Haywards Heath railway station
Haywards Heath  |
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| Location | |
| Place | Haywards Heath |
| Local authority | District of Mid Sussex |
| Grid reference | TQ330245 |
| Operations | |
| Station code | HHE |
| Managed by | Southern |
| Number of platforms | 4 |
| DfT category | B |
| Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries |
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| Annual rail passenger usage* | |
| 2010/11 |  4.081 million |
| 2011/12 | 4.271 million |
| 2012/13 | 4.339 million |
| 2013/14 | 4.455 million |
| 2014/15 | 4.471 million |
| History | |
| 12 July 1841 | Opened (terminus) |
| 21 September 1841 | Opened (through) |
| 1883 [1] | Ardingly branch opened |
| 1933 | Electrification and Rebuilt |
| 28 October 1963 [1] | Ardingly branch closed |
| National Rail – UK railway stations | |
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| * Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Haywards Heath from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year. | |
 UK Railways portal |
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Haywards Heath railway station serves Haywards Heath in West Sussex, England. It is on the Brighton Main Line and Thameslink 13 miles (21 km) north of Brighton, and train services are primarily provided by Southern and Thameslink. Until December 2008 a small number of CrossCountry services also stopped here.[2]
Contents
History
The London and Brighton Railway opened its main line from a junction with the London and Croydon Railway at Norwood as far as Haywards Heath on 12 July 1841, a coach service was provided to take passengers on the remainder of their journey towards Brighton. The remainder of the line to Brighton opened shortly after on 21 September of the same year. The original station was designed by the architect David Mocatta and included a central passing line, and an awning over the platform.[3] The station retained its importance as a junction following the construction of the line to Lewes from Keymer 3 miles (4.8 km) to the south. From 1846 the railway became the London Brighton and South Coast Railway.
On 3 September 1883 the Lewes and East Grinstead Railway opened a branch line from Copyhold Junction, just north of the station, to Horsted Keynes railway station on their existing line between those towns.[4] There was an intermediate station at Ardingly.[1] As a result, Haywards Heath station was enlarged by the provision of two bay platforms. As soon as the line was opened, the Lewes and East Grinstead Railway merged with the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, but until 1912, there was no physical connection between the tracks of the branch line and those of the main line; they ran parallel all the way to Haywards Heath station.[5] Once the connection was made, it provided a relief route for the congested Brighton main line from Croydon to Brighton via Oxted, East Grinstead and Haywards Heath. This double-track branch line was closed to passengers on 28 October 1963, but a single-track section remains to serve a freight and aggregates terminal at Ardingly.[1]
Haywards Heath station was the site of the first use of the practice of "slipping" coaches from the rear of express trains, at intermediate junctions, for onward transmission to smaller stations. The earliest recorded example was in February 1858, when coaches for Hastings were slipped from a London-Brighton express.[6] This practice was a regular feature at the station until the electrification of the line during 1932/3. The station and surrounding structures such as bridges were also totally rebuilt at this time. A single signal box, alongside Platform 4 (the westernmost platform face), replaced the former North and South boxes.
Layout
The platform layout is:
 National Rail towards Eastbourne,[lower-alpha 1] Littlehampton[lower-alpha 1] and Ore[lower-alpha 1]  |
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Island platform Platform 2 |
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| National Rail towards Brighton, Ore,[lower-alpha 2] Littlehampton[lower-alpha 2] and Portsmouth[lower-alpha 2] |
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National Rail towards London Victoria,[lower-alpha 2] London Bridge, St Pancras Intl[lower-alpha 3] and Bedford[lower-alpha 3]  |
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Island platform Platform 4 |
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| National Rail towards London Victoria, London Bridge,[lower-alpha 1] St Pancras Intl[lower-alpha 3] and Bedford[lower-alpha 3] |
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Key:
Services
The typical Monday-Saturday service from the station is:
Northbound
- 2tph (trains per hour) to London Victoria
- 2tph to Bedford via St Pancras International
- 2tph to London Bridge
On Sundays the frequency of services to London Victoria increases to 3 trains per hour and the service to London Bridge does not operate.
Southbound
- 4tph to Brighton via Burgess Hill
- 2tph to Eastbourne, one of which continues to Ore
- 2tph to Littlehampton via Hove and Worthing
Trains to Littlehampton and to Eastbourne (or Ore) run together between London and Haywards Heath, where they divide.
On Sundays there are 3tph to Brighton, 1tph to Ore and 1tph to Portsmouth Harbour and Littlehampton (train divides at Worthing). Trains to Ore and to Portsmouth and Littlehampton run separately.
Facilities
The station has a ticket office, toilets and various retail outlets, some of which offer refreshments.
Freight sidings
The freight sidings at Haywards Heath were constructed during the First World War when the railway received a rapid growth in its freight traffic as a result of munitions trains travelling to Newhaven. They were intended to enable passenger trains to overtake slower freight traffic.
Folly Hill tunnel
Just south of the station there is a 249-yard (228.6 m) tunnel through Folly Hill. There was an accident during the construction of this tunnel on 2 January 1841, causing a roof fall and killing three men, which prevented the railway from opening through to Brighton in the July.[7] Until the 1970s this tunnel suffered from an excess of water falling from the ground above and in the 1840s it had to be lined with galvanised iron sheeting to prevent the water from falling on the third class passengers in open carriages.[8]
| Preceding station | National Rail |
Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gatwick Airport | Southern Mainline West |
Burgess Hill or Hove |
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| Gatwick Airport | Southern Mainline East |
Wivelsfield or Plumpton or Lewes |
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| Balcombe | Southern Brighton Main Line |
Wivelsfield | ||
| Three Bridges or Balcombe |
Thameslink Thameslink |
Wivelsfield or Burgess Hill |
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| Gatwick Airport | Southern Gatwick Express Peak Times Only |
Wivelsfield or Burgess Hill |
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| Disused railways | ||||
| Ardingly Line and station closed |
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Lewes and East Grinstead Railway |
Terminus | ||
Former train companies
- CrossCountry - Ceased services in December 2008.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Ardingly railway station on Disused-Stations.org.uk - Nick Catford - Accessed 9 September 2007
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. pp.126-38.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. pp.23-34.
- ↑ Mitchell, Vic and Smith, Keith (1986). Southern Main Lines - Three Bridges to Brighton. Middleton Press. ISBN 0-906520-35-5
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. p.142.
External links
- Train times and station information for Haywards Heath railway station from National Rail
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- Use dmy dates from July 2015
- Use British English from July 2015
- Articles with OS grid coordinates
- DfT Category B stations
- Pages with broken file links
- Mid Sussex
- Railway stations in West Sussex
- Former London, Brighton and South Coast Railway stations
- Railway stations opened in 1841
- Thameslink railway stations
- Railway stations served by Southern
