Balcombe railway station

Balcombe
Balcombe
General information
Location	Balcombe, District of Mid Sussex; England
Grid reference	TQ306301
Managed by	Southern
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	BAB
Classification	DfT category E
History
Opened	12 July 1841
Passengers
2018/19	0.152 million
2019/20	0.180 million
2020/21	49,106
2021/22	0.124 million
2022/23	0.163 million
Notes
	Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Balcombe railway station is on the Brighton Main Line in England, serving the village of Balcombe, West Sussex. It is 33 miles 64 chains (54.4 km) down the line from London Bridge via Redhill and is situated between Three Bridges and Haywards Heath. It is managed by Southern, but trains calling at the station are operated by Thameslink.

History[edit]

The original station was opened in July 1841 by the London and Brighton Railway, which became the London Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1846. The station was resited to its present position in 1848 or 1849.^[1]

The station became part of the Southern Railway during the grouping of 1923. The station then passed on to the Southern Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. When sectorisation was introduced in the 1980s, the station was served by Network SouthEast until the privatisation of British Railways.

All services at Balcombe are operated by Thameslink using Class 700 EMUs.

The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:^[2]

On Sundays, the service is reduced to hourly in each direction and northbound services run to Cambridge instead of Bedford.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Three Bridges		Thameslink Brighton Main Line		Haywards Heath

^ Howard Turner, J.T. (1978). The London Brighton and South Coast Railway, Vol.2 Establishment and Growth=Batsford. London, England. ISBN 0-7134-1389-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) p.22.
^ Table 184 National Rail timetable, December 2022

Butt, R. V. J. (October 1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199. OL 11956311M.
Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 978-0-906899-99-1. OCLC 228266687.
Jowett, Alan (March 1989). Jowett's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland: From Pre-Grouping to the Present Day (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-086-0. OCLC 22311137.
Station on navigable O.S. map