Look at the old Bradshaws railway guides. At the time of the grouping 1920-1923 there were through trains from the Kent coast to Reading, BIrmingham and the North West. In addition some ran to South West England. In the 1970's there was a plan to add a South to West curve at Redhill so that trains from Gatwick could directly access the Reading line. Also in the Glory days of Inter-city there were direct trains from Brighton (also the occasional one from Dover) to Birmingham and beyond. Most of these ran via Kensington Olympia. These were withdrawn because they interfered with the local London commuter services.

Great ideas. So that'll be exactly what doesn't get implemented.

It is a very scenic line to pootle along, especially in summer, as long as you're not in a rush. I live on the east Sussex coast and regularly travel to Redhill, to do this I can either get the Southern service and change at Gatwick or take the Southeastern service to Tonbridge and change there for the Redhill service. The former takes around 2 hours sometimes less depending on connections at Gatwick the journey via Tonbridge takes about 15 minutes less. Neither is ideal, but I would prefer to go via Tonbridge, as it is less congested. Sadly, the trains on the line between Tonbridge and Redhill are getting very shabby and often very dirty especially if you travel later in the day. Just recently, I've noticed on the last three times I've used it, rather than Southern staff operating the service it has had Southeaster staff doing the job, which seems a little odd. But it would be great to see the line better used and more frequent services.

This line is very important along with Redhill to Reading. So many connections can be made to the south and with the GW line at Reading. A journey can still be made from Tonbridge to Penzance and North..Good Vid pointing out the problems which are not insurmountable. The line between Redhill and Reading is kept in top condition for the small amount of passenger traffic it carries..Although freight traffic uses the line 10pm-7am.

Quick note on your proposed long-distance (Margate-Bristol & Dover-Birmingham) services: As I understand it, between Shalford Junction and the 4tph going Ash-wards, Guildford is already hella congested. Oh, and unless they changed things very recently, the platform at Farnborough is way too short for the trains to consider stopping there. It'd be non-stop from Guildford to Wokingham.

I wish there was a Redhill to Strood (or even Crawley to Rainham?) link via Maidstone. It could be the first part of a lesser redo of the old HighSpeed4Air idea. Edit: Ah I should have waited till 2:30 before commenting. Had no idea there used to be a direct route! Talking of Redhill, why does East Surrey Hospital (a 700 bed 5000 staff building) not have a station? Its literally 100m from the track and most of that is wasteland, it'd also give Earlswood and White bushes a transit link.

I've used this service many times to get between Tunbridge Wells and Gatwick airport. The connection times at Redhill are really poor. Even putting one extra train on the service to make it half hourly would greatly improve things. It may block the junction at Redhill, but surely for a few minutes more an hour it would be worth it.

great video but whats with the windows movie make music?

I work on this line regularly as a guard, twice this week in fact. Great line to work, and used a lot by people coming and going from Kent going to Gatwick the “cheaper” way.

The Javelins have third rail shoes so third rail DC electrification is fine. Just need to overturn the stupid ban which has led to the idiocy of the unreliable battery hybrid trains on Miseryrail, sorry Merseyrail.

"I propose you build a flyover" 😅

I always found it amazing that only two lines straddle the Surrey/Kent border. Also as it was technically (or at least it appeared that way) an extension of the Reading-Redhill route it's crazy the way the station developed with the line coming in from the south and then out again south. Same reason the Reading-Gatwick drivers have to walk down the other end of the train at Redhill.

It's like a mini version of the SNCF's Lyon - Nantes line, which the SNCF treat like c$!p for many many years until it was going to blow-up in their faces. Improvement is being made, but boy, it's late to come! Sadly, the Lyon - Bordeaux line has too many end-on reversals to be improved in similar fashion, unless either a completly new line or smoothing out of the end-on reversals.

Was far better when it ran through to Reading. Really handy way of getting across the south of England while avoiding London.

Marshlink like the Tonbridge/Redhill line, is a missed opportunity, I agree with reinstating the Ashford to Brighton service, i also think there could be a London Victoria to Rye service, yes it’ll be diesel for the moment, but you could have a service calling at Clapham Jnc, East Croydon, Redhill, Edenbridge Town, Tonbridge, Ashford Intl, Ham Street, Appledore and Rye, reconfiguring HS1 at Ashford is very expensive so this would be a good alternative plus you’ll be linking Rye with London directly

This line used to have far more trains back in the 00s during the Connex era, SE used to run a London Bridge to Tunbridge Wells service over this route, as well As the Strood/Maidstone to Three Bridges service operated by Southern, of course until 1993, the service used to run from Tonbridge to Reading, this line is woefully underused

I've seen Electrostar trains going through Hampden Park equipped with pantographs recently whereas they previously just had the space to put them in. I like the idea of reopening the Dungeness Line. With the fact that Lydd Airport now somewhat risibly calls itself London Ashford Airport, there'd be a good case for getting funding for the line from the owner of the Airport for future scheduled flights from this base. Careful investment could result in an express train to Lydd Town and then possibly going on to Dungeness - maybe just at weekends in this case. A possible compromise could be to just have a passing loop installed around Winchelsea. I think electrification is a must and although I'd prefer a third rail system, we have to consider future-proofing investment to allow for high speed trains. Having been through Hastings in a car recently I've noticed that although a lot of investment has been made in the town centre, the suburban areas are looking very neglected with a huge amount of uninhabitable buildings and so the extra link would be essential to the future of Hastings.

Could cut and cover be used for the link from the Redhill to North Downs line?

The Redhill- Tonbridge line used to be run by southeastern until Dec 2008

What resources do you use for the timetable? Interested in that 'pass' time functionality. Also, the 4:12 flyover would prevent exchanges to Thameslink/airport. The tonsbridge line doesnt have enough people for two different lines.

The hourly Reading to Tonbridge service used to be worked by Southern Region DEMUs. It was slow but a long distance cross country service that I remember using to go from Reading to the channel ports

Since electrification, projection of the service beyond the Redhil - Tonbridge "core," at various times Strood/Maidstone West tio Three Bridges, Tunbridge Wells to London via Edenbridge, Horsham to Tunbridge Wells, but these have all ceased now, as 2 trains per hour Victoria to Reigate was seen as more preferable; the Tonbridge service also rerminares at the very top end of Platform 1 at Redhill, inferring a long walk for most connections, except towards Mersthan/Purley/East Croydon.

Wait until Sevenoaks tunnel gets the heavy maintenance is has needed for years, then you'll see the old "main line" get some use. Long distance? Bring back the old Birkenhead - Eastbourne/Hastings/Ramsgate service. And rebuild and reinstate the Crowhurst spur onto the Oxted - East Grinstead.

A Ramsgate to Brighton service would be good.

As someone who lives less than 400yds from Penshurst station I use this line frequently and always thought it was underutilised. It was a great shame when the line became just a shuttle service. Before 2018 the hourly service (more frequent in peak hours) alternated between running to Charing Cross and Victoria which made connections far easier. I believe Southern Rail have recently agreed to reinstate a service from Tonbridge to Gatwick after a campaign led by our MP.

Originally Tonbridge to Redhill was electrified for Channel Tunnel freight. It's definitely under used and would provide a useful electrified link to Gatwick from Kent (possibly terminating at Ashford) with stops at Paddock Wood, Tonbridge and Redhill (reverse) as a minimum.

1:42 - With such an idea, you would need significantly more capacity on trains, because one of the reasons that the service was withdrawn in the first place is because the trains in 2018 consisted of 2-car diesel trains, and this lead to overcrowding leading into Brighton. Therefore, you would either need longer trains (requiring more class 171s, as they are shared with the Uckfield branch of the Oxted line, which often runs coupled services at peak times), or maybe modifiy the class 171s so they can work with Class 377s in service, so you could do a 'detach and terminate at Hastings' move with the electric unit going into a siding before reaching the diesel line, and that way you would provide more capacity on the busiest section of the line into Brighton. Obviously though, this would only be a problem for as long as the line is a diesel line however. 2:11 - While that would be a good idea, it would cost a heck of a lot of money, given land acquisation would need to be done a lot, as quite a bit of that allignment has now been lifted I think and no longer in Network rail ownership, therefore maybe a little bit too ambitious of a scheme that is, at least at this point in time. They would also need a ridiculously good business case, but that would end up going up against other schemes in the country, many of which would cost less because of trackbeds being there already, and likely would deliver greater benefits to more people in the 21st century. That currently seems dead in the water after Rachel Reeves however. 2:50 - That would really not be much of an issue, because all Class 377 and Class 375 trains have the capability to be retrofitted as dual voltage units cabable of also taking power from overhead. Therefore, if you went with overhead, all that would need to be done is an agreed number of either of the aforementioned electrostar trains would simply need to have a pantagraph fitted, and they could work on the Marshlink line no problem, and the neccessity could be countered further, as many already have the capability fitted currently, and with southern's service being to Milton Keynes being cut back to terminate at Watford Junction, that is plenty of Class 377/2 or Class 377/7 units they could use, or they could lease in some Class 375/6 from Southeastern (maybe in exchange for some class 377 to cover losses) if needed. 4:59 - I would maybe include Winchelsea in that as well, given the passenger numbers are quite similar to those of Three Oaks. Ultimately, I like that idea though, as that would in turn encourage more people to use Doleham station particularly, as having 3 trains northbound and 5 trains southbound means most people in that hamlet I would suspect just drive, either to Three Oaks or Winchelsea, but more likely the whole way. The only thing I would say before demoting some stops to being on request though is whether the new hourly services at both Three Oaks and Winchelsea affect passenger numbers enough to the point that nearly all trains would have to stop at those stations anyway, which defeats the point of making them request stops in the first place, and just gives justification to book all services to stop there in the first place. In addition, the only station on the Marshlink which really does have a limited service really is just Doleham, all other stations now have hourly services all day. 5:50 - I don't really think that there is any urgent need to replace class 171s, as Ashford to Eastbourne is ultimately a regional express, and the majority of the route since the Brighton service ended is now unelectrified track. 06:27 - I don't think they [Southern] would order anything brand new for the electrification of the Marshlink line. If the line was electrified, by far the most likely replacement would likely just be electrostar trains from Southern's existing fleet (probably the 3-car 377/3s). They would simply need a few extra to cover the slightly increased demand, but that seems to be coming in the form of extra Class 387s thanks to Great Northern getting Class 379s, and even then if that failed, that would be such a small increase that ordering a small number of newly built electrostars (fully capable of working with existing ones) would very minimal in benefits. That would in turn mean the class 171s would probably end up increasing services on the Uckfield line until that too was electrified, but that is another story in its own right. To be fair though, much of this video is kinda wishful thinking, but they are quite good ideas

I remember taking this line, and I think it is ridiculously underrated. That is because I would consider a bit of a "Bridge line", in that it bridges the Southern network at Redhill with the Southeastern network at Tonbridge, providing some useful orbital connectivity. If it wasn't for the line, that could have made numerous journeys much worse, as you would either need to go into Central London, which is more expensive with many ticket options, or you would need to go via Hastings and across the Marshlink line (a line which Beeching wanted to be closed, but got saved) or up the Hastings line and then doubling back on Tonbridge. Some responses I would give however: 4:10 - I am not sure how politically possible that would be, because if you did that, you would get complaints from Redhill officials complaining about their town being left behind by being bypassed. As a result, it would be more desirable to many to retain the reversal at Redhill, or maybe have high level platforms (4 and 5) for Redhill on the new bypass chord. Ultimately, for a station which was used by almost 4 million passengers before COVID, serving Redhill by some means would be highly desirable 5:54 - That is an excellent point, because pending upgrades at Reigate, trains can only be 4 carriages, and that is for the full-length of the journey from Victoria, except during peak times where they divide with an extra Gatwick portion. That in turn can easily lead to plenty of overcrowding in London with any 4 carriage trains out of Victoria thesedays, unless it was just some connecting shuttle, which Victoria to Reigate is most certainly not. In many ways, you would only need a very small number of additional units, because if it was able to replace the current shuttle, with a little shuffling around of 3-car and 4-car units, you would only need a couple more trains and that's it. Such a service would however make sense to be a stopper, given from Tonbridge, it would be a supplementary service to the main SE services into Charing Cross and Cannon Street, and then have separate faster services along the line proceeding to non-london destinations. That would be a good idea, because no new paths would be needed as well, given in all likelihood, it would only be one of the current Reigate services. The only risk is that like any train division, you could get a bottleneck, particularly if there is disruption on the Tonbridge line, leading the signalpeople with no choice but to dispatch the service from Reigate on its own into London, and terminate the Tonbridge service at Redhill, because otherwise you could block Thameslink trains. A solution though could be to make platform 1 a through platform. 6:30 - That is a good idea, but finding some extra train paths would be a must there, given GWR would be reluctant to truncate a train to Redhill already, given they only extending that service quite recently 7:51 - That would greatly enhance some intercity connectivity from Kent, as currently, which the South West gets pretty good connections to the Northeast or the Northwest. By comparison, other that a few Thameslink services across London to East of England London commuter towns, there are few long distance services from the Southeast (specifically east of Southampton) to destinations other that London, so that could help to resolve that connectivity problem.

As a resident of Redhill , I can tell you that a flyover would be stupidly expensive and difficult to build with an industrial estate , residential road, main road and hill in the way. The station also can't really be expanded because of a housing estate on one side and steep wall to a car park on the other , so until there's a genuine need and enough funding , nothing will happen at Redhill.

About a decade ago I commuted to Redhill on the North Downs Line from near Farnborough, so know Redhill station (before platform 0 ...). The curve from Reigate to Redhill is on the limit of what the existing stock can manage - you wouldn't want to add points to connect a line to Tonbridge to it ... A more useful link would be to have a curve from the Tonbridge side of Redhill station, crossing near the tunnel entrance and going over the Brighton main line on a bridge then dropping down to share platforms 0 & 1 with trains to Reigate and beyond. The link to platform 3 might need to be sacrificed depending on how gradients and distances work out (hard to tell from my armchair with only Google maps!). Unless more could be changed to avoid trains having to reverse ... that would be preferable for goods trains, which can make use of this link (they do on the Reading link). It's probably the Channel Tunnel's fault - if Redhill to Tonbridge hadn't been electrified to provide an alternative route it would probably have remained part of the Reading Guildford Redhill route

I looked for a route from Upper Warlingham to Sevenoaks, avoiding London. That's where this line comes into focus, together with the Uckfield Line and the South Eastern Main Line.

It’s a shame that Southern don’t still operate the Tonbridge to Horsham via Redhill and Gatwick service as they did for a while back in the early 2000s.

The TON - Redhill service is Supplied by southern and operated by southeastern. its weird

Then if you can pursude Eurostar to restart using Ashford international station, entire areas of the country would also be connected to Europe without the inconvenience of haveing to travel into London 😀

Great idea. In addition, say the new Redhill link becomes successful, I think it would be a brilliant idea to build an interchange station at Crowhurst (Surrey) where the Redhill to Tonbridge line crosses the East Grinstead line. The new station would be called Lingfield Parkway which will have four platforms: two east of the bridge towards Redhill or Tonbridge and beyond, and two south of the bridge towards London or East Grinstead, similar to Worcestershire Parkway. The Park & Ride/station entrance can be built from Caterfield Lane.

6:24 Pun intended? 😂

Reopening the line from Three Bridges to East Grinstead and on to Tunbridge Wells would be very useful.

In the noughties I used to commute from Tunbridge Wells to London. On some days the route via sevenoaks would by blocked, my train would be diverted on this line to go via Redhill. Not sure if this is possible now after the realignment at Redhill as the track now ends in a buffer. BTW that Redhill work which was building platform 0, a lift and moving the track around cost £50m!

Southern is getting 387s from Great Northern.

They could also be a Eurostar like service to Bristol from the contient. Stopping at many local towns both in the contient and in the uk

Great thinking - thank you. Anything which adds significantly to inter-regional passenger rail is to be welcomed!

Thanks, some interesting thoughts. The photo at Tonbridge in 1979 (at 2:30) is one of mine, by the way. Historically, there have been quite a few longer distance trains over the line, although these have gradually faded out over the years. Kent County Council have argued for a through service from (say) the Medway Towns and Maidstone to Gatwick Airport, and it was considered in one of the Kent Route Utilisation Studies but Network Rail concluded the potential benefit wouldn't justify such a service, rightly or wrongly. Unfortunately, the lack of Eurostar services at Ashford make through services via Redhill from there less attractive.

A few comments here about how to deal with the Redhill conundrum. Personally I'd go for something even more ambitious (but also more beneficial) in the form of a new line via Gatwick Airport. This would branch off the Reading - Redhill line somewhere around Dorking (where a potential chord could also allow use of the line by services from London via Epsom) before running cross-country to Gatwick, approaching the station by running parallel to London Road/Riverside Garden Park. The station itself would likely be constructed with new high level platforms to the north of Airport Way. Alternatively high level platforms could be built closer to the existing station, but this would likely require the demolition of the multistorey car parks and Hilton Hotel to the east of the station. From there, the line would run cross-country to somewhere around Edenbridge (this route would also have potential for a chord where it intersects with the East Grinstead line allowing some trains to run London - Gatwick via Oxted) where it would rejoin with the Redhill - Tonbridge line and services could continue east. Such a route would make more sense in my mind because Gatwick is a much more major interchange hub than Redhill, and services such as the Reading - Gatwick trains could use the new line instead of the BML, leading to a faster journey time and more capacity on the BML for services to London via Redhill. It would also be very useful as an east-west freight link as trains would no longer have to reverse at Redhill, and for the same reason could also be very useful for other potential long-distance services such as the ones you suggested in this video. Looking very long term, it also lays the groundworks for the proposed HS4Air which would run from Ashford to Heathrow via Tonbridge and Gatwick. It's not likely to happen for a long time (if at all) but this line would present one less potential barrier to such a plan as much of the route would be shared. TLDR: New line from Edenbridge to Dorking via Gatwick instead of putting a chord in at Redhill - useful for freight, express passenger, and also relieves the BML.

That Flyover at Redhill would not be possible, too tight and too steep. Instead I would build a high level line with platforms north south replacing the through lines for the Thameslink services. this would enable services from Reigate and Tonbridge to stop at Redhill attach/detach or reverse without causing conflicts with the north south traffic

For years I’ve had the idea to build a new orbital railway around London just beyond the M25 to supplement it and take traffic off it, giving people like me, who’d much rather use the train, the option to avoid using the M25 all together. The Tonbridge to Redhill line would become part of Orbirail, as I’ll call this new line and service, with a new spur line branching off just after Leigh and linking up with the Southeastern Mainline just north of Hildenbrough. It would also use the Redhill to Guildford line and the Sevenoaks to Swanley line. Your proposal for a new flyover at Redhill seems much more sensible than the tunnel I had planned to link the 2 lines together, much less expensive too. This was a good video. Hope you like my idea for how the Tonbridge to Redhill line could be used more.

😊

Been here twice, it's weird but very peaceful. Much calmer than the Northern Line, and arguably a nicer place to be.

As a local to Doleham I would LOVE the possibility of an hourly 'stop-on-request' service! Although I think that much of this presentation is 'wishful thinking' it does have creditable suggestions and the first implemented should be the reinstatement of the Ashford-Rye shuttle. Thanks for the ideas.

Yep 1959/62 cab

Nice one. I think the loco number is 46100, though.