The War Office took the port site over for an enormous transhipment camp during World War I, starting in 1916. The Royal Engineers abandoned the Pierson's Railway and built a new line, with miles of siding trackage, from "Weatherlees Junction" on the SECR. The line ran along the north side of the derelict power station (pace recent publications, this line was not the same as the power station spur), crossed the Thanet to Sandwich road just north of the filling stations and arrived at the New Quay behind the sports ground at the site currently (2016) known as Discovery Park Enterprise Zone. It then ran down the east side of the road, crossed the Stonar Cut and split in two at the Red Lion pub, about where the entrance to the recycling plant now is. One branch crossed the road, and both ran along the road verges to army camps situated on the ground currently occupied by Discovery Park. The eastern branch also served Pierson's Quay.