Canterbury East railway station

Canterbury East railway station is on the Dover branch of the Chatham Main Line in England, and is one of two stations serving the town of Canterbury, Kent. It is 61 mi down-line from London Victoria and is situated between Selling and Bekesbourne.

The station and all trains that call are operated by Southeastern.

The station and its line were built by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, while Canterbury West station was built by the South Eastern Railway.

Although called Canterbury East, the station is about 1/2 mi due south of Canterbury West station, and only about 20 yards to its east.

The framework of the platform canopies were originally installed at the never-opened station at Lullingstone.

The semaphore signals at the station were replaced with coloured lights in December 2011. The elevated signal box remains but is no longer in use, with signalling on the line operated from a control room at Gillingham. The signal box has now been given Grade II listed building status.

Canterbury East's ticket barriers were removed in early 2011, as they were the only ones of the kind in the country and spare parts were no longer easy to obtain. Work began to install a new gate-line in October 2016. Coventry and Earlsfield are the only other stations to lose their ticket barriers.

The station has a ticket office, an electronic ticket machine, a cafe and toilets.

Services
The typical Monday to Saturday off-peak service from the station is:
 * 2tph (trains per hour) to Dover Priory (of which 1 train calls at all stations and 1 is fast to Dover Priory)
 * 2tph to London Victoria via Faversham and Chatham (of which 1 train calls at Selling and 1 is fast to Faversham)

The typical Sunday service from the station is:
 * 1tph to Dover Priory calling at all stations
 * 2tph to London Victoria via Faversham and Chatham (of which 1 train is fast between Rochester and Bromley South and 1 train calls at all stops between Faversham and St Mary Cray)

Fictional reference
In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Final Problem, a short story in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson hide from Professor Moriarty at a station in Canterbury. The station is unspecified but is likely to have been Canterbury East as Holmes and Watson were making their way to catch a boat on the Continental Express from London Victoria station.