Uckfield railway station

History

The first station was opened in 1858 by the Lewes and Uckfield Railway Company and was situated south of the High Street level crossing. It became a through station when the line was extended to Tunbridge Wells West in 1868. With the closure of the line south to Lewes in 1969 the original station found itself stranded on the wrong side of a level crossing on the High Street which created traffic congestion whenever a train was arriving or departing from the station. The decision was therefore made to close the original station and to open a new station on the other side of the High Street level crossing. The present Uckfield station opened in 1991 replacing the original structure which was sited 55 yards (50 m) to the south.The original station was demolished on 9 December 2000 after it had 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-type structure which was deemed "not fit for purpose". The new building was built to Network Rail's modular, pre-fabricated design used at Mitcham Eastfields and Greenhithe. The components for Uckfield's new station building - consisting of a ticket office, public toilet, staff accommodation, ticket hall and café - were manufactured by Britspace in Yorkshire and installed by contractors Bryen & Langley. The new building, which cost £750,000, was opened for passenger use on 16 March 2010.

Services

The typical off-peak service is one train per hour to London Bridge, calling at Buxted, Crowborough, Eridge, Ashurst, Cowden, Hever, Edenbridge Town, Hurst Green, Oxted and East Croydon. 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 (with an interchange with East Grinstead line services), but since Southern has taken over the service, it has been extended and passenger numbers have risen. In December 2010 a new later evening service from London Bridge (around 11pm) was introduced allowing passengers for the first time in recent years to travel home from London in the late evening.

Platform extension

Platforms on the Uckfield branch of the Oxted Line were extended in 2016 to hold ten carriage trains to allow longer services to run during peak hours. The extension of services to ten coaches has caused Southern to acquire four Class 170 turbostars from ScotRail, increasing capacity. The Class 170s will be converted to Class 171s to allow full compatibility with Southern's existing Class 171 fleet.

Electrification

Whereas the neighbouring East Grinstead line has 750 V DC electric traction, motive power on Uckfield line is provided by Class 171 diesel multiple units. 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 had 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, which attracted cross-party support. In 2008 the "Wealdenlink" presentation was published which gave new impetus to the campaign for reinstatement. On 23 July 2008 the Central Rail Corridor Board (a joint group of local councils and stakeholders) commissioned study by Network Rail reported that there was not an economic case for reopening, citing a £141 million cost and an allegedly low "benefit-cost ratio" of 0.64 to 0.79 when a figure of 1.5 is the minimum required by the Department for Transport to make a scheme viable.