Salfords railway station

Infobox UK station
name = Salfords
code = SAF


caption = Looking south
manager = Southern
locale = Salfords
borough = Reigate and Banstead
lowusage0405 = 87,795
lowusage0506 = 96,766
lowusage0607 = 104,086
platforms = 2
start = 8 October 1915

Salfords railway station serves the village of Salfords (including the industrial complexes in Honeycrock Lane and the Bonehurst Road), Surrey, England. It is on the Brighton Main Line 37 km (23½ miles) south of London Bridge station, and train services are provided by Southern and Southeastern.

The station has four lines running through it, two express lines that have no platforms and the two that provide the service to and from London 45 minutes, Croydon 25 mins, Redhill 7 mins, Gatwick Airport 7 mins, Crawley 10 mins, and Horsham 20 mins. The ticket office is open weekdays from 6:30 am to 10:30 am. There is an on-demand service announcement facility .

History

Salfords station was originally built for the Monotype Corporation, which had constructed a factory next to the railway line in 1899. Beside the footbridge on the east side, an advertisement for Monotype is still in situ, although it is hidden by trees. Day Aggregates made use of the open land beside the station to store and transport their loose stones for construction in the area for some time. The sidings used still exist, including a bay platform at the station and most of the machinery used to expel and fill the wagons that transported the stone at the site.

Network Rail have a site at the back of platform 1, using it as a base for the continuing improvements to the Brighton main line, in between Selhurst traincare depot and the Three Bridges engineering depot.

On January 14th 2008, the station received a minor upgrade. This involved the replacing of the wooden huts with modern glass waiting areas and the installation of dynamic digital displays with information about the next train.

Future developments

The station suffers from an infrequent early rush hour service during the evenings. Resulting in 2 trains an hour at times that do not match working pattens ie 5:26pm and 5:50pm. A proposal has been put forward to increase the trains at rush hour due to the Gatwick Express merging with Southern, [http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/closed/brightonmainlinerusconsultation/briefingdocument?page=3#a1005]

The Thameslink Programme (formerly Thameslink 2000) project proposes to turn some of the Southern services over to the expanded Thameslink network under First Capital Connect. This will see services that currently terminate at London Bridge continuing through Central London and north wards via the Midland Main Line or East Coast Main Line to destinations such as Luton or Cambridge. This however is not imminent, a Department for Transport whitepaper states only that "the Thameslink Programme will be completed by the end of 2015" and that "interim outputs will be delivered by the end of 2011" [cite web|title=Delivering a Sustainable Railway - White Paper CM 7176|publisher=Department for Transport|date=2007|url=http://www.dft.gov.uk/about/strategy/whitepapers/whitepapercm7176/|accessdate=2007-07-24] , leaving Southern as the main operator for several more years to come. The Thameslink Programme is centred around 12 car long trains, thus Salfords station will have its platforms lengthened as they can only currently accommodate 8 car long trains.

Services

The typical service from the station during the day is one train per hour to London Bridge which stops at local stations to East Croydon then Norwood Junction then fast to London Bridge, and one train per hour to Horsham. There are services to London Victoria at peak times stopping at local stations to East Croydon then Clapham Junction before arriving at Victoria. There are also services to and from Littlehampton and Eastbourne in the morning and evening rush hours.

A Sunday service is only available once an hour for six months over the Summer period.

See also

*Salford Crescent railway station
*Salford Central railway station

References

External links