Landslip at Horley (4-5 July 2025)

[Deepgreen]

BBC News is reporting a landslip at Horley, on Friday. Although it appears to be quite minor, this one seems unusual in that it occurred during very dry conditions, rather than being triggered by saturation, etc.

Landslip causes major train delays across Surrey and Sussex

The landslip in the Horley area is causing significant interruptions and cancellations.

www.bbc.co.uk

A landslip has caused significant delays and train cancellations across both Surrey and Sussex.
The incident happened in the Horley area on Friday evening and National Rail said it expected the disruption to last until the end of Saturday.
This means trains between Purley/Redhill and Gatwick Airport may be cancelled, delayed by up to 20 minutes or suspended, says National Rail.
Gatwick Express services between Brighton, Gatwick Airport and London Victoria and Thameslink services between Brighton and Cambridge, and Three Bridges and Bedford (stopping via Redhill) will be suspended until the end of the day.
A spokesperson for National Rail said: "Currently, the information from the site of the landslip suggests that some repair works are needed before they can reopen all lines.
"Until these are done, staff will need to reduce the number of trains running through the area."
However, National Rail has not confirmed the cause of the landslip.

 

[devon_belle]

Network Rail Kent and Sussex on Twitter posted this image late last night, which I think is the same incident:

(Picture shows visible dips in the running lines and conductor rail near Horley).

It appears to be the fast lines according to Traksy, with quarry line trains crossing to the slows south of Earlswood. There's no ladder to cross back until after Gatwick Airport, so platforms 4-7 there are inaccessible to trains from the north.

Does anyone know if this area is related to the urgent repairs planned for Sunday 13th July?

 

[Deepgreen]

Network Rail Kent and Sussex on Twitter posted this image late last night, which I think is the same incident:
View attachment 183157
(Picture shows visible dips in the running lines and conductor rail near Horley).

It appears to be the fast lines according to Traksy, with quarry line trains crossing to the slows south of Earlswood. There's no ladder to cross back until after Gatwick Airport, so platforms 4-7 there are inaccessible to trains from the north.

Does anyone know if this area is related to the urgent repairs planned for Sunday 13th July?

Interesting - a slump rather than a fall from above. Possibly arising from extreme drying and contraction of sub-soil/structure, which would make sense. Just my speculation.

 

[Jan Mayen]

Shame they don't use platforms 5/6 at Gatwick to run trains to/from Brighton (or Coastway East/ West for that matter).

Edited to add: The down fast is the line that is out of use, Earlswood to Horley. The up fast had a 50mph limit (sorry, can't remember the exact location) when I passed this morning.

 

[JonathanH]

Shame they don't use platforms 5/6 at Gatwick to run trains to/from Brighton (or Coastway East/ West for that matter).

Cancellation plan appears to be

Cambridge to Brighton no further south than Blackfriars.

Bedford to Three Bridges cancelled throughout

London Victoria to Brighton Gatwick Express cancelled throughout

GWR running Reading to Redhill

Given how much travel is to London, terminating trains at Gatwick Airport from the south just runs the risk of overloading the platforms at Gatwick Airport. The six coastway services each hour are running through anyway.

 

[Jan Mayen]

Down fast reopened. Just travelled along it at what felt like linespeed. Riding field a bit rough.

 

[trainmania100]

From the image it looks like both the slow and fast lines are dipping , or is it my imagination

Not that it matters it sounds like tis sorted

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The embankments along the Earlswood to Horley stretch have extensive ground movement monitors on both sides of the tracks literally 100's of them so they get real time warning from any slips. They did have a train over the Down Fast at 1300ish yesterday then closed it again for almost the rest of the day as im surmising it needed more attention. Hopefully it will hold up now for a week as we have a short notice Sunday closure all lines next week for either Stoats Nest or Purley is my guess anyhow they thus have an a further opportunity for further intervention if required.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Just to clarify, how far beyond Earlswood was the track problem? It's about two miles from there to Salfords station and another two miles onwards to Horley. As @devon_belle has already mentioned, platforms 5, 6 and 7 can't straightforwardly be accessed by any train once it has been routed off the fast lines, at Earlswood South Junction, just South of Earlswood station.

 

[Class 170101]

Just to clarify, how far beyond Earlswood was the track problem? It's about two miles from there to Salfords station and another two miles onwards to Horley. As @devon_belle has already mentioned, platforms 5, 6 and 7 can't straightforwardly be accessed by any train once it has been routed off the fast lines, at Earlswood South Junction, just South of Earlswood station.

Effectively
Platform 5 is only a London bound (or turn round and go back south Platform).
Platform 6 turn round and go back south platform
Platform 7 Closed (by default)

 

[Deepgreen]

It seems as if the dipping was rectified in less than a day. My question is; how - extra ballast? It seems a very quick repair, especially seemingly to get back to line speed.

 

[Annetts key]

It seems as if the dipping was rectified in less than a day. My question is; how - extra ballast? It seems a very quick repair, especially seemingly to get back to line speed.

A ballast drop (followed up by machine tamping) is indeed very likely what they did.

 

[Deepgreen]

A ballast drop (followed up by machine tamping) is indeed very likely what they did.

Thanks - perhaps that supports my theory of ground contraction owing to extremely dry conditions (rather than anything more structural)?