The ‘Portsmouth Lines’ Once More

Passengers resigned to the sedate progress of trains running out from London via Streatham, Mitcham or Carshalton towards Sutton, Epsom, Leatherhead and Dorking might be surprised to discover that, in railway parlance, these are referred to as the ‘Portsmouth lines’.  A strange name, because none of the suburban trains trundling down this way are bound for anywhere nearly as exotic.  Most are content to fizzle out at Epsom or Dorking; the furthest south any direct passenger trains get is the hourly service to Horsham in Sussex.  But this name, hidden away in the technicalities of railway operation, is a clue to the line’s past glories.

Detail (click image to enlarge) of the current railway network of south London, Surrey and West Sussex.  Most of these lines were built by the old London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.  The so-called ‘Portsmouth lines’ run south from Peckham Rye via Tulse Hill, Streatham, Mitcham Junction, Sutton, Epsom and Dorking to Horsham.  London expresses from the south coast formerly used this route between Horsham and the connection at Streatham with the main line into Victoria, but since 1978 have run via Three Bridges and East Croydon.

Because communication on the railway must always be clear and unambiguous, almost every piece of infrastructure — junctions, bridges, tunnels, signals — has an accepted name or number by which drivers, track workers, signallers and engineers alike can be sure they are discussing the right thing.  This goes for every running line on the network, too: every individual track that carries trains has a particular name.  This is usually of two or three words, and generally giving some indication of the line’s route and its direction.  On a four-track main line, for example, there is usually an ‘Up Fast’ or ‘Up Main’, the track carrying expresses towards the railway’s main centre (traditionally either London or Derby), then a ‘Down Fast’ for those coming the other way, and Up and Down ‘Slows’ or ‘Reliefs’ for stopping trains.  All over the place there are ‘Loops’ and ‘Spurs’ or sometimes ‘Reversible’ lines for stretches of bi-directional track.   All this means that tracks and routes can be recognised and distinguished from each other immediately, even at complex junctions.  It allows a driver to communicate a train’s exact position to a signalling centre miles away, or a track worker knows where to aim his pick-axe, and so on.

A diagram of Streatham South Junction from an old version of the Sectional Appendix for Kent and Sussex.  See p. 511 onwards for the entirety of the ‘Portsmouth’ lines.

As with so much on the railways, these names have often been established for decades, even surviving changes in the use of the track itself.  So it is with the ‘Up and Down Portsmouth’, which begin at Peckham Rye in south London of all places, where the lines branch off to the south-west from the South London line out of London Bridge.  The tracks keep their Portsmouth name as far as Leatherhead, the last junction on the line.  Between there and Horsham, since there is no diverging route from which they need to be distinguished, the two tracks are known simply as the ‘Up and Down Main’.

Nowadays this line is seldom thought of as a through route at all; no direct trains travel its whole length in ordinary service.  But its builders, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, really did have their sights set on a far prize when they completed it in 1868.  Via Tulse Hill, Streatham, Mitcham Junction, Sutton, Epsom, Leatherhead and Dorking they established a new route to Horsham, and, by running thence onto the Arun Valley line southwards to Arundel and the junction at Ford, to the south coast: Bognor, Littlehampton and the line along the coast to Chichester and Portsmouth.  (On the approach to Portsmouth the L.B.S.C.R. ran afoul of its competitor, the London and South Western, whose rival Portsmouth Direct line offered another, quicker route from London Waterloo via Guildford and Haslemere.  Competition between the two companies had ignited into outright conflict and actual blockades in the so-called Battle of Havant in 1859.)

The L.B.S.C.R. and its successors’ expresses to Portsmouth and Bognor went via Sutton and Dorking for many years.  They generally ran to and from London Victoria, joining and leaving the original route via the spurs and junctions at Streatham where it crosses the Brighton Main Line. (This remains the principal route for trains on this line).  The highest honour in the line’s history was surely on the 2nd February 1901, when Queen Victoria’s funeral train came this way.  She had died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight on the 22nd January; her body was carried from Portsmouth to London at speeds reported to have reached 80mph.

A video uploaded to Youtube by ‘Bogglesham’ of trains at Dorking (North) station in 1972, including some serving the south coast.  Update: this film can be seen in higher quality here: https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-last-years-of-victoria-to-portsmouth-expresses-1977-online

Those days are almost forgotten now.  Regular expresses via Sutton and Dorking came to an end in 1978, when they were almost all re-routed, at least in part in order to serve the rapidly-expanding airport at Gatwick.  Trains coming up the Arun Valley now take the longer but faster-timed route via the Brighton Main Line, running east to Crawley, joining the main line at Three Bridges, and heading for London via Gatwick Airport and East Croydon.  Meanwhile the old line has been relegated to a back route, the service along its southern section especially being cut back to a pretty sparse offering until the improvements of the new timetable of 2018.  Yet even down here the past was not quite buried: at the junction immediately north of Horsham station, the lines to and from Dorking are still referred to as the ‘Up and Down Main’ and the busier lines to Three Bridges merely as the ‘Up and Down Horsham’.

A video by ‘thetransporthub’ on Youtube including a diverted London Victoria – Gatwick train racing through Ockley station earlier this year with that now-rare sound, the glorious percussion of wheels over traditional jointed track at nearly 75 mph.  Sadly for railway romantics, the track is likely to be replaced in August 2021.

Not altogether forgotten, then.  Memories are long on the railways, and about once a year the old route is used for diversions during engineering works, sometimes for trains serving Gatwick but at other times, as at November half-term this year, from distant, far-flung Portsmouth itself (a place whose existence is unimaginable in this pandemic year).  The normal route being closed at Crawley for the installation of a new footbridge, the Portsmouth and Bognor expresses were once again sent the old way.  Running non-stop from Horsham to Clapham Junction apart from an unadvertised call at Epsom (perhaps to pick up or set down a guard, or for a crew change) they offered the unusual sight of twelve coach trains sweeping, if not exactly at high speed, up and down to London from the south coast along a line that is now effectively a suburban branch.  After ten months without any of my usual railway adventures, it was nice to see the ‘Portsmouth lines’ regain, however briefly, a glimmer of their former glory.

Update, 30th December 2020: A shame that a landslip on the embankment near Ockley has scuppered the reprise of this arrangement that had been due this week.

A diverted up express slows for the curves at Mitcham Junction, 21st November 2020.  Ordinarily it would run via Gatwick Airport and East Croydon; today it has been sent via the scenic route.