Welcome to the EKLR simulation site
A study in history, mystery, obsession and possession
Once upon a time, there was a light railway running between Shepherdswell, Wingham, Richborough Port, and Guilford colliery, in the most easterly part of Kent. It was built under the direction of Holman F Stephens shortly before World War One, in the hope that the Kent coalfields would generate vast quantities of revenue. As it transpired, only one of the four collieries it connected with produced any coal at all, and the remaining parts of the line either fell into disuse, or managed to provide transport for the local farms and businesses. Only a few miles remain today of Colonel Stephen’s Kentish colliery line, but between the two world wars it covered many more miles.
This website is mainly concerned with the historical EKLR, and is not connected with the current East Kent Light Railway. If you would like to pay them a visit, either by viewing their web-sites, or by actually going there, information about the heritage railway is further down this page.
This website describes the EKLR as it existed before nationalisation and subsequent closure. It uses railway simulation software to create views of the line where no actual photographs exist, to show what these places looked like.
This website also describes some of the site visits, web searches for data and information, and the process of creating the MSTS simulation of the old East Kent Light Railway. I set out, armed with books, maps, and computer data giving the hieght of the landscape every ninety metres, expecting to have the simulation finished in a couple of weeks. What I didn't expect was to spend night after night scratching my head as I pondered on the problems and contradictions that cropped up every time I sat at the computer and started to build another little part of the digital world. Perhaps the best illustration I can give of this type of dilemna is The Puzzle of Poison Cross. It is a nice simple little tale with no computer jargon to get in the way of the tale of one man, a camera, and a dearth of information.