The Railway Line from London via East Croydon and Oxted to Lewes was regularly used as a Secondary Line to the Brighton Main Line when that was closed as a result of breakdowns, accidents, suicides or for planned repairs and maintenance.

That was the scenario until the line at Lewes was closed after the County Council refused to pay for rerouting of the line in 1969 which was necessary in order for them to build a road across the trackbed as part of a relief road scheme which was abandoned after the first phase of the work had been done.

The result is that we lost a very useful and popular railway as it was cut back to a terminus at Uckfield and has become known in some quarters as the Hurst Green Turnback Siding.

When the Oxted Line was subsequently electrified to East Grinstead, the line from Hurst Green to Uckfield continued to be operated by slam door Diesel Electric Multiple Units (DEMU's) with the authorities downgrading the line to that of a branch line with the consequential reduction of expenditure on maintenance and repairs, which culminated in the eventual singling of much of the trackwork.

The line was then operated as a branch with a shuttle service between Uckfield and Oxted where passengers had to change onto an East Grinstead electric train. Because of the single line sections on the Uckfield branch, delays were invariably caused by late running down trains, with passengers on the Up trains having to wait for that train to clear the single line section before they could continue their journey. The effect of this was that the passengers on the trains to London often missed their connection at Hurst Green/Oxted which meant that they had to wait up to thirty minutes for the next London train. The regularity of this situation made the service unreliable, and a great many Uckfield Line commuters railheaded to other main line railways.

After the line was reduced in this way and a rather unique signalling system installed, the railway authorities failed to realise that a major accident could occur, and this culminated in the tragic loss of five lives and thirteen people injured at Cowden on 15th October 1994 when two trains collided head on in heavy fog after one of the trains had gone through a red signal.

Photographs of the branchline as it then operated will be added here at a later date ~ please come back and check it out.