Passengers travelling between Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and Hastings will face major disruption this month as the railway line closes for nine days of engineering work. The blockade is scheduled to start on Saturday 14 February 2026 and is expected to last until Sunday 22 February 2026, coinciding with the mid‑February school half‑term and affecting thousands of travellers who use the route (the project team estimates roughly 10,000 passenger journeys a day).
Network Rail engineers say they will use the full nine‑day window to carry out deep maintenance on Victorian‑era tunnels and to strengthen earthworks that are prone to seasonal landslips. Work is focused on the Wadhurst and Mountfield tunnels and on embankments and cuttings near Robertsbridge and Battle. Network Rail materials describe the tunnels and cuttings as dating from the 1850s (around 170 years old) and say problems such as water ingress and degraded brickwork have contributed to speed restrictions on the route.
During the blockade, Southeastern will operate rail replacement buses. Fast services will run direct between Tunbridge Wells and Hastings, while all‑stations buses will call at intermediate stops — including Frant, Wadhurst, Stonegate, Etchingham, Robertsbridge, Battle, Crowhurst and West St Leonards — to maintain connections for local communities.
Network Rail and Southeastern say the concentrated nine‑day window allows engineers to deliver a range of works in one continuous period that would otherwise require many separate weekend closures. Fiona Taylor, Network Rail’s Route Director for Kent, has previously framed extended blockades as a way to deliver sustained civil‑engineering work on this line. Network Rail and Southeastern expect normal train services to resume on Monday 23 February 2026.
Rail officials acknowledge the blockade will lengthen journeys and inconvenience passengers in the short term, but they argue the work is necessary to reduce the risk of an unplanned, prolonged closure during the next winter. Local groups — most notably the Hastings & St Leonards Rail Users’ Association — say they will monitor the programme closely to ensure the repairs deliver a lasting improvement to reliability on the route.
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