Ockley railway station

Ockley
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Ockley Add→{{rail-interchange}}
General information
Location	District of Mole Valley
Managed by	Southern
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	OLY
History
Opened	1 May 1867

Ockley railway station serves the villages of Ockley and Capel in Surrey, England and is situated 1.4 miles (2.3 km) from Ockley village and only 0.5 miles (0.80 km) west of the village of Capel. The station is 29 miles 20 chains (47.1 km) from London Waterloo station.^[1] Ockley is managed by Southern which also provides all the services.

It opened as Ockley & Capel on 1 May 1867 as part of the London Brighton & South Coast Railway extension to Horsham. Its situation next to Le Steeres of Jayes Park brickworks (closed c 1914) and nearby Phorpres Works (now Clockhouse Works) allowed for substantial brickwork traffic for many years. Milk traffic was also important until the early 1930s when this trade was lost to road transport.

Goods traffic declined slowly over the next 30 years ceasing finally in June 1962.^[2]^{[page needed]}

The station could very easily have suffered a similar fate (with the potential loss of many of its most important historic features - especially the wooden station canopy) as Warnham station level crossing and signal box, but in recent years Ockley Station has been protected from such an outcome by the efforts of one of the property owners living in the Station Approach who a number of years ago successfully applied to English Heritage to have the station Grade II listed.^[3] This means Network Rail must maintain it in its present form.

A great deal of further detail on the history of this station and the entire section of line between Dorking and Horsham can be found in John Harrod's Up The Dorking.^[4]

Services

For most of the day there is only one train per hour southbound to Horsham and there is also only one train per hour northbound towards London Victoria via Sutton and Clapham Junction. However, in the Monday to Friday morning peak northbound and the evening peak southbound there are some additional services on an approximately half-hourly basis.

From May 2018, there is an hourly mid and late evening service operating between Horsham and London, operating Monday to Friday.^[5]

There is no Sunday service from this station.

Facilities

The station has free parking for around 17 cars (15 normal spaces and two disabled) in the Station Approach, but these spaces are often full by 7.30am on weekdays.^{[citation needed]} When the station car park is full there is no other safe parking location at the station as the winding unlit Coles Lane from which the Station Approach is accessed is neither safe nor suitable for parking and the nearest safe parking locations on public roads in Capel village are at least 0.5 miles (0.80 km) away. There is no taxi rank, so a taxi would have to be summoned by telephone from Dorking or Horsham rendering it largely uneconomic to do so. There is a BT payphone in front of the station building which only takes credit or debit cards. There are no buses that serve the station itself.

Journey times

Journey times now vary between 63 and 76 minutes to London Victoria compared to times of between only 51 and 60 minutes as recently as 1992.^[6]

References

^ Yonge, John (November 2008) [1994]. Jacobs, Gerald (ed.). Railway Track Diagrams 5: Southern & TfL (3rd ed.). Bradford on Avon: Trackmaps. map 19A. ISBN 978-0-9549866-4-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
^ Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith. Epsom to Horsham Southern Min Lines. Middleton Press.
^ "Ockley Railway Station, Rhumbles and the Coach House". British Listed Buildings.
^ Harrod, John. Up The Dorking. Ian Allan Publishing.
^ Network Rail. "Timetable No. 180, May 2018".
^ GB National Rail Timetable May 1992 Edition, Table 182

External links

Train times and station information for Ockley railway station from National Rail

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Holmwood		Southern Sutton & Mole Valley Lines Mondays-Saturdays only		Warnham

51°09′07″N 0°20′10″W / 51.152°N 0.336°W / 51.152; -0.336

[1] Yonge, John (November 2008) [1994]. Jacobs, Gerald (ed.). Railway Track Diagrams 5: Southern & TfL (3rd ed.). Bradford on Avon: Trackmaps. map 19A. ISBN 978-0-9549866-4-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

[2] Mitchell, Vic; Smith, Keith. Epsom to Horsham Southern Min Lines. Middleton Press.

[3] "Ockley Railway Station, Rhumbles and the Coach House". British Listed Buildings.

[4] Harrod, John. Up The Dorking. Ian Allan Publishing.

[5] Network Rail. "Timetable No. 180, May 2018".

[6] GB National Rail Timetable May 1992 Edition, Table 182

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