Crawley railway station
Crawley railway station is a railway station serving the town of Crawley in West Sussex, England. It is down the line from, measured via Redhill. It is operated by Southern. The station is the last stop on the Arun Valley Line before it joins the Brighton Main Line.
History
The single track branch line of the London Brighton and South Coast Railway between Three Bridges and Horsham was opened on 14 February 1848. Crawley and Faygate were intermediate stations, each with two platforms to enable trains to pass. The line was doubled throughout during 1862 to coincide with the extension of the railway from Horsham to the Arun Valley.The first Crawley station was situated immediately adjacent to the main High Street, with station buildings on the north side of the railway line.
With the continued development of the New Town during the 1950s and 1960s it soon became clear that the station was too small, and a new station building was opened 28 July 1968 at the current site. The new station was funded by a six-storey commercial development above the new British Rail station. The original station buildings were demolished in August 1968, but the platforms still survive.
A planning application was approved on 16 August 2016 for the demolition and redevelopment of the station buildings to include residential apartments, retail space and multi-storey car parking.
The main concourse and ticket office closed for redevelopment in December 2021. The redevelopment of the main concourse and ticket office was completed in November 2022 and the new concourse opened to the public on 22 November 2022. The new concourse used empty space from sections of the lower floors of the abandoned office block, however the rest of the former office block remains derelict.
In 2020, an accessible footbridge with lifts was installed. It was due to open by autumn 2020.
Facilities
- Concourse
- Ticket office
- Quick Ticket
- Vending machine
- Waiting room
- Toilets
- Car park
- Bicycle storage
- Ticket barriers
Services
Services at Crawley are operated by [Southern (Govia Govia Thameslink Railway|Thameslink Railway)|Southern] and Thameslink using and EMUs.The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:
- 2 tph to via
- 2 tph to via Gatwick Airport, Redhill, and
- 2 tph to
- 2 tph to Portsmouth Harbour and, dividing at Horsham
On Sundays, there is an hourly Southern service between London Victoria and Bognor Regis and Portsmouth Harbour, which divides at Barnham, and an hourly Thameslink service between Horsham and Bedford.
Signal box
The original signal box, dating from 1877, survives. It is a tall box with a timber superstructure on a brick base and was built by the firm of Saxby and Farmer. It was made redundant in 1978 when the railway level crossing gates were removed. It is a Grade II listed building and has recently been partially restored.The former goods yard to the east of the old Crawley Station was closed in the 1960s and demolished to make way for the new station.