London and Croydon Railway (18341846) and the
London and Croydon Railway to the east of in 1840 The first part of the Brighton Main Line to be constructed was the section between London Bridge and Croydon. It was proposed in 1834 by the
London and Croydon Railway (L&CR) company. Much of the route, surveyed by
Joseph Gibbs, followed the course of the
Croydon Canal, the southern terminus of which would be used for Croydon station (now ). The line would diverge from the
London and Greenwich Railway (L&GR) around east of London Bridge station and the L&CR would have running powers into the terminus. Passenger trains began running on the L&GR between and its temporary London terminus at on 8 February 1835. London Bridge station, the first permanent terminus in the capital, opened on 14 December the following year. The L&CR was authorised by act of parliament on 12 June 1835 and a second act, permitting the company to build its own terminus at London Bridge, was given royal assent on 14 July 1836. The line between the capital and Croydon was built by the engineer,
William Cubitt, and construction began in 1838. The cost of the line was originally estimated to be around £400,000, but difficulties encountered during the excavation of the
cutting at New Cross, meant that an additional £216,000 was required. The route originally surveyed by Gibbs was also modified to ease curves and to reduce the maximum gradient from 1 in 80 to 1 in 100. The official opening ceremony for the L&CR took place on 1 June 1839, although passenger trains for the general public did not start until four days later. Since the area between New Cross and Croydon was sparsely populated and largely undeveloped countryside, the majority of passenger journeys on the line were between the two termini. Nevertheless, when the line opened, intermediate stations were provided at New Cross (now New Cross Gate), Dartmouth Arms (now Forest Hill), Sydenham, Penge (now Penge West), Anerley Bridge (now Anerley) and Jolly Sailor (now Norwood Junction). Initially nine steam locomotives operated on the line: five
Sharp, Roberts and Co. and two
J. and G. Rennie 2-2-2 engines were used to haul trains and two
0-4-2 locomotives were used as
banking engines for the steep climb to New Cross from the junction with the L&GR.
London and Brighton Railway (18371846) In the early 1830s, several different routes for a railway between London and Brighton were proposed.
John Rennie the Younger favoured a line via Merstham and Horley, while the engineers
Robert Stephenson and
Nicholas Cundy preferred longer, but cheaper routes via
Dorking and
Shoreham-by-Sea. The
London and Brighton Railway (L&BR) company, formed to promote Rennie's more direct route, received parliamentary approval for its scheme on 15 July 1837. The line was to leave the L&CR about a mile from its southern terminus, to head southwards towards Brighton. The L&BR purchased the defunct
Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Railway in order to use part of its abandoned trackbed for the new railway. is constructed in the style of a medieval castle. The first construction contracts were let in 1838 and the first track was laid at Hassocks on 4 February the following year. The engineer was
John Urpeth Rastrick and the stations were designed by
David Mocatta. In total, around 6000
navvies are thought to have worked to build the railway. The line, which required five tunnels and a viaduct over the Ouse valley, cost £2.63M (around £57,000 per mile). Completion was delayed due to bad weather during the winter of 1840-41 and the first section, from Croydon to Haywards Heath, did not open until 12 July 1841. The initial timetable included four trains each way on weekdays between the capital and Haywards Heath, with intermediate calls at Redhill, Horley and Three Bridges (calls were made at other stations on request). The journey time was two hours from London and a
coach, taking a further two hours to reach Brighton, was provided for onward travel. The final section of the Brighton Main Line, between Haywards Heath and Brighton, opened on 21 September 1841. The initial service on the whole line was six trains per day in each direction, with most trains taking hours to complete the journey and one non-stop service in each direction taking hours. The station at Merstham opened on 1 December 1841, but was closed two years later. A station was opened at Stoats Nest (later Coulsdon North) in the spring of 1842 to cater for racegoers at
Epsom. Work to widen the shared section of the L&GR viaduct was completed on 10 May that year. The new L&CR London Bridge station, designed by
Henry Roberts, opened in 1844. Since the new terminus was not designed to handle freight, a spur line primarily for goods trains was built to and opened on 1 May that year. in 1844. The
South Eastern Railway (SER) company was formed to promote a railway from London to
Dover. Under the terms of the act of parliament passed on 21 June 1836, the company was empowered to build a line that left the L&CR at Penge, but the following year, parliament permitted the company to instead form a connection to the L&BR at Redhill. The Redhill to section of the SER opened on 26 May 1842. In 1839, anticipating that disputes might arise over the use of the line north of Redhill, parliament instructed the L&BR to sell the CoulsdonRedhill section to the SER. A price of £340,000 was agreed and the transfer of ownership took place in July 1845. On 27 July 1846, parliamentary authority was granted to merge the L&CR and L&BR to form the
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR).
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (18461922) A branch line from Sydenham to was opened on 10 June 1854 by the
West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway (WELCPR). The company extended its line to Balham on 1 December 1856 and to in March 1858. A westsouth spur linking Crystal Palace and Norwood Junction stations was opened in 1857, allowing trains from Brighton to reach the Pimlico terminus. The LB&SCR purchased the WELCPR in 1859. In 1860, the
Victoria Station and Pimlico Railway constructed
Grosvenor Bridge across the
River Thames, opening Victoria station on 1 October that year. Although LB&SCR trains could access Victoria station via Crystal Palace, John Rastrick advised that a shorter route to the
West End of London would be "most desirable". The company therefore decided to build a "cut-off" line between Croydon and Balham via Streatham Common. The proposal was authorised by parliament on 3 July 1860 and the new double-track line opened on 1 December 1862 with intermediate stations at Thornton Heath and Streatham Common. A further act of parliament was passed on 18 July 1864 authorising a link between the Victoria and London Bridge arms of the Brighton Main Line that allowed trains to travel between Norwood Junction and Thornton Heath without a reversal. Selhurst station, on the Victoria arm, opened on 1 May 1865 and South Croydon opened that September. A third track had been laid between New Cross and Croydon in August 1844 for
atmospheric trains. This method of train propulsion was abandoned by the LB&SCR in 1847, but the extra track was retained to provide additional capacity for northbound locomotive-hauled trains. A fourth track, used for southbound services, was added to this section of line by 1854. Between Stoats Nest and Redhill, the Brighton Main Line was owned by the SER. Congestion at the junctions at the south end of Redhill station prompted the LB&SCR to propose a two-track bypass of this section of line. The new line, which included two new tunnels and extensive cuttings, was authorised by parliament on 20 July 1894. A second act, permitting minor changes to the route, was given royal assent on 20 July 1896. The Quarry Line, as the bypass became known, opened to freight services on 5 November 1899 and to passenger trains on 1 April the following year. Five stations opened on the Brighton Main Line in the 1870s and 1880s. Brockley opened on 6 March 1871 to serve a new area of residential development. Norbury was built on a speculative basis, with one third of the cost being contributed by developers, and opened on 1 January 1878. Similarly, the cost of Honor Oak Park station, which opened on 1 April 1886, was also part-paid by developers. On 1 August that year Wivelsfield opened and trains began calling at Coulsdon South on 1 October 1889. The final station to be built on the line in the 19th century was Purley Oaks, which opened on 5 November 1899. Work to quadruple the Brighton Main Line continued in the first decade of the 20th century. Two additional tracks were brought into use between Streatham Common and Windmill Bridge Junction (north of Croydon) in July 1903. The line between Redhill and Three Bridges was quadrupled in 1907 and from Three Bridges to the southern limit of four-tracking at Balcombe Tunnel Junction in 1911. The first parts of the Brighton Main Line to be electrified, were the approaches to London Bridge and Victoria stations. The chosen system used overhead wires, energised to 6,700 V AC, and multiple units equipped with
pantographs for current collection. The new infrastructure allowed electric trains to start running between the two termini via the
South London Line on 1 December 1909. On 12 May 1911, the electrification was extended from Battersea Park to Crystal Palace via Balham and to Norwood Junction and Selhurst on 3 March 1912. During the First World War, the Brighton Main Line was the target of two
Zeppelin attacks. The line at the south end of East Croydon station was damaged on 13 October 1915 and Streatham Common station was hit by a bomb in September 1916. Salfords station was opened on 8 October 1915 initially for the use of workers at the nearby
Monotype Corporation factory. It continued to operate as a private halt after the war and was not opened to the general public until 1932.
Grouping (19231948) electric multiple unit approaching : These trains were used on the Brighton Main Line between 1933 and 1969. Under the
Railways Act 1921, the Brighton Main Line became part of the
Southern Railway in 1923. The overhead electrification of the line as far south as Coulsdon North was completed in April 1925, but in August the following year, the company decided that all future electrification projects would use the DC third-rail system and that the existing overhead wire system would be replaced. The conversion of the existing electrified sections was completed in September 1929 The electrification of the entire line was completed on 1 January 1933, when the section between Three Bridges and Brighton was commissioned. Redhill station was substantially rebuilt in 1932 as part of the electrification programme. A new
sorting office was opened in the town in 1933, replacing the previous facility which had been built in 1884. Further upgrades to enable larger volumes of mail to be handled at the station were undertaken in 1935 and 1938. Rail transport of Post Office mail ceased following the opening of the
Willesden postal rail hub in 1996. unit in Pullman livery at in 1964 A
Pullman dining service between London and Brighton, nicknamed the
Brighton Belle, was launched on 29 June 1934. It used five-car capable
Class 403 (5-BEL) units, the first all-electric Pullman trains in the world. Initially, three return trips ran each day, but the service was increased to four in 1963. The Class 403 sets were withdrawn on 30 April 1972. The
Beehive, the original terminal building at
Gatwick Airport, opened in mid-1936. It was served by Tinsley Green station, which had opened in September the previous year and which was renamed Gatwick Airport on 1 June 1936. The station was relocated northwards to its current site at the South Terminal on 27 May 1958. During the Second World War, the Brighton Main Line was a target for enemy bombing. Bombs caused damage to the tracks at Norbury on 19 October 1940 and outside Victoria station on 21 December that year. Both London termini were damaged in a raid on 11 May 1941 and a
V-1 flying bomb caused extensive damage to the station offices at Victoria on 12 June 1944. Further bomb damage occurred at Forest Hill on 23 June 1944.
Nationalisation (19481996) Under the
Transport Act 1947, the Brighton Main Line became part of the
Southern Region of British Railways. During the 1950s, work continued to modernise the signalling system, which included the installation of colour lights between Selhurst and East Croydon in March 1954. In the same decade, the number of signal boxes on the line was reduced and new boxes were commissioned at Balham, Norwood Junction, Gloucester Road Junction and Purley. The South Terminal at Gatwick Airport was opened on 9 June 1958. The new terminal was directly linked to a new railway station on the Brighton Main Line, which had opened on 27 May that year. The former airport station, located close to the redundant Beehive terminal, had closed on 18 May 1958. unit at in
Network SouthEast livery On 4 January 1982, the Brighton Main Line and the majority of the Southern Region of British Railways, became part of the new "London & South Eastern" sector of British Rail. Four years later, on 10 June 1986, the sector was rebranded to become
Network SouthEast. In the early 1980s, a major resignalling project was undertaken that involved the closure of the majority of the signal boxes on the line and the transfer of control to Victoria and Three Bridges signalling centres. London Bridge panel box, which had opened in 1975, retained control of the line north of Norwood Junction. In the first seven months of the service, the number of passengers travelling by rail to Gatwick Airport went up by 38% and revenue on the route increased by 52%. Two major stations on the Brighton Main Line were rebuilt in the early 1990s. A new circular station building at Redhill station, designed by the architecture firm, Troutham & Macasum, was completed towards the end of 1990. East Croydon station, designed by Alan Brookes Associates, opened on 19 August 1992.
Privatisation (1996present) in
Gatwick Express livery at The
Gatwick Express franchise was one of the first parts of the UK rail network to be transferred to a private operator, when
National Express began running the trains on 28 April 1996. which took over the running of trains in August 2001, having bought out the final two years of Connex's contract for £30M. Govia's ten-year franchise formally began in May 2003, when it introduced the "Southern" brand name. The agreement required the company to retire the final slam-door trains, achieved in 2005, and to invest £853M in new rolling stock. The Gatwick Express and Southern franchises were merged in May 2008, to allow capacity increases and better use of train paths on the Brighton Main Line. The new arrangement allowed Gatwick Express services to be extended to Brighton, initially during peak periods, but required the replacement of the ten Class 460s with seventeen
Class 442 units. unit in
First Capital Connect livery at The Thameslink franchise, which included services from Brighton to Bedford, was awarded to Govia in 1997. It was initially due to end in 2004, but delays in the Thameslink 2000 project resulted in the company being awarded a two-year extension to 2006. The new franchise, also incorporating services on the
Great Northern Route, was awarded to
FirstGroup, which began operating trains under the
First Capital Connect brand on 1 April 2006. The company introduced 12-car trains to the Brighton Main Line in December 2011. The South Central franchise was terminated two years early in 2014, allowing Southern- and Gatwick Express-branded services to be combined with those run by First Capital Connect, to create the
Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise. Awarded to Govia, the new franchise took the form of a
management contract, reducing the risks to the operator arising from the introduction of new services as part of the Thameslink programme. During the lifetime of the franchise, the
Bermondsey dive-under was constructed, reducing the conflict between Southern trains departing from London Bridge and northbound Thameslink services heading towards London Blackfriars, and an extensive refurbishment of London Bridge station was completed. Govia was heavily criticised for the poor implementation of a new timetable in May 2018, which routed additional services from the Brighton Main Line via the Thameslink core. The company was also criticised for its role in the
2016–2019 United Kingdom railway strikes. In 2022, Govia was awarded a three-year extension to its management contract, which took effect on 1 April that year. ==Major accidents==