Brighton Main Line to close for nine days for £15m works

The work will be 'less disruptive' than prolonging it over many more weekends, Network Rail said

The Brighton Main Line will shut for nine days this month for a major £15m upgrade.

Network Rail said the work will tackle delays for Southern and Thameslink passengers.

The railway between Three Bridges, Brighton and Lewes will close from Saturday 19 to Sunday 27 February.

Katie Frost, Network Rail's Sussex route director, said the line is one of the busiest in the UK, with some of the oldest infrastructure.

"Doing the work in a longer nine-day closure means we can get more work done, more quickly, avoiding 20 separate weekend, evening and bank holiday closures which would be even more disruptive," she said.

Engineers are replacing track in the 1841-built Clayton Tunnel - the longest tunnel on the Brighton Main Line

Engineers will work round the clock to rebuild a junction, lay brand new track and shore up embankments to reduce the risk of landslips.

The upgrade also means the lines from Three Bridges to Brighton and Lewes will be closed on the weekends of 12-13 February, 5-6 March and 3 April for preparation and follow up works.

The closure will see the construction of a new underpass at Hassocks, to replace Woodside level crossing which was closed after a spate of safety incidents, including near misses involving children.

Impact of the works:

• No trains will run between Three Bridges and Brighton or Lewes

• Main line services will start and terminate at Three Bridges, with rail replacement busses

• Two trains per hour will run between London Victoria and Brighton via Gatwick Airport, Horsham and Littlehampton, but will take significantly longer.

Additional engineering works will also take place between Purley and Gatwick on February 5 and 6 as part of the major redevelopment of the airport station.

This is how the new airport station will look once complete

There will be fewer trains between the airport and London, Brighton and Redhill, and a replacement bus service will run between Three Bridges and East Grinstead.

The Saturday service between London and Horsham via Dorking will not run.

Southern's customer services director Chris Fowler said he was sorry for the inconvenience and people should allow extra time for their journeys.

The £150m transformation of Gatwick Airport station was planned to finish by 2020, but is now scheduled to complete in September 2023.

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