Rail services set to change for vital rebuild of Gatwick Airport station

• Coastal services double in length – much-needed relief from congestion
• First-ever all-week Cooksbridge service
• Additional weekend services for Brighton and other stations
• Longer Gatwick Express trains to compensate for frequency change

The £150m essential upgrade of Gatwick Airport station by Network Rail to relieve crowding, improve accessibility and reduce delays for commuters and leisure travellers across the South East will see Southern trains doubled in length along coastal routes to Eastbourne, Hastings, Worthing and Littlehampton.

A two-year temporary timetable to make space for the building work, due to start on 17 May and now available online to see, will provide much-needed relief for passengers on the congested coastal routes.

Additionally, Cooksbridge will have its first-ever all-week service as trains begin calling at the station on Sundays. This is a permanent change.

Also, on Saturdays, there will be an extra Thameslink service every hour between Brighton and Cambridge and the extension of an existing Sunday Cambridge to Gatwick Airport service through to Brighton. This will mean additional services at Brighton, Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath, Balcombe, Three Bridges, Gatwick Airport, East Croydon, London Bridge and through to Cambridge.

Further changes to Southern and Gatwick Express services are also required. There will be no off-peak Southern services between Brighton and London Victoria, but passengers will be able to travel with Gatwick Express, using Southern’s Super Off-Peak and Kids for £2 fares, which will be eligible on these services.

In the busiest commuter hour in each of the morning and evening peaks, Gatwick Express services will stay the same. Outside this time there will be two fewer Gatwick Express trains each hour, but the remaining trains will be lengthened to compensate and, from the airport, there will still be six Southern trains every hour to Victoria and eight more Thameslink trains to London Bridge providing sufficient space.

Southern, Gatwick Express and Thameslink is committed to helping passengers with information around the changes and will be running a comprehensive awareness campaign in the coming months. Passengers can meanwhile check details online at Southern, Thameslink and Gatwick Express websites. Trains are also be available to view in online journey planners at nationalrail.co.uk.

Angie Doll, Managing Director of Southern and Gatwick Express, said: “With over 20m passengers now using Gatwick station every year, this upgrade is essential to address overcrowding, improve accessibility and maintain a sustainable, reliable and punctual rail service for visitors and commuters along the route.

“This revised temporary timetable will create room for the work at the station while doubling the length of trains along the coast and retaining as many services as possible, supplemented by additional longer trains, ensuring we still have the services and capacity for our passengers.

“Gatwick supports the economy of the entire South East, bringing international travellers and trade to the region worth £2.7bn, supporting 70,000 jobs.”

Emma Rees, Head of Surface Transport, Gatwick Airport, said: “A £150m upgrade to Gatwick Airport station is essential to meet growing demand and to reduce delays on the Brighton Mainline and wider region by tackling overcrowding at the station. The size of the station concourse will double, and it will become much easier for passengers to access the railway and airport through wider platforms, five new lifts, eight new escalators, new staircases and a new station entrance.”

Paul Harwood, regional investment director for Network Rail, said: “The continued popularity and convenience of travelling by rail to Gatwick Airport means the station is now seeing more passengers than it was ever designed to handle. With further growth forecast, the station is in urgent need of improvement so that rail travel to and from the airport can continue to grow and help Gatwick support the local economy even more.

“The timetable changes will enable this vital construction work, allowing us to make the station safer, more accessible and capable of supporting smoother journeys for more trains and passengers long into the future.”

Rail Minister Chris Heaton-Harris said: “Gatwick Airport is the first stop for millions of people visiting the UK, and these upgrades will relieve overcrowding, improve accessibility and reduce delays for holidaymakers and commuters.

“We will closely monitor these works to ensure improvements are completed on time and passenger disruption is kept to a minimum.

“Once complete, the expanded, modern station will be an impressive gateway to Global Britain.”

Ends

Notes to editors

By delivering £2.7 billion of economic activity and 71,000 direct and indirect jobs, Gatwick is the single biggest driver of economic growth in the region and supports 71,000 direct and indirect jobs.

As a gateway to the UK for 5.5 million overseas visitors each year, it is estimated that visitors through Gatwick spent 9.7million nights in the South East including seaside towns such as Brighton, bringing a significant economic boost to local hotels, visitor attractions, restaurants and shops.

But Gatwick’s railway station must be upgraded if it is to cope with the 20 million rail passengers now using it every year, a figure which has been increasing by 5% every year on average for the last decade. Platforms are already crowded, and accessibility, especially for wheelchair users and those with luggage, is extremely restricted. This delays services along the busy Brighton Mainline.

In July last year, the Government and Network Rail announced a vital £150m upgrade to address all this. It will create a new concourse at Gatwick Airport station with twice as much space for passengers, transform the station’s accessibility through new lifts and escalators, and help to reduce delays across the south east.

Network Rail’s essential building work at Gatwick Airport station will put platforms out of use and slow trains passing through the worksite, all of which means fewer trains can run. Changes need to be made to Gatwick Express, Southern and Thameslink services for two years from May 2020. The project itself will complete in 2023.

Cooksbridge services

Starting on Sunday 17 May, Southern trains to and from the East Sussex coast will call at Cooksbridge on Sundays, providing a seven-days-a-week service to the station for the first time. There will be an hourly service in both directions.

This is the second phase of changes Southern have made in response to calls for improvement from local rail users. Saturday and extra weekday services were introduced in the December 2019 timetable revision.