The East Kent Railway : Pen & Sword Transport : 9781526726858 : 1526726858 : 28 May 2021 : The East Kent Railway was one of Britain's less well known light railways, a part of the Colonel Stephens group of lines, the East Kent Railway was meant to open up the newly discovered Kent coal field and help to make its shareholders wealthy, however things took a different turn, when the projected colliery's along the line did not materialise the way the promoters had first envisaged.The only colliery to produce quantities of coal being Tilmanstone near Shepherdswell, which opened in 1912.There were other pits started along the formation of the line from Shepherdswell to Wingham, but in the cases of the other pits, only the surface buildings or test shafts were constructed, before the work was abandoned.This was largely due to flooding and the poor calorific quality of East Kent coal, which had to be mixed with other coal to be effectively used.There were four colliery's completed in Kent, the