Period: 1920s Region: SE&CR Gauge: 00 (4mm:1ft) Size: 27ft x 10ft Owner: Terry Whitling

Few visitors realise that once Ramsgate had its own railway station alongside the sands. The Ramsgate Harbour (or Sands) station opened on 5 October 1863. It required tunnelling downwards from cliff top for nearly a mile inside heavy chalk, at a steep angle of 1 in 75. Amalgamation of the various railway companies into the Southern Railway in 1923 resulted in the both Ramsgate Harbour and Ramsgate Town stations being closed on 2 July 1926. The Harbour station was not fully destroyed, however; taken over commercially it became the resort’s chief attraction for many generations under various guises, including Merry England and Pleasurama. The tunnel was also put to good use, with a two foot narrow gauge track and electric trains running through. During the war, the tunnel was used as a safe public air raid shelter. Various chalk falls, some fatal, closed the runnel in 1965 and the over-roof, once the centrepiece of the seafront, was burnt down in 1998. The layout is a replica of the station as it was in its heyday of the early 1920s.