Maidstone East railway station Railway (SER) which operated the Medway Valley line, the station was given its current name to distinguish it from the SER's identically named station which was renamed Maidstone West. Following the grouping of mainline rail companies into regional railways in 1923, the Southern Railway undertook electrification as far as Maidstone East in 1939. Electrification to Ashford was carried out in 1961. The goods yard comprised ten sidings on the down side and two on the up side. There was a goods shed and a 10-ton capacity crane. West of the bridge over the River Medway, a siding on the down
Maidstone was reported at the time that inhabitants were bitterly opposed to the railway, the mayor suggesting that "Maidstone will be ruined as a commercial town". It was said that wharfingers and corn and coal merchants would be hardest hit. In 1842, the South Eastern Railway, to reach the Channel ports of Folkestone and Dover, put its main line through Tonbridge and Ashford, some to the south. A station named Maidstone Road was built in an isolated spot called Paddock Wood, from where coaches were run to the county town. Two years later a branch line was built to Maidstone. In