Balcombe Railway Station

It’s a surprise to find a station serving as a small village as Balcombe, especially on a main line. However, the lack of good roads to and from the village, and its proximity to London, ensures a healthy flow of commuter traffic, with Balcombe acting as a rail-​head for several villages around — it is used by just over 100,000 passengers a year.
It’s an attractive small station, the east side nestling in a cutting, and surrounded on all sides by mature trees and shrubs, and is very popular at week-​ends with walkers exploring the surrounding woodlands.
The station opened on 12 July 1841 as an intermediate station on the then London and Brighton Railway, later amalgamated into the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. The 1841 census shows that there were 550 railway labourers living in the village at the time — which must have been challenging for the locals!
The station has been rationalised over the years, but retains a small building on the down (Brighton) platform, complete with Victorian canopy, ticket office and toilet. The office is only open at peak times (the toilet is also closed when the office is shut). If this is the case, you need to buy a ‘permit to travel’ from the machine and buy a ticket on board.
The up platform (for London) has a small waiting shelter with step-​free access from the car park, and there are car parking spaces and a cycle rack on this side of the station. A footbridge provides access between the platforms, and also provides the exit to London Road at the top of the cutting. Note that there is no step-​free access to the Brighton platform.
An oddity is the extension of the Brighton platform under the small tunnel at the south of the station: this is only used to board and alight from trains, and a sign warns not to enter the tunnel when a through (ie non-​stopping) train is approaching which they do, at some speed.
The service is fairly sparse: off-​peak, Monday to Saturday there is one train an hour in each direction, on the First Capital Connect service from Bedford to Brighton via London Bridge. On Sundays, an hourly service is provided by Southern on the Brighton to London Victoria line. Additional services stop during rush hours in both directions.
To the north of the station is Balcombe tunnel, 800 yards long, and to the south the famous Ouse viaduct, the first long railway viaduct in southern Britain. At 1,475 ft (450m) long, faced with Caen stone and with four Italianate pavilions at each end, it is regarded as one of the most attractive in the UK.