The South Eastern Main Line
The South Eastern Main Line runs for 77.1 miles between Charing Cross and Dover Priory, serving 31 stations, with a top line speed of 100 mph.
See the South Eastern Main Line on the live map
The map draws the line on its own, names every station along it, and shows the trains running on it right now.
The line in numbers
| Length | 77.1 miles end to end |
|---|---|
| Track | about 202 miles, counting every running line |
| Stations | 31 |
| Top line speed | 100 mph |
| Passengers a year | 196.5 million entries and exits across its stations |
| Engineer's Line Reference | XTD, CBM, FDM |
Stations on this line
- Charing Cross19.8 million a year
- London Waterloo70.4 million a year
- Waterloo East6.8 million a year
- London Cannon Street7.5 million a year
- London Bridge54.7 million a year
- South Bermondsey632,694 a year
- New Cross3.2 million a year
- St Johns842,382 a year
- Hither Green2.9 million a year
- Grove Park2.3 million a year
- Elmstead Woods927,220 a year
- Chislehurst1.0 million a year
- Petts Wood1.7 million a year
- Orpington5.0 million a year
- Chelsfield593,350 a year
- Knockholt188,588 a year
- Dunton Green195,198 a year
- Sevenoaks3.7 million a year
- Hildenborough352,930 a year
- Tonbridge4.0 million a year
- Paddock Wood1.1 million a year
- Marden485,824 a year
- Staplehurst731,008 a year
- Headcorn578,394 a year
- Pluckley114,656 a year
- Ashford International3.8 million a year
- Westenhanger62,914 a year
- Sandling75,282 a year
- Folkestone West970,078 a year
- Folkestone Central817,324 a year
- Dover Priory1.0 million a year
The busiest station on the line is London Waterloo, 70.4 million entries and exits a year and 2nd busiest in Britain.
Freight on this line, hour by hour
Freight is booked over the South Eastern Main Line on 1,256 paths in the week beginning 12 October 2026: 210 paths on the Wednesday, 137 paths on the Saturday and 72 paths on the Sunday. 61 of them run whatever the traffic; the rest are held in the timetable and used only when there is something to move. The busiest hour is 03:00 to 04:00 on the Tuesday, with 21 paths booked.
The grid counts the goods trains booked to pass in each hour of the week beginning 12 October 2026: the darker the hour, the more paths, and a dot marks an hour with at least one path that runs regardless. Engineering trains, empty stock and light engines are not counted. Across Britain only about a fifth of booked freight paths run on a given day, so a booked path is a possibility rather than a promise; the freight statistics page explains how that is measured.
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Paths booked in the hournone12 to 34 to 78 to 1516 or moreone runs regardless
Lines it meets
Bexleyheath Line, Bromley North Line, Chatham Main Line (Dover Branch), Darent Valley Line, East London Line, Greenwich Line, Hastings Line, High Speed 1, London Bridge to Windmill Bridge Junction, Medway Valley Line, South West Main Line.
Passenger figures are the Office of Rail and Road's estimates of station usage for 2024-25, added up across the stations on this line. They count entries and exits at those stations rather than journeys along the line, and a station served by more than one line is counted for each of them.
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