Ockley railway station
Encyclopedia
Ockley railway station serves the villages of Ockley
Ockley
Ockley is a historic village in Surrey, built on Stane Street, a Roman Road stretching from Chichester to London. Situated between Dorking and Horsham, close to the Sussex/Surrey border, Ockley nestles in the shadows of Leith Hill, the highest point in South east England. Neighbouring villages...

 & Capel in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

, England being situated two miles to the east of Ockley and just over one mile to the west of Capel . The station is 29 railway miles (47 km) south of London Victoria station. Ockley is managed by Southern
Southern (train operating company)
Southern is a train operating company in the United Kingdom. Officially named Southern Railway Ltd., it is a subsidiary of Govia, a joint venture between transport groups Go-Ahead Group and Keolis, and has operated the South Central rail franchise since October 2000 and the Gatwick Express service...

 who also provide all the services.

It opened as Ockley & Capel on 1 May 1867 as part of the London Brighton South Coast Railway extension to Horsham
Horsham
Horsham is a market town with a population of 55,657 on the upper reaches of the River Arun in the centre of the Weald, West Sussex, in the historic County of Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester...

. 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 thirty years ceasing finally in June 1962.

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
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 to have the station Grade II listed. The station is now Grade II listed and 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

Services

For most of the day there is only one train per hour southbound to Horsham
Horsham railway station
Horsham railway station serves the town of Horsham in West Sussex, England. It is on the Arun Valley Line 61 km south of London Victoria and the Sutton & Mole Valley Lines, and train services are provided by Southern...

 via Warnham
Warnham railway station
Warnham railway station serves the village of Warnham in West Sussex, England. The station is 60 km south of London Victoria. Warnham is managed by Southern who also provide all rail services.- Services :...

 and there is also only one train per hour northbound towards Victoria via Holmwood
Holmwood railway station
Holmwood railway station is a railway station serving the villages of Beare Green and South Holmwood in Surrey.There is one train per hour towards Horsham and there is one train per hour towards London Victoria operated by Southern...

, Dorking
Dorking railway station
Dorking railway station is one of three railway stations that serve the town of Dorking in Surrey, England. The station is within walking distance of Dorking Deepdene station and interchange on a through ticket is permitted...

 and then onwards via Sutton and Clapham Junction
Clapham Junction railway station
Clapham Junction railway station is near St John's Hill in the south-west of Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. Although it is in Battersea, the area around the station is commonly identified as 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.

There is only a limited mid and late evening service Southbound from Monday to Friday as there are no trains from London Victoria between the 1920 service and the 2326 service; no evening service on a Saturday and no service at all on a Sunday.

Facilities

The station has a Permit-To-Travel machine, but has no proper ticket machine despite it being as well used as Box Hill & Westhumble station that does. Tickets can be purchased in advance of travel from Southern's website, and then collected from any destination station run by Southern with a modern screen-based ticket-issuing machine. The station has free parking for around 15 cars (13 normal spaces and two disabled) in the Station Approach, but these spaces are often full by 7.30am on weekdays. There is no taxi rank, so a taxi would have to be summoned by telephone from Dorking
Dorking
Dorking is a historic market town at the foot of the North Downs approximately south of London, in Surrey, England.- History and development :...

 or Horsham
Horsham
Horsham is a market town with a population of 55,657 on the upper reaches of the River Arun in the centre of the Weald, West Sussex, in the historic County of Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester...

. 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.

Fares

As the station has no ticketing facilities it is necessary to either book tickets online, or upon arrival at your destination. As penalty fares operate on trains travelling from Ockely, it is necessary to purchase a Permit To Travel
Permit to travel
In the ticketing system of the British rail network, a Permit to Travel provisionally allows passengers to travel on a train when they have not purchased a ticket in advance and the ticket office of the station they are travelling from is closed, without incurring a penalty fare.Since a large...

 for at least £0.05 face value at Ockley.

Journey Times

Journey times vary between 63 and 76 minutes to London Victoria compared to times of between 51 and 60 minutes as recently as 1997.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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