Ford railway station


Ford railway station is a railway station in Ford, West Sussex, England. It is located on the West Coastway Line which runs between Brighton and Southampton and it is down the line from via. The station and the trains serving it are operated by Southern. The station is on a notably busy section of line and has low capacity; due to this delays are frequent especially to the east of the station. The line to the east of the station has a visibly high gradient, from the view from the platform, as the track climes over the high banked River Arun. A busy level crossing is also found to the east of the station, before the river bridge.

Location

Ford serves a rural community with only a few houses and one pub nearby, HMP Ford is about one mile south of the station. Adjacent to the station is the large model railway shop Gaugemaster.
Ford station is close to the junction where the Arun Valley Line and the west coastway line. Due to the geometry of the junction it is impossible for trains to run from the Arun Valley line towards Brighton without changing direction in Littlehampton. To the west of the ‘Arun valley junction’ a triangular junction connecting the West Coastway to the short branch to Littlehampton. It is sometimes used as an interchange for those lines, however, due to the station's lack of facilities, most passengers prefer to change at Barnham.

Facilities

Ford station has a ticket office which is open for part of the day. There are PERTIS 'Permit to Travel' passenger-operated ticket-issuing machines available at the entrances from the road to both platforms at those times when the ticket office is closed.
Ford was a 3 platform station but one platform was closed and is now abandoned and overgrown.
  • Ticket office
  • Waiting Rooms x2
  • Vending Machine
  • Toilets
  • Post Box
  • Sheltered seating around the station
  • Departure Boards
  • Subway
  • Car Park

    Information

The station is staffed Monday-Saturday 06:30-13:20 and Sunday 08:10-15:40. It has CCTV installed.

Services

All services at Ford are operated by Southern using class EMUs. Although Southern run some Gatwick Express 387 EMUs to fill in for 377s on the Brighton to Southampton route.
The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:
  • 2 tph to via
  • 3 tph to
  • 2 tph to
  • 2 tph to
  • 1 tph to Chichester

    Accidents and incidents

On 5 August 1951, an electric multiple unit overran signals and was in a rear-end collision with another at the station. Ten people were killed and 46 were injured.