Southeastern is seeing strong growth across its network, with new and established stations welcoming more customers back to rail.
Figures released by the Office of Rail and Road in the year to March 2025 show that Thanet Parkway, Folkestone West and a host of smaller stations across Kent are leading the way, as more people choose Southeastern to head back to the office and take advantage of rail for leisure travel.
Thanet Parkway, which opened in July 2023, has quickly become Kent’s fastest-growing station. Customer journeys more than doubled in the last year, with entries and exits rising by 116% to over 123,000 as the station helps to unlock new jobs, support local businesses and new housing.
Meanwhile, Maidstone East has seen a 34% increase in journeys year-on-year, while Dumpton Park saw journeys rise 41%, with 45,000 customer journeys last year.
The figures reveal an encouraging growth in the usage of the railway as the train operator seeks to encourage more customers to travel by train through its Back to Work campaign.
Southeastern’s Commercial Director Alicia Andrews said:
“The strong growth we’re seeing across the network is hugely encouraging. Thanet Parkway’s extraordinary performance and the continued recovery at smaller stations illustrate the positive impact of our investment in new trains, updated stations and better services.
“Our focus is on delivering great journeys for every customer, whether they’re commuting, studying or travelling for leisure, and we’ll keep investing to make our railway even better.”
Across the Southeastern network, stations such as London Bridge, Bekesbourne, Maidstone East, Dumpton Park and Northfleet have also recorded impressive growth. .
This comes as Southeastern continues to invest in making journeys better for customers. This includes offering more than one million tickets at cut prices during the Great British Rail Sale and in December, introducing a new timetable to add capacity where it’s needed most, including 29 extra Highspeed St Pancras–Faversham services each week to deliver a half-hourly evening services and more Saturday trains at busy times, giving a tangible benefit for customers at Swanley, Otford, Borough Green, West Malling, Wrotham and Maidstone East.
Southeastern has also invested in infrastructure replacing lifts at Sevenoaks, repairing and refurbishing footbridges at Petts Wood, Chelsfield, West St Leonards. Meanwhile, upgrades to the fleet are ongoing, including the current mid-life interior and exterior refresh of the Class 376 fleet.
