The current Maidstone East Signal Box was opened on 8th April 1962 and is a British Railways Southern Region type 18 design, with a 47 lever Westinghouse Brake and Signal Company Style 'L' miniature lever power frame. It initially controlled the station area around Maidstone East itself.
On 18th December 1983 an additional NX panel was added to control Borough Green to Maidstone East, thus eliminating smaller boxes at Borough Green and also West Malling. In April 1984 a further NX panel was installed to control the Bearstead and Hothfield areas (Subsequently modified in several stages to include connections for the building of HS1 at Beechbrook Farm). The third NX panel added was to control Lenham.
As a result Maidstone East is effectively 4 different boxes under 1 roof controlling the line from Kemsing to Hothfield. The first section is an NX panel fringing with Victoria ASC and controlling Kemsing to Barming. The next section is the original L frame controlling the station area with two further NX panels, one for Bearsted to Lenham the the other covering the section to the fringe with Ashford IECC.
Last edited by GeoffM on 15/09/2016 at 03:00