Haywards Heath railway station is on the

Brighton Main Line The Brighton Main Line (also known as the South Central Main Line) is a major railway line in the United Kingdom that links Brighton, on the south coast of England, with central London. In London the line has two branches, out of and station ...

in England, serving the town of

Haywards Heath Haywards Heath is a town in West Sussex, England, south of London, north of Brighton, south of Gatwick Airport and northeast of the county town, Chichester. Nearby towns include Burgess Hill to the southwest, Horsham to the northwest, Cra ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

. It is down the line from via and is situated between and . It is managed by

Southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...

. Trains calling at Haywards Heath are operated by

Thameslink Thameslink is a 24-hour main-line route in the British railway system, running from , , , and via central London to Sutton, , , Rainham, , , , and . The network opened as a through service in 1988, with severe overcrowding by 1998, carrying ...

and

Gatwick Express Gatwick Express is a high-frequency rail passenger service between , Gatwick Airport, and in South East England. It is the brand name used by the Govia Thameslink Railway train operating company on the Gatwick Express route of the Thameslink, ...

. Until 2008 a small number of

CrossCountry CrossCountry (legal name XC Trains Limited) is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Arriva UK Trains, operating the Cross Country franchise. The CrossCountry franchise was restructured by the Department for Transport (DfT ...

services also stopped here.

History

The London and Brighton Railway opened its main line from a junction with the

London and Croydon Railway The London and Croydon Railway (L&CR) was an early railway in England. It opened in 1839 and in February 1846 merged with other railways to form the London Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR). Origins The Croydon line and other railways Th ...

at Norwood as far as Haywards Heath on 12 July 1841, with a coach service to take passengers on the remainder of their journey towards Brighton. This was the result of a roof fall during the construction of Haywards Heath Tunnel just south of the station on 2 January 1841, which killed three men. 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 David Alfred Mocatta (1806–1882) was a British architect and a member of the Anglo-Jewish Mocatta family. Early career David Alfred Mocatta was born to a Sephardic Jewish family in 1806, the son of the licensed bullion broker Moses Mocatt ...

and included a central passing line, and an awning over the platform. The station retained its importance as a junction following the construction of the line 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 t ...

from

Keymer Keymer is a village in Hassocks civil parish, in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. It lies on the B2116 road south of Burgess Hill. Keymer was an ancient parish that like its near neighbour Clayton was merged into the modern ...

to the south. From 1846 the railway became the

London Brighton and South Coast Railway The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR; known also as the Brighton line, the Brighton Railway or the Brighton) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1922. Its territory formed a rough triangle, with London at its ...

. On 3 September 1883 the

Lewes and East Grinstead Railway The Bluebell Railway is an heritage line almost entirely in West Sussex in England, except for Sheffield Park which is in East Sussex. It is managed by the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society. It uses steam trains which operate between a ...

opened a branch line from Copyhold Junction, just north of the station, to Horsted Keynes railway station on their existing

line Line most often refers to: * Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity * Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to: Art ...

between those towns. There was an intermediate station at

Ardingly Ardingly ( ) is an English village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex district of West Sussex, England. The village is in the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty about south of London and east-north-east of the county town of Chich ...

.Ardingly railway station
on Disused-Stations.org.uk - Nick Catford - Accessed 9 September 2007 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. Once the connection was made, it provided a relief route for the congested

from

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an exten ...

to Brighton via

Oxted Oxted is a town and civil parish in the Tandridge district of Surrey, England, at the foot of the North Downs. It is south south-east of Croydon in Greater London, west of Sevenoaks in Kent, and north of East Grinstead in West Sussex. Oxt ...

, 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. Haywards Heath station was the site of the first use of the practice of "

slipping Slipping is a technique used in boxing that is similar to bobbing. It is considered one of the four basic defensive strategies, along with blocking, holding, and clinching. It is performed by moving the head to either side so that the opponent ...

" 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 Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...

were slipped from a London Bridge to Brighton express. This practice was a regular feature at the station until the

electrification Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic histo ...

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 In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The '' IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing' ...

, alongside platform 4 (the westernmost platform face), replaced the former north and south boxes. In 2014, work began on a new "Station Quarter", which would include construction of a new multi-storey car park and footbridge to service the platforms, a new

Waitrose Waitrose & Partners (formally Waitrose Limited) is a brand of British supermarkets, founded in 1904 as Waite, Rose & Taylor, later shortened to Waitrose. It was acquired in 1937 by employee-owned retailer John Lewis Partnership, which still se ...

supermarket on site and a regeneration of the existing station buildings. The multi-storey car park was opened in late 2016 along with the new footbridge, while the new Waitrose supermarket was opened in March 2017. In 2021, a tactile map was installed, in collaboration with the

Royal National Institute of Blind People The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is a UK charity offering information, support and advice to almost two million people in the UK with sight loss. History The RNIB was founded by Thomas Rhodes Armitage, a doctor who had eye ...

, to help blind and partially sighted passengers navigate the station.

Layout

The station lies on a quadruple-track

passing loop A passing loop (UK usage) or passing siding (North America) (also called a crossing loop, crossing place, refuge loop or, colloquially, a hole) is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at or near a station, where trains or ...

(the line either side of the station is double-track), which allows fast services to overtake stopping services. As such, it has a total of four platforms, one per track, numbered 1 to 4. *Platforms 1 and 2 are used for southbound services to destinations such as , , and . Non-stop services usually pass through platform 2. *Platforms 3 and 4 are used for northbound services towards London and beyond. Non-stop services usually pass through platform 3. Unusually, the platforms have been numbered "right-to-left" (when facing London), instead of "left-to-right" which is the usual numbering scheme on the Brighton Main Line. Platforms 1 and 4 are signalled bidirectionally, which allows trains to reverse here or run "the wrong way" through the station at times of disruption. Platforms 2 and 3 are partially signalled in both directions, allowing trains running to/from the south to reverse here. A short distance north of the station lies a single-track unelectrified freight-only line, which runs to an aggregates terminal at Ardingly; this branch can only be accessed via platform 1.

Access

There are three entrances/exits at the station. The main one is just off Commercial Square; access to platforms is in the form of a subway under the railway line. The other two entrances and exits use the new footbridge on the southern end of the platforms; one end of the footbridge leads onto Market Place and the other end connects with the station car park at Clair Road. All routes in and out of the station offer step-free access via lifts from footbridge or ground level to the platforms.

Services

Off-peak, services at Haywards Heath are operated by

and Gatwick Express using , and

387 __NOTOC__ Year 387 (Roman numerals, CCCLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Augustus and Eutropius (or, less freq ...

EMUs Emus may refer to: * Emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the ...

. The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is: * 2 tph to via * 2 tph to via London Bridge * 6 tph to (2 of these call only at Gatwick Airport) * 6 tph to (2 of these call at only, 2 call at all stations and 2 are non-stop) * 2 tph to with one continuing to Ore via

* 2 tph to via There are also a number of peak hour Thameslink services to Littlehampton which operate from London Bridge.

Freight sidings

The freight sidings at Haywards Heath were constructed during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

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. Today a sidings track does remain from Old Wickham Lane Bridge, 700 meters north of the station to Folly Hill Tunnel entrance. This line is not often used anymore, however it is protected for future extension to the

Bluebell Railway The Bluebell Railway is an heritage line almost entirely in West Sussex in England, except for Sheffield Park which is in East Sussex. It is managed by the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society. It uses steam trains which operate between an ...

. An area imminently east of platform 1 is also protected for the potential terminus platform / station for the Bluebell if it does reach Haywards Heath. The new terminus would have a maximum of 1 platform, but would not be numbered platform 0.

Notes

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Haywards Heath Railway Station Haywards Heath Railway stations in West Sussex DfT Category B stations Former London, Brighton and South Coast Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1841 Railway stations served by Govia Thameslink Railway David Mocatta railway stations