Brighton Main Line
The Brighton Main Line is a railway line in Great Britain . It connects Victoria and London Bridge stations in London with the city of Brighton on the south coast . The route is around 80 kilometers long and electrified along its entire length. Trains from Southern , First Capital Connect , Gatwick Express , Southeastern and Virgin Trains operate .
history
In the beginning there were no fewer than six different requests from as many companies to build a railway between London and Brighton. On July 15, 1837, the London and Brighton Railway (L&BR) finally prevailed when it was awarded the concession by the British Parliament on that day. The project envisaged building a route south from the existing route of the London and Croydon Railway (L&CR), whose terminus was London Bridge. Two branches were also planned, one to Newhaven and the other to Shoreham-by-Sea .
The first section that could be opened was the branch line between Brighton and Shoreham-by-Sea on May 12, 1840 (all construction materials had been transported here by ship). On July 12, 1841 the section followed from Norwood Junction station (connection to the L&CR) to Haywards Heath. The last section of the main route from Haywards Heath to Brighton was put into operation on September 21, 1841.
The branch line to Newhaven was not realized until 1846, but as part of a more extensive connection to Hastings ( East Coastway Line ). In the same year, the companies L&CR and L&BR merged to form the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB & SCR). In 1860 the line between London Victoria and Balham was opened. With the opening of the Balham - Croydon section , the Brighton Main Line was essentially completed in 1862. As early as 1861, the most serious railway accident in Great Britain to date occurred in the Clayton Tunnel, with 23 dead and 176 injured, when a passenger train and a following one collided there.
Due to a parliamentary decision that only allowed a route south of London, the LB & SCR and the South Eastern Railway (SER) were forced to use the route between London and Redhill jointly in the first decades . This often led to quarrels as Redhill was a SER station. The problems increased so much that the LB & SCR built a bypass route between Coulsdon and Earlswood, the Quarry Line (" Quarry Line "). It was opened for goods traffic on November 8, 1899, and for passenger traffic on April 1, 1900. It is still used by express trains that do not stop in Redhill.
LB & SCR began electrifying their lines on December 1, 1909 . The beginning that made South London Line with a single phase - catenary . Other routes were converted within the next three years. In 1921, when Parliament decided to merge all British railway companies into four companies, the contact wire on the Brighton Main Line extended to Coulsdon North.
But the newly created Southern Railway decided to convert the line to power rails with 750 V direct current and thus use the same system as its predecessor, the London and South Western Railway . In 1929 the entire route network was switched to busbar operation.
On the Brighton Main Line, the individual sections were electrified as follows:
- May 12, 1911: London Victoria - Balham - ( Crystal Palace )
- June 1912: Balham - Selhurst
- April 1, 1925: Selhurst - Coulsdon North
- July 1932: Coulsdon North - Three Bridges
- January 1, 1933: Three Bridges - Brighton (and also to Worthing )
As a top offer, the Southern Railway introduced three pairs of pullman suits with electrification between London Victoria and Brighton, which were called the Brighton Belle from 1934 onwards. British Rail discontinued Pullman trains in 1972.
In the southern entrance of the South Croydon station , after the illegal intervention of an interlocking employee on October 24, 1947, two suburban trains had a rear-end collision in fog. 32 people died, 142 were also injured. This was the worst accident that ever happened on the Southern Railway.