As far as I'm aware much equipment was stored in Kent. Both real and fake. It was seen as a double solution to convince the German Intelligence that the Pas de Calais really was the crossing point, but with excellent links to Southampton, Portsmouth, Newhaven, etc it made sense to keep them on our lines in Kent and Sussex. The former LSWR lines were, along with the GWR lines, full of troop trains heading for and returning from embarkation. The locos and rolling stock would have been for the third or fourth wave to cross the channel during the invasion, which leads us to extrapolate that the tanks, etc were fakes. I have been told that Sittingbourne yard was full of tanks as was one of the running lines on the Sheppey branch. It has been nice to see that someone else has been told of this build up. From what I have been told they vanished almost as fast as they appeared..... Please don't forget that the Port of Richborough was also a staging point for the R.O.D. as it was train ferry equipped and a great deal of the landing craft, etc. were built there.
This was an effort beyond our comprehension of scale. I have heard that everything on the LSWR main was one way only, return trains were routed another way (I have severe doubts it could ever be done again) and everything ran almost in sight of the train in front, no block working but all in tickets. Amazingly there were no, I repeat NO, collisions worth reporting and all troops got to the right place at the right time. I understand that there were coaches seen from as far North as Newcastle hauled by their LNER locomotives seen heading South. It was not quite as manic as the Dunkirk evacuation when there was not a spare coach (or loco) to be had south of the Thames, by D.Day they had had plenty of time to plan this in great detail. The other thing is that all the American locos (Baldwin and Alco class S160 (two or three preserved in UK)) were in use on the British Railway network less than a week before they were due to be embarked for France. Two reasons for this, one being that the crews were familiar with them and two they were already run in and in possibly the best condition they could be.
S4.