Dorking to Horsham evening services

[al78]

How feasible would it be for Southern to run a service from Dorking to Horsham, say, between 10:30pm and 11pm? There is a service just before 8:30pm and another one after midnight but nothing in between. If there was one in between those times it would be ideal for getting back to Horsham after an evening out, rather than cycling 14 miles home. It is ironic that Redhill is further away from my home and workplace but the transport logistics are easier due to three services an hour in the evening between Redhill and Horsham, plus a couple of convenient services on the North Downs line just after 7pm in case I don't feel like cycling along the A25. Is there a logistical reason why there is that big evening service gap between Dorking and Horsham?

 

[andy19_64]

i think there is no reason why it could not be done. whether it would be a viable option in the amount of people that would use the service is most probably the reason behind it, The last one down usually has no more than 10 passengers on it by the time it arrives at Horsham.

Also another question would be what they do with the service when it terminates as Horsham would end up with extra stock for the morning.

I suppose they could run a HRH-DKG-HRH shuttle leaving at 22.00 and 22.40 using an already berthed train if you can allocate train crew.

 

[JonathanH]

How feasible would it be for Southern to run a service from Dorking to Horsham, say, between 10:30pm and 11pm? There is a service just before 8:30pm and another one after midnight but nothing in between. If there was one in between those times it would be ideal for getting back to Horsham after an evening out, rather than cycling 14 miles home. It is ironic that Redhill is further away from my home and workplace but the transport logistics are easier due to three services an hour in the evening between Redhill and Horsham, plus a couple of convenient services on the North Downs line just after 7pm in case I don't feel like cycling along the A25. Is there a logistical reason why there is that big evening service gap between Dorking and Horsham?

I suspect that not enough people want to travel to Holmwood, Ockley and Warnham to make it worth their while and Dorking to Horsham passengers can go via Gatwick.

After the arrival of the 1930 from London Bridge at Dorking at 2030 which returns empty to Selhurst depot, all subsequent services until the 2345 arrival from London Victoria work back northbound to maintain a half hourly service.

If one of these services that terminate at Dorking is a pair of units you could split the train at Dorking and still maintain the northbound service. However, you would need to find an additional driver and guard to run the service and ensure that the stabling arrangements for the stock were balanced.

Alternatively, I suppose you could run a train from Horsham to Dorking and back in this time slot - again it would need to be resourced.

Final option may be to swap the 2345 arrival which terminates at Dorking and stays there overnight with the 0026 arrival that goes through to Horsham. However, it is possible that the driver off the 2345 arrival travels on the final service through to Horsham.

 

[andy19_64]

At the end of the day it all boils down to allocating crew to work the service and keeping Horsham and Dorkings berthing unchanged if possible, however Horsham would have space to berth an extra service if Southerns train/crew planners could get the service back to Dorking in the morning.

 

[21C101]

I can't help thinking that if Gatwick had been developed in the 1950s and the Bognor trains diverted via Gatwick instead of Dorking in the early '60s, Horsham Dorking would have been shut under Beeching.

 

[JonathanH]

At the end of the day it all boils down to allocating crew to work the service and keeping Horsham and Dorkings berthing unchanged if possible, however Horsham would have space to berth an extra service if Southerns train/crew planners could get the service back to Dorking in the morning.

One other way to do it would be to get South West Trains to run the 2330 to Epsom using the train that currently runs back to Wimbledon Park empty from Dorking at 2304. The Southern arrival at Dorking at 2319 could then run through to Horsham.

 

[John1975]

On the wider issue of the overall utilisation of the Portsmouth line, it should be feasible to extend the current off-peak Vic - Dorking/Horsham trains through to, say, Bognor, providing a half-hourly service for Holmwood, Ockley and Warnham and four trains per hour on the Arun Valley.
Calling pattern would be something along the lines of Clapham Jn, Sutton, Epsom, Boxhill (hourly), Dorking, Holmwood, Ockley, Warham, Horsham and then all stations to Bognor.
Cheam would admittedly lose two trains per hour, but three should be perfectly adequate off-peak, and the lightly used Ewell East would lose one train.

 

[al.currie93]

My local is Ockley and I too wish for later services! I'd use it more than once a week!

To be honest, this line is really a rural railway tagged on to the end of a suburban railway, and I personally think that it should be operated as a Dorking to Horsham shuttle all day. You'd only need three, maybe four, dedicated 455s to run a half hourly, 4 carriage train service like this all day, and it would save on having numerous 8 or ten car trains trundle along from/to London when four cars would do. It would probably also near eliminate delays too as most delays come from towards London.

I'd happily give up through services to London for that! One of the many ideas I have for that line :P

 

[Carlisle]

I wouldn't be surprised if the service levels on a rural line like this are basically unchanged since BR days.

 

[21C101]

I wouldn't be surprised if the service levels on a rural line like this are basically unchanged since BR days.

Its rather better than in BR days when trains only stopped at Holmwood, Ockley and Warnham during peak hours only and for a good while the whole line was peak hours only.

I doubt the revenue from most trains on that line even covers the elecriticity bill, never mind the staffing costs, although I believe the "parkway" effect is why the three rural stations (with easy road access) get more trains now.

What I don't understand is why poor old Faygate has never had offpeak trains reinstated which they lost in the 80s which at the time I recall caused a bit of a row. Just about all the others have (Earlswood, Salfords, Plumpton, Holmwood, Ockley, Warnham and even Normans Bay) except Cooksbridge and Pevensey Bay.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

One other way to do it would be to get South West Trains to run the 2330 to Epsom using the train that currently runs back to Wimbledon Park empty from Dorking at 2304. The Southern arrival at Dorking at 2319 could then run through to Horsham.

We don't have the route knowledge any more. That's why.

You could always get SWT to run through trains to Portsmouth that way, but they'd only get tangled up in the shambles that SN jokingly call a timetable along the Coastway West.

Then there would be the argument over which SWT depots do the work...:roll:

 

[swt_passenger]

We don't have the route knowledge any more. That's why.

You must have misread the suggestion which was only to bring an existing ECS into service from Dorking to Epsom to fill a gap.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

You still need to have route knowledge of it and before you work over the line you have to sign for it and that's a legal requirement & document.

Do you really think that they are going to pay & train several hundred staff for just a couple of trains? I don't think so.

Bear in mind that Daft took the Horsham route away from SWT quite a few years back now, so unless they want to pay for that to be reinstated, it's very unlikely to happen.

 

[swt_passenger]

You still need to have route knowledge of it and before you work over the line you have to sign for it and that's a legal requirement & document.

But SWT already operate a full service between Dorking and Epsom - he wasn't suggesting SWT run to Horsham.

 

[Carlisle]

Its rather better than in BR days when trains only stopped at Holmwood, Ockley and Warnham during peak hours only and for a good while the whole line was peak hours only.

I doubt the revenue from most trains on that line even covers the elecriticity bill, never mind the staffing costs, although I believe the "parkway" effect is why the three rural stations (with easy road access) get more trains now.

Ok cheers for pointing out the service levels, Good to hear they've improved since those days sounds like it's got a very slightly brighter future now than in the NSE era that I vaguely remember

 

[nw1]

My local is Ockley and I too wish for later services! I'd use it more than once a week!

To be honest, this line is really a rural railway tagged on to the end of a suburban railway, and I personally think that it should be operated as a Dorking to Horsham shuttle all day. You'd only need three, maybe four, dedicated 455s to run a half hourly, 4 carriage train service like this all day, and it would save on having numerous 8 or ten car trains trundle along from/to London when four cars would do. It would probably also near eliminate delays too as most delays come from towards London.

I'd happily give up through services to London for that! One of the many ideas I have for that line :P

ISTR when I used Ockley back in March the last train out for Horsham was something like 1820! The line (or the Ockley to Horsham section) has quite a rural charm unusual in southeastern railways but the downside is a service pattern which assumes the day ends at half past 6 in the evening.

I can't see why a shuttle would be good though - even if Ockley etc are lightly-used stations surely you'd want to keep a through service to London. Removing the London service would, I'd imagine, cause further decline at these intermediate stations. I'd guess that most off peak trains are 4 cars anyway - they certainly seem to be on Saturdays when all trains I saw were 4 car 377s.

Also it provides through services from Horsham to Leatherhead, Epsom and Sutton (don't know these towns, but by all accounts are fairly large places).

On a related matter the Dorking trains in general seem to be quite slow, irrespective of whether they go on to Horsham or not - particularly in the peak. Dorking seems to have a much slower service than other towns of similar size and distance to London. Could they not speed up at least 1 train an hour to call at only (say) Clapham, Sutton, Epsom, Leatherhead and Dorking? I guess the problem is the same as the Reading via Richmond line which also seems slow - there are too many slow services to fit any fasts in. How did they manage in the days the Bognor trains went that way?

 

[21C101]

ISTR when I used Ockley back in March the last train out for Horsham was something like 1820! The line (or the Ockley to Horsham section) has quite a rural charm unusual in southeastern railways but the downside is a service pattern which assumes the day ends at half past 6 in the evening.

I can't see why a shuttle would be good though - even if Ockley etc are lightly-used stations surely you'd want to keep a through service to London. Removing the London service would, I'd imagine, cause further decline at these intermediate stations. I'd guess that most off peak trains are 4 cars anyway - they certainly seem to be on Saturdays when all trains I saw were 4 car 377s.

Also it provides through services from Horsham to Leatherhead, Epsom and Sutton (don't know these towns, but by all accounts are fairly large places).

On a related matter the Dorking trains in general seem to be quite slow, irrespective of whether they go on to Horsham or not - particularly in the peak. Dorking seems to have a much slower service than other towns of similar size and distance to London. Could they not speed up at least 1 train an hour to call at only (say) Clapham, Sutton, Epsom, Leatherhead and Dorking? I guess the problem is the same as the Reading via Richmond line which also seems slow - there are too many slow services to fit any fasts in. How did they manage in the days the Bognor trains went that way?

The last up train from Horsham leaves at 20.06 mon to fri and 18.04 on Sats

For downs it is 20.17 off Dorking mon to Fri, plus a late train from london leaving Dorking at 00.28. Sats the last train is 18.24 off Dorking.

To be honest for a line that is not that different from the double track section of the old Bluebell railway between East Grinstead and Haywards Heath, it is very lucky to be open at all, never mind have a late evening service. The intermediate passenger demand must be pretty similar. Plus Dorking also still gets east - west services, another jammy survivor from the Beeching cuts.

Compare Dorking (population 11,185) which still has trains in four directions with much larger East Grinstead (population 23,942) which only has (mainline) trains in one direction with the railways in the other three directions all closed.

To be honest, why Dorking to Ford never featured in the Beeching report, leaving a branch from Three Bridges to Horsham and all south coast trains routed via Hove as was done with other "duplicate routes", is one of the mysteries of the 1960s. I guess it was because the line was electrified pre war.

 

[yorksrob]

It should be remembered that the route would be a main line to the coast were it not for Gatwick Airport.

 

[southern442]

On the wider issue of the overall utilisation of the Portsmouth line, it should be feasible to extend the current off-peak Vic - Dorking/Horsham trains through to, say, Bognor, providing a half-hourly service for Holmwood, Ockley and Warnham and four trains per hour on the Arun Valley.
Calling pattern would be something along the lines of Clapham Jn, Sutton, Epsom, Boxhill (hourly), Dorking, Holmwood, Ockley, Warham, Horsham and then all stations to Bognor.
Cheam would admittedly lose two trains per hour, but three should be perfectly adequate off-peak, and the lightly used Ewell East would lose one train.

I think that a Boxhill stop would be better swapped with Leatherhead and Ashtead, as they are used a lot more frequently (2.103 million and 1.206 million in 2012/13 respectively compared to just under 104,000).

Also, Cheam should be served by more than 3tph, as it is quite a busy station, and 3tph off peak is not adequate, especially when you consider the fact that there are schools in the area.

 

[nw1]

To be honest, why Dorking to Ford never featured in the Beeching report, leaving a branch from Three Bridges to Horsham and all south coast trains routed via Hove as was done with other "duplicate routes", is one of the mysteries of the 1960s. I guess it was because the line was electrified pre war.

What about Billingshurst, Pulborough, Arundel? What about Horshamites wanting to visit the south coast or travel towards Portsmouth or Chichester? Horsham to Portsmouth would be an extraordinarily roundabout route via Brighton or via Clapham Junction if the Arun Valley line (and the North Downs line, also mentioned) was given the chop.
It's a damned good thing it, and any other line which survived, wasn't given the chop! We shouldn't start questioning now why lines *weren't* closed down!

 

[21C101]

What about Billingshurst, Pulborough, Arundel? What about Horshamites wanting to visit the south coast or travel towards Portsmouth or Chichester? Horsham to Portsmouth would be an extraordinarily roundabout route via Brighton or via Clapham Junction if the Arun Valley line (and the North Downs line, also mentioned) was given the chop.
It's a damned good thing it, and any other line which survived, wasn't given the chop! We shouldn't start questioning now why lines *weren't* closed down!

Taking your words:

"What about Billingshurst, Pulborough, Arundel?"

Populations Billingshurst 6,531; Pulborough 4,685; Arundel 3,475.

Far larger towns lost their railway even on lines that stayed open. Eg Plympton 30,224, Ivybridge 11,851 Wellington, Somerset 14,549; Corsham, 13,000; Royal Wootton Bassett 11,043, & Cullompton, Devon 7,609.

Even the towns on the closed Horsham to Shoreham line are bigger than the Mid Sussex line towns. Southwater 10,025; Henfield 5,012 and Steyning 5,812.



"What about Horshamites wanting to visit the south coast or travel towards Portsmouth or Chichester?

What about East Grinstead-ites or Uckfield-ites wanting to visit the south Coast or travel towards Brighton or Eastbourne? At least Horshamites would have still been able to travel to the south Coast via Three Bridges. If the Portsmouth/Bognors were all diverted via Hove and stopped at Three Bridges, journey times from Horsham would not have been dreadful. Its the sort of duplicate route elimination that happened all over the country in the '60s

I'm not arguing for the closure of these lines (although I wouldn't fancy Dorking - Horshams chances if the railways hit a financial crises). I'm glad they survived. I'm just saying that it is odd that they were never even considered for closure, as they were a duplicate route with little intermediate traffic, other than at Horsham, which would still be well served by the line via Three Bridges.

 

[Greenback]

Off topic posts about cyclists have been deleted. This thread is about the evening service between Dorking and Horsham. Please start a new thread to discuss cycles on trains, cycling or any other topic. Thanks

 

[21C101]

Off topic posts about cyclists have been deleted. This thread is about the evening service between Dorking and Horsham. Please start a new thread to discuss cycles on trains, cycling or any other topic. Thanks

Good!

 

[yorksrob]

Taking your words:

"What about Billingshurst, Pulborough, Arundel?"

Populations Billingshurst 6,531; Pulborough 4,685; Arundel 3,475.

Far larger towns lost their railway even on lines that stayed open. Eg Plympton 30,224, Ivybridge 11,851 Wellington, Somerset 14,549; Corsham, 13,000; Royal Wootton Bassett 11,043, & Cullompton, Devon 7,609.

Even the towns on the closed Horsham to Shoreham line are bigger than the Mid Sussex line towns. Southwater 10,025; Henfield 5,012 and Steyning 5,812.



"What about Horshamites wanting to visit the south coast or travel towards Portsmouth or Chichester?

What about East Grinstead-ites or Uckfield-ites wanting to visit the south Coast or travel towards Brighton or Eastbourne? At least Horshamites would have still been able to travel to the south Coast via Three Bridges. If the Portsmouth/Bognors were all diverted via Hove and stopped at Three Bridges, journey times from Horsham would not have been dreadful. Its the sort of duplicate route elimination that happened all over the country in the '60s

I'm not arguing for the closure of these lines (although I wouldn't fancy Dorking - Horshams chances if the railways hit a financial crises). I'm glad they survived. I'm just saying that it is odd that they were never even considered for closure, as they were a duplicate route with little intermediate traffic, other than at Horsham, which would still be well served by the line via Three Bridges.

Sounds like a very good argument for a spate of reopenings to me

More on topic, the stations on the mid Sussex may serve smallish places, but with some imaginative pricing, they could perhaps provide some much needed relief for the Brighton mainline (in the same way the Uckfield line relieves the Hastings route).

 

[21C101]

Sounds like a very good argument for a spate of reopenings to me

More on topic, the stations on the mid Sussex may serve smallish places, but with some imaginative pricing, they could perhaps provide some much needed relief for the Brighton mainline (in the same way the Uckfield line relieves the Hastings route).

A curve at Arundel allowing a Brighton to London service via Worthing without reversing would help a lot.

That said shutting double track Horsh to Shoreham must be one of the most short sighted closures, I gather even at the time BR were not quite sure whether they were doing the right thing. Although, I suspect places like Henfield would be much larger commuter dormitory towns rather than Sussex Market towns if it hadn't shut, so perhaps the people there are quite happy as things are!

Thanks to the good offices of the Southern Railway in electrifying the Mid Sussex in the 1930s it got missed of Beechings Radar! Thanks to Hitler Horsham - Shoreham didn't get done in the early '40s.

 

[yorksrob]

A curve at Arundel allowing a Brighton to London service via Worthing without reversing would help a lot.

That said shutting double track Horsh to Shoreham must be one of the most short sighted closures, I gather even at the time BR were not quite sure whether they were doing the right thing. Although, I suspect places like Henfield would be much larger commuter dormitory towns rather than Sussex Market towns if it hadn't shut, so perhaps the people there are quite happy as things are!

Thanks to the good offices of the Southern Railway in electrifying the Mid Sussex in the 1930s it got missed of Beechings Radar! Thanks to Hitler Horsham - Shoreham didn't get done in the early '40s.

Agree with that ! It's particularly noticeable on the Southern Region how electrification or lack of it could make or break the future of a line.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

I can't help wondering what the patronage would be like, if the line from Guildford to Christ's Hospital and the south side of the Christ's Hospital triangle had been there to create a through route to the south coast now.

Trains dividing at Rudgwick or Slinfold to serve both Horsham & Brighton?

If it had existed, I wonder who would have operated the different sections?