Wivelsfield railway station
Wivelsfield railway station is a railway station on the Brighton Main Line in West Sussex, England. Located in northern Burgess Hill, it primarily serves the town's neighbourhoods of World's End and Sheddingdean. The station is 40 miles 52 chains (65.4 km) down the line from London Bridge via Redhill. It is situated between Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill stations on the main line, and between Haywards Heath and Plumpton stations on the East Coastway line, which branches off just south of the station at Keymer Junction. The station is managed by Southern which is one of two companies serving Wivelsfield, the other one being Thameslink. Until May 2018, Gatwick Express also served the station with a single early-morning service towards London.
Wivelsfield  | |
|---|---|
 The platforms at Wivelsfield station, looking south | |
| Location | |
| Place | World's End, Burgess Hill |
| Local authority | District of Mid Sussex |
| Grid reference | TQ320200 |
| Operations | |
| Station code | WVF |
| Managed by | Southern |
| Number of platforms | 2 |
| DfT category | E |
| Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries | |
| Annual rail passenger usage* | |
| 2014/15 |  |
| 2015/16 | |
| 2016/17 | |
| 2017/18 |  |
| – Interchange | |
| 2018/19 |  |
| – Interchange | |
| History | |
| 1854 | First station opened at Keymer Junction |
| 1 August 1886 | Present station opened |
| 1 July 1896 | Renamed (Wivelsfield) |
| National Rail – UK railway stations | |
| * Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Wivelsfield from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year. | |
Despite its name, the station is not located in Wivelsfield village, which actually lies approximately 2.3 miles (3.7 km) to the northeast, in the Lewes District of East Sussex.
History
The London Brighton and South Coast Railway opened a station called Keymer Junction on the Lewes line, just beyond the junction, towards the end of 1854, although, it appears that some trains may have called at Keymer Crossing from the completion of the junction in 1847.[1] The station was closed on 1 November 1883 to allow for the proposed remodelling of the junction. However, when the railway later sought Parliamentary authority to abandon their planned changes, they were required to provide a replacement station to the north of the junction on the present site.[2]
The second Keymer Junction station was opened on 1 August 1886 and retained that name until 1 July 1896 when it was renamed Wivelsfield. Construction of the new station involved widening a narrow, high embankment. Just over two months after it opened, heavy rain caused a landslip which caused a long section of the Up (northbound) platform, and the waiting room building, to collapse and fall down the embankment.
On 23 December 1899, a serious accident happened here, when a red signal was obscured by thick fog. A train from Brighton collided with a boat train from Newhaven Harbour at 40 miles per hour (64 km/h), and six passengers were killed and twenty seriously injured.[3] The accident resulted in improvements made to the signalling at Keymer Junction.
Access
There are three entrances at the station. Two of these are located where the railway line passes over Leylands Road (both on the south side of the road, one on each side of the railway), less than 40 metres apart from each other. Both entrances give access to the platforms via the same subway at the northern end of the station; the easternmost of the two entrances also includes the ticket office. The third entrance of the station is located by the station car park on Gordon Road; it is the only entrance with step-free access (via a ramp) but is directly linked only to platform 2. For this reason, just one of the two platforms is fully wheelchair-accessible.[4]
Services
Services at Wivelsfield are operated by Southern and Thameslink. As of May 2020, the typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:
- 2 tph to Bedford via London Bridge
- 2 tph to London Victoria
- 2 tph to Brighton
- 2 tph to Eastbourne of which 1 continues to Ore
On Sundays, the service between London and Eastbourne does not run.
| Preceding station | |
Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thameslink Brighton Main Line | ||||
| Southern East Coastway Line | ||||
Future
In Autumn 2015 Network Rail released the Sussex Area Route Study,[5] where two options for the proposed grade separation of Keymer Junction are detailed, both of which would transform the station dramatically. Option 1 is the minimal option and creates a new platform 0 on the west side of the station served by a 3rd track from the new flyover line from Lewes. Option 2 is much more ambitious and builds on option 1 by adding an additional 4th platform on the east side of the station as well, served by a 4th track on the line to Lewes. Whilst this would enable each line to the south to have a dedicated platform the primary benefit would be that the existing platforms could be used to turn back trains in either direction as needed without blocking the main lines.
References
- Turner, John Howard (1978). The London Brighton and South Coast Railway 2 Establishment and Growth. Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-1198-8. p.250.
- Turner, John Howard (1978). The London Brighton and South Coast Railway 3 Completion and Maturity. Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-1389-1. p.127.
- Mitchell, Vic and Smith, Keith (1986). Southern Main Lines - Three Bridges to Brighton. Middleton Press. ISBN 0-906520-35-5.
- Wivelsfield station plan
- "Sussex Area Route Study" (PDF). Network Rail. 15 October 2015. p. 165. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
External links
- Train times and station information for Wivelsfield railway station from National Rail