Uckfield railway station is the southern terminus of a branch of the

Oxted Line The Oxted line is a railway in southern England and part of the Southern franchise. The railway splits into two branches towards the south and has direct trains throughout to London termini. It was opened jointly by the London, Brighton and ...

in England, serving the town of

Uckfield Uckfield () is a town in the Wealden District of East Sussex in South East England. The town is on the River Uck, one of the tributaries of the River Ouse, on the southern edge of the Weald. Etymology 'Uckfield', first recorded in writing as ...

, East Sussex. It is from . The station and all trains that call are operated by Southern. Until 1969, the line continued southwards to and .

History

The first station was opened in 1858 by the Lewes and Uckfield Railway Company. It was situated south of the High Street and became a through station when the line was extended northwards to

Tunbridge Wells West Tunbridge Wells West is a railway station located in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent. It is one of two railway stations in Tunbridge Wells constructed by rival companies. The other, Tunbridge Wells railway station, Tunbridge Wells Central was opene ...

in 1868. After closure of the line south to

Lewes Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. It is the police and judicial centre for all of Sussex and is home to Sussex Police, East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, Lewes Crown Court and HMP Lewes. The civil parish is the centre of ...

in 1969, the original station found itself on the wrong side of the High Street

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, overpass ...

, which created traffic congestion whenever a train was arriving or departing. It was therefore decided to close the original station and open a new station on the other side of the High Street. The present Uckfield station opened in 1991, replacing the original structure, which was sited to the south. The original station was demolished on 9 December 2000, after having been damaged by flooding. As part of Network Rail's national stations improvement programme, Uckfield received a new station building to replace the 1991

Portakabin A portable, demountable or transportable building is a building designed and built to be movable rather than permanently located. Smaller version of portable buildings are also known as portable cabins. Portable cabins are prefabricated structu ...

-type structure which was deemed "not fit for purpose". The new building was built to Network Rail's

modular Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a sy ...

pre-fabricated Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. The term is ...

design, as used at and . The components for Uckfield's new station – including a ticket office, public toilet, staff accommodation, ticket hall and café – were manufactured by Britspace in

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

and installed by contractors Bryen & Langley. The new building, which cost £750,000, was opened for passenger use on 16 March 2010.

Services

Uckfield - GTSR Southern 171802 Oxted service

The typical off-peak service is one train per hour to , calling at , , , Ashurst, , , , , and . On Sundays, this is reduced to an hourly shuttle to Oxted calling at all stations. Previously, most off-peak trains from Uckfield only went as far as Oxted, for interchange with East Grinstead line services. Since the service has been operated by Southern, most trains run through to London Bridge, and passenger numbers have risen. In December 2010, a later last train from London Bridge (at around 11 pm) was introduced, allowing passengers to return from London in the late evening.

Future

Platform extension

Platforms on the Uckfield branch of the

were extended in 2016 to hold ten-carriage trains, to allow longer services to run during peak hours. To lengthen the trains to ten coaches, Southern acquired four Class 170 Turbostars from

ScotRail ScotRail Trains Limited, trading as ScotRail ( gd, Rèile na h-Alba), is a Scottish train operating company that is publicly owned by Scottish Rail Holdings on behalf of the Scottish Government. It has been operating the ScotRail franchise a ...

. The Class 170s were converted to Class 171s to enable full compatibility with Southern's existing Class 171 fleet.

Electrification

Whereas the neighbouring

East Grinstead East Grinstead is a town in West Sussex, England, near the East Sussex, Surrey, and Kent borders, south of London, northeast of Brighton, and northeast of the county town of Chichester. Situated in the extreme northeast of the county, the civ ...

line has 750 V DC electric traction, motive power on Uckfield line is provided by Class 171

diesel multiple unit A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...

s. It has been proposed many times that the line be electrified, but this is considered too expensive for the amount of passenger traffic. Rail usage figures published in March 2010 showed that journeys from the station increased by 179% in the five years to 2008/09.

Proposed Wealden Line reopening

Since 1986, there had been a campaign to re-open the line south of Uckfield through to Lewes, known as the

Wealden Line The Wealden LineBroadbent, S., p. 48. is a partly abandoned double track railway line in East Sussex and Kent that connected Lewes with Tunbridge Wells, a distance of . The line takes its name from the Weald, the hilly landscape the lies betwe ...

, which has attracted cross-party support. In 2008, the "Wealdenlink" presentation was published, giving new impetus to the campaign for reinstatement. On 23 July 2008, a

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

study, commissioned by the Central Rail Corridor Board (a joint group of local councils and stakeholders), reported that there was no economic case for reopening, citing a £141 million cost and a low

benefit–cost ratio A benefit–cost ratio (BCR) is an indicator, used in cost–benefit analysis, that attempts to summarize the overall value for money of a project or proposal. A BCR is the ratio of the benefits of a project or proposal, expressed in monetary terms, ...

of 0.64 to 0.79; a figure of 1.5 is the minimum required by the

Department for Transport The Department for Transport (DfT) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that have not been devolved. The d ...

for a scheme to be considered viable.

References

External links

Wealden line Campaign
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uckfield Railway Station Railway stations in East Sussex Former London, Brighton and South Coast Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1858 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1991 Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1991 Railway stations served by Govia Thameslink Railway Uckfield