the half-mile running line between its Robertsbridge Junction headquarters and Northbridge Street. Recovered from Staplehurst, and used to reinstate missing overbridges on this section, the decks currently remain the property of the Highways Agency Historical Railways Estate - formerly the British Railways Board (Residuary) - and ownership will not pass to the RVR until the order is granted. Sufficient track materials are in stock to build almost the entire line, with enough sleepers and all but approximately 200 yards of rail; ballast still has to be obtained. The news follows the RVR’s acquisition of a further third of a mile of trackbed, between Junction Road and Austens Bridge. This section is to become the site of a ten-coach passing loop, which will allow the locomotives of two fivecoach trains to stop alongside each other, for the crews to exchange single-line tokens. However, the owners of the two remaining sections of trackbed are both refusing to sell to the RVR.