This week (30th December 2024 – 5th January 2025)

Happy New Year!

2025 is going to be an exciting year at railways across the world and we’re no exception! Starting with the Whistle-Up (see below) on New Year’s Day, we are working on a programme of events throughout the Season.

We will also be celebrating 120 years of steam traction at Sittingbourne Paper Mill, as steam locomotives ‘Premier’ and ‘Leader’ took over from horses to haul trains in 1905.

A massive thank you to all our volunteers, passengers and supporters for their dedication, custom and support throughout 2024 – we literally couldn’t have done it without you!

Global Railway 200 Whistle-Up

On Wednesday, 1st January, we will be joining railways from around the globe for the #WhistleUp200 with steam locomotive ‘Premier’ whistling in the event at Sittingbourne Viaduct station.

The whistle takes part at midday but Sittingbourne Viaduct station will be open to the public from 11.45am until 12.15pm. This is a great opportunity to come and see the new platform which will be completed in Spring 2025 and find out more about our Railway and Railway 200.

For more information on the global whistle-up click here and for details of Railway 200 click here.

Click here to see our video.

Work Weekends start this weekend

Looking for a good excuse to get out of the house? Maybe some exercise? Want to try volunteering?

If yes is the answer – why not join us for our Work Weekends, they are held every fortnight between January and March, and will carry out essential maintenance and repairs to the locomotives, carriages, buildings etc. We have a lot of work to get done so the more people that can help, the more work that can be undertaken.

We will be working at Kemsley Down this weekend, 10am-4pm both days. Free car parking is available at DS Smith Kemsley Paper Mill car park and we will then collect you and drive you to Kemsley Down as foot access and unaccompanied access is prohibited in the paper mill site.

Everyone at the Railway is a volunteer so we know your time is valuable, we also have ‘behind the scenes’ tasks that need to be undertaken.

For more information and to arrange pick-up at Kemsley Mill, Sittingbourne National Rail or Sittingbourne Viaduct stations, please email info@sklr.net

Find us on more social media networks!

We are now on TikTok, Bluesky and have our own dedicated page on YouTube so the full list is:

  • Bluesky
  • Facebook (where we have a page and a group)
  • Instagram
  • Threads
  • TikTok
  • Threads
  • YouTube

We can be found @SandKLR on all those networks.

TikTok has been extremely successful with over 91,000 post views, 686 profile views and 3,795 likes. The most popular video was ‘Cold, wet & windy: Santa Specials 2024‘ which has had over 28,500 views.

So like and follow us on your favourite social media platform to keep abreast of what is going on at Sittingbourne’s Steam Railway.

What’s on this month?

What’s on next month (February)?