Sheffield Park 8 July 1977

SHEFFIELD PARK

(All pics 8.7.1977 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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Almost 40 years have passed since I took these photos in July 1977 of the Bluebell Railway. Back then it was an all-steam line just 4 miles long, linking the country station of Sheffield Park to the extraordinary junction station at Horsted Keynes. Remarkably up until 14 years before these pics you could reach the Bluebell via the Southern Region's electrified branch from Haywards Heath to Horsted Keynes. It took the Bluebell another 50 years to reconnect with the network! But the line also owns the trackbed of the Haywards Heath line so at some point in the future the original Bluebell connection will be regained though, sadly, unlikely to be electrically operated! 

So back in 1977 the Bluebell was a very pleasant and self contained set up, with loads of classic steam locomotives and coaches and for those of us brought up in Sussex it was a fairly regular treat to travel on the line. There was hardly a house visible on the entire route and this section really showed the wonderful rural nature of the line. Stations were built on a grand scale for such a rural line, with the earthworks, bridges and tunnels built for double track, which was present between East Grinstead via Horsted Keynes to Haywards Heath. The section south of Horsted Keynes was always single track.

I've always felt that heritage lines tend to freeze time and old pics of them can almost be reproduced today, and that this static element makes them less interesting than network lines. But as time passes that's fading. It's true that the biggest clue to the age of this pics is the array of classic cars in the exterior shot of the station, but fashions etc also date a pic. As of course does the traction used - locos come and go, go out of ticket, become unuseable or get sold on. There is change on heritage lines after all!

Overall of course the Bluebell has changed enormously since the seventies. Freshfield Halt has closed for example, there are new stations at Kingscote and East Grinstead, with West Hoathly always a possibility in the future. The line is no longer all steam, and of course there are now excursions off the network, which bring all sorts of visitors to the line. Facilities have improved both front of house and behind the scenes. The little line has become big business, but you can still savour the lovely Sussex countryside from inside a vintage carriage - and see more of it now on the longer journey!

Barcombe in 1977

(All 4.7.1977 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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The Bluebell Railway is developing into quite a network with the line extended back to East Grinstead and the line to Haywards Heath in the bag.

But south of Sheffield Park a short stretch of the line is still an authentic disused railway, with two closed stations at Barcombe and Newick and Chailey. The intention to restore this stretch of the route, which will give access to the honeypot seaside towns along the south coast, is buried in their 25 year plan, so this line's disused status will not remain for many more decades!

Back on 4 July 1977 I visited Barcombe station. Interestingly this was like an alternative version of Sheffield Park, the top shot of this group of photos giving a pretty good idea of what Sheffield Park would have looked like if the Bluebell hadn't moved in!

These were taken 19 years after closure, another 38 years have now passed so I suspect the scene is a little changed now!

This to me is what 'real' disused railways were all about - derelict stations and overgrown platforms and, if you were lucky, stretches of trackbed you could walk along. Future generations simply won't have this experience with most if not all of these lines restored - but I suppose there'll be plenty of closed and overgrown roads to give them that Gothic sense of dereliction and despair we were lucky enough to have experienced!

More info (from Wikipedia)

Barcombe was a railway station serving the village of Barcombe in East Sussex. It was part of the East Grinstead to Lewes line, more popularly known as the Bluebell Railway. The station was originally opened as "New Barcombe" to distinguish it from the nearby station of Barcombe Mills (then called 'Barcombe') and was changed to its more usual name on 1 January 1885. In 1897 goods sidings were installed at a cost of £1450.

It was planned to close the line and the station on 13 June 1955, although they actually closed on 29 May due to a railway strike. The line closure was found to be illegal under the original acts authorising construction of the railway and British Railways were forced to reopen it in August 1956. However the station was not reopened as it was not mentioned in the legislation.

After Parliament repealed the sections in question, the line was closed in March 1958 under the British Railways Branch-Line Report (prior to the Beeching Axe) and the track was lifted in 1960 from south of Sheffield Park to Culver Junction. Subsequently Barcombe station building was sold and was converted into a private house. The platform edge is still visible but the trackbed has been infilled up to about one foot below platform level.

singleton

Before opening.

The subway in 2002.

(Copyright Chris Bedford Dumpman Films)

How it is now.

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Nestling in a gap in the South Downs a few miles north of Chichester is one of the most fascinating closed stations of all.

Singleton's a small, fairly quiet village, but it holds a secret! A big closed station, now masquerading as a vineyard. 

If you're driving up from Chichester there's a clue as to why Singelton had such a big station Goodwood Race Course, which sits high on the Downs to the east of the village.

Singleton was on the Chichester to Midhurst line, opened in 1881. Traffic was always fairly sparse, but Singleton was different. It was designed as the station for Goodwood. It had four platforms connected by a subway, buffets, holding sidings for trains, a large goods shed and TWO signalboxes!  Whilst popular with King Edward VII the hoi polloi preferred Chichester station as the walk to Goodwood was easier!

Other stations on the line were far more basic with single platforms, but all sported elegant tile hung buildings in a similar style to those on the Bluebell and Cuckoo lines. Passenger trains finished in 1935, freight on this section continued to 1953 and the final section (south of Lavant) lost its trains in the late 1980s.

But the stations are still there (apart from Midhurst) although serving very different purposes these days. I never had the guts to sneak into Singleton and take pictures unfortunately, but Lavant was a regular haunt for me in the early 1970s. This was a fantastic line cutting as it did through the Downs. Hopefully it will return in the future.

Film of the route (plus loads of other great Sussex stuff!!)

More info (via Wikipedia) 

Singleton railway station served the village of Singleton in the county of West Sussex in England. The station was on the former line between Chichester and Midhurst. It was opened on 11 July 1881.
The station, designed by T. H. Myres, was built in a grand way by its owners the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, which included four platforms, with a subway linking them and the 'Country House' style station building, buffets, long sidings for awaiting trains, a large goods shed for dealing with freight, and two signal boxes to control the station. The main reason for this large building was to deal with visitors to the Goodwood Racecourse, but passengers preferred to use Chichester Station mostly due to the walk uphill to the course from Singleton. It was one of the most visited stations by the LBSCR Royal train as the prince of Wales (later Edward VII) used to 'weekend' with the James family at West Dean House. Little other traffic was ever found, and despite all of the grand hopes, passenger services were withdrawn on 6 July 1935. Freight services remained until these were withdrawn on 28 August 1953 by British Railways. The station is now in use by a vineyard owner.

bluebell branches out

(Photos copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing) 

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I grew up in Sussex and the Bluebell was a constant presence to me. Loads of people talked about it, everyone I knew visited it and I got to go every year or so. I even joined and volunteered and spent one frosty day working on the track, but back then my only way of getting there was to go to Haywards Heath and walk or go by motorbike.

Back then of course it was a lovely, rural four mile long classic branch line, but things have changed a lot since then! I have done the extension to Kingscote but yet to do the East Grinstead stretch, but I have my eyes on a Steam Tours trip from Alresford to Sheffield Park in October!

The Bluebell has always been rather ahead of the game and have cleverly built their Network connection before oil supplies get tight, which will allow them to continue to bring in visitors and volunteers long after cars are just a fading memory.

And less than a year after making that Network link they are talking about their second! They have owned much of the Ardingly branch for years. Now with East Grinstead reached they can start to redirect their energies towards Haywards Heath.

The Haywards Heath-Ardingly-Horsted Keynes route was always an odd one. It was electrified for a start! It also had a very odd destination - the huge former junction station of Horsted Keynes stuck in the middle of nowhere. No doubt it survived the closure of the main line from Lewes to East Grinstead because it was electrified, but it did eventually close in 1963, leaving the Bluebell isolated from the Network. Most of the line remained open for freight, and is still used by one stone train a day.

Bluebell's plans are to extend to Ardingly first, and then enter into a running rights agreement with the Network to allow them to reach the main line at Haywards Heath. Fortunately the Ardingly route has a separate line into Haywards Heath and there is room for a separate Bluebell station alongside the Network station. Land for this is already being looked at.

The Bluebell is estimating ten years (ie 2024) for this to be completed. When rebuilt this route will give an emergency Brighton-London route, and will also tap dkirectly into the south coast's large population of residents and holidaymakers.

There have been calls to make this route third rail electric, which would be fantastic, but there are health and safety issues, apparently. (Though surely this would apply to the whole Network??) I would love to see the units I grew up with on the south coast running in preservation. We shall see.

And after Haywards Heath is reached? I suspect that the Bluebell will at last start to look south of Sheffield Park, and rebuild that little lost stretch to Lewes. This will increase the flexibility and resilience of their network and will tap directly into traffic from Lewes, Eastbourne and that whole area of East Sussex. It will also create yet another possible diversionary route for the BML.

From a schoolboy's crazy dream in the 1950s to an embryonic network covering a big slice of rural East Sussex, the Bluebell is a magnificent example of the possible and should inspire all of us!

Barcombe 4.7.1977 (copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing) - the final piece of the jigsaw!

it'll never happen!

 

Summer of 76 at Freshfield Halt.

31 August 2013 - the Bluebell's Fenchurch is in Littlehampton celebrating the 150th anniversary of the station.



 

Tornado reaches Sheffield Park, 10.9.2013

 

BLUEBELL RAILWAY FACEBOOK GROUP

 

Yesterday Tornado took the first through train from London all the way through to Sheffield Park, the first for 55 years!

 

I grew up in Sussex and was always rather proud that we had the first ex-BR standard gauge preserved line in our county. I visited it a number of times, first in its classic Sheffield Park to Horsted Keynes manifestation, later on the extended route to Kingscote. Next year I hope to do the new longer line.

 

This was always a fascinating line, seemingly running from nowhere to nowhere, and the big country station of Horsted Keynes was a gem. Back in 1968 I was on a horrible camp with the scouts near Sharpthorne and one night a group of us set out on a night hike with the intention of walking through West Hoathly tunnel - a trip destined to fail when we found the tunnel bricked up!

 

In the early 80s I remember reading an article in the Railway Magazine where a self-proclaimed expert said (and I paraphrase) 'I would love to see Horsted Keynes become a through station again but sadly it will never happen'! Hopefully the writer is still alive and has been feasting on those words! Not only is Horsted Keynes a through station but the Bluebell also own the Haywards Heath branch which they will begin to restore now the extension is complete, so Horsted Keynes will, at some time in the not too distant future, become a junction again too!

 

So I'll now make a prediction (that will no doubt rouse some of the still-extant 'it'll never happen' community again!) - not only will the Haywards Heath line open before 2025 but before then the Bluebell will look at a serious push south to link up again with the county town of East Sussex, Lewes. Then not only will they be accepting specials off the Network, but will also be accepting through specials to the seaside from London. I suspect that by 2035 the Bluebell network will be complete.

 

very hot bluebell!

(All 30.6.1976 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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This is Freshfield Halt on the Bluebell Railway on the VERY hot 30th June 1976. This is one of the very little used halts on the Bluebell Railway and this was of course back in the days when the Bluebell only ran between Sheffield Park and Horsted Keynes. This halt was to close a few years later, seeing hardly any use. In fact it is one of FOUR halts on the post-BR Bluebell line that have closed over the years!

It does look now like the Bluebell is morphing into something more than a sleepy heritage branch line, and becoming something of  a network of lines in the middle of Sussex, with East Grinstead now open and ownership of the branch from Horsted Keynes to Haywards Heath. It doesn't seem a very big step for the Bluebell to now look south to Lewes, completing the network and tapping the valuable south coast tourist traffic!

We are now seeing a steady flow of specials from off the Network run down the line to Sheffield Park, bringing in a wide variety of locomotives and getting the line even better known. Back in 1976 such an idea would have seemed to border on madness. You underestimate the Bluebell - and the whole heritage/community railway scene - at your peril!

Bluebell Railway website

Wikipedia Bluebell Railway

East Grinstead. 1977

(All 1.8.1977)

East Grinstead will soon have trains to the south again once the Bluebell Railway finally gets through Imberhorne. Back in 1977 the dream of steam returning to East Grinstead would have been an impossible one, which just shows how much progress has been made in the last 34 years!

Of course back in 1977 rail was on the defensive, you couldn't even be sure that East Grinstead would survive, beoing on a dieselised and truncated route. Once East Grinstead had lines to all four points of the compass, by 1977 you could only go north. Soon you'll be able to head south again, and no doubt eventually east and west as well as the Three Bridges to Eridge route returns to the map. The 1967 closure of the route which gave access to Gatwick Airport and Tunbridge Wells was particularly short sighted!

East Grinstead originally had both an upper and lower station - the lower station is the one that survives. Hopefully future developments will allow all trains to use this lower station to make interchange easier.

Once trains start to operate southwards of East Grinstead how long before the pressure builds on the Bluebell to restore the Sheffield Park to Lewes line? This would give the Bluebell a genuine purpose again as well as allow it to tap into tourist traffic from Brighton and Eastbourne. Okay, so today a lot of people visit the line by car or bus, but these options will disappear altogether over the next few decades. And with the Bluebell also owning the Ardingly route they are setting themselves up nicely for THREE eventual Network connections, surely assuring them of a future role in an energy constrained world?