In 1834 The South Eastern Railway started looking at a line from London to Dover, this route would have taken the track through Ashford.  During that year there were a number of meetings in various towns along the route, some were keen but many were not in favour of these 'puffing Devils'.  There were also many commercial objections from owners of toll roads and those that used the River Medway from Maidstone to London.

In March 1836 two meetings were held in Ashford about bringing the railway here, a local banker, Mr William Jemmett was elected as the chairman of the meeting to discuss the railway, and a number of local trades people invested in it.  In November 1842 the railway arrived in the town.

The Railway Works

In the early years, the railway company had to buy its rolling stock from manufacturers, however, as the railway was growing rapidly, its existing works in New Cross was not adequate to deal with the growth, so the company decided to build a new 'Locomotive Establishment' to cover its needs.  Tonbridge, Maidstone and Ashford would all be suitable, but Ashford was chosen because it was central to their operation.

In February 1846, the railway company purchased 185 acres of land from Mr James Wall for £21,000 for the construction of the Railway Works and worker's cottages. The houses were built around a village green with it's own tavern, this was built in 1866 (this was called The Locomotive, but later became The Alfred Arms) and shops, it was called Alfred Town, which later became known as New Town. 

In 1847 The Mechanic's Institute and the Railway Engineering Works opened, which consisted of a library and reading room.  On 27 March 1855 Charles Dickens gave a lecture in the Institute, which included a reading from his novel A Christmas Carol.

The ornate Italianate Clock Tower was erected at the entrance to the works the same year. 

In 1850 the Carriage and Wagon Works opened.  In the same year (28 October) the railway line between Ashford, Rye and Hastings was opened by The Lord Mayor of London.

In 1852 The Newtown School was built and this could accommodate upto 550 pupils, this is still there and contains a number of flats and is still called ' the Old School House'.

The first locomotives rolled out of the Railway Works in 1853.

The coming of the railway probably had  the greatest influence on the growth of the town and the decision by the South Eastern Railway Company to build the Railway Works in the town. Between 1841 and 1861 the town more than doubled in population from 3,000 to 7,000.  Initially the properties on Newtown Road facing the Railway Works were flats for the men building the works, the flats were upstairs with the ground floor being used as stables.  When the construction work was finished the ground floor was also converted into flats.

Many of the cottages comprised of two bedrooms, a sitting room and kitchen, to service the town the 'baths' were built, the water tank above the baths had a capacity of 36,000 gallons.  The development included shops underneath the baths.

The area even had its own newspaper, The Ashford and Alfred News was first published on 14 July 1855, this later became The Kentish Express.

During the Second World War, the Blenheim Bomber was converted to a fighter plane with part of its armourment being a pack of four Browning Machine Guns mounted under the bomb bay.  These gun packs were made in the Works, with a total of 1,375 packs being made.

The Railway Works dominated the town and nearly 1,000 locomotives were built or re-built there, and a wide variety of wagons were built or repaired there, these included wagons for Yugoslavia, Kenya and Israel,  the Works was closed in 1981, with The Wheel Shop closing in March 1993. 

The Railway Works, which came into operation in 1847,  dwarfed all another buildings in the town, the main workshop was just under 400 feet long and 90 feet wide and 28 feet tall, this building contained, a press shop, smith shop, heavy machine shop, there was an overhead crane capable of lifting and moving twenty tons.

Adjacent to this was the tender shop, which was some 280 feet in length.

Within a few years a further workshop was built measuring 640 feet long, this was the carriage and wagon department, which also included more furnaces and a foundry.  The works had its own series of stores, where everything to build the carriages, engines and wagons were held.

Lasting Legacies from the Coming of the Railway

Prior to the railway works being built, the Archbishop of Canterbury had expressed grave concerns over the inadequacy of the existing church capacity in view of the large number of men coming to work there.  In the 1860's Christ Church in South Ashford was dedicated and opened.  The cost of building this church was met almost entirely by money subscribed voluntarily by the shareholders of the South Eastern Railway Company.

in 1919 Mr REL Maunsell instigated the Hospital Fund within the Railway Works, and members of the fund donated voluntarily £1,900 towards the cost of the new Ashford Hospital.

Some of the road names associated with the railway:

• Mr OV Bullied (Chief Mechanical Engineer, Southern Railway)
• Mr James I'Anson Cudworth
• Mr REL Maunsell 
• Mr James Stirling
• Mr HS Wainwright