Sidings east of Ebbsfleet

[brad465]

There are two small sidings to the east of Ebbsfleet Intl, which are only accessible from platforms 5 and 6 of the station. Does anyone know what, if anything, they are for?

This is the the view of them on OpenTrainTimes, with the sidings in the top right corner with the signals 190 and 192 marking them:

 

[Mattplans]

They are called Church Path Pitt Sidings. I don't think they are used anymore.

I believe they used to have a high amount of vandalism

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Tuesday at 01:00 ==

After a lengthy search, I've found this which I read a couple months back. https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/hs1-church-path-pit-sidings.72033/#post-1212209

"It was going to be used as a stable siding but the kids in the local area like to throw things at units which were there, so they stopped using it."
"They have been used in times of disruption, can be quite a handy little area to get trains out of the way if need be."

This was back in 2012. I wonder if drivers still sign them.

 

[Mastermind88]

There isnt any access to them except by Rail so they are useless unless a service terminated at Ebbsfleet to run back and form a service starting from there and given that you can turn a service round in the platform the only real use is if they needed to shunt out the way because of an up and down service simultaneously using both platforms preventing it from turning round

 

[DelW]

They were visited by UK Railtours' "A Bridge Too Far" railtour on Saturday 28th May 2016 - I'm not sure whether one or both sidings were used.

The tour notes stated that the sidings "... were intended for stabling of Southeastern Javelin trains, also for reversing trains operating the St Pancras to Stratford Olympic shuttles. In reality they have seldom been used due to the threat of vandalism to trains".

 

[Kite159]

They were visited by UK Railtours' "A Bridge Too Far" railtour on Saturday 28th May 2016 - I'm not sure whether one or both sidings were used.

The tour notes stated that the sidings "... were intended for stabling of Southeastern Javelin trains, also for reversing trains operating the St Pancras to Stratford Olympic shuttles. In reality they have seldom been used due to the threat of vandalism to trains".

From memory both sidings were visited