southern rail stations are like the wild west sometimes- no even including unlocked toilets or bus…read morestops or telephones that aren't old by ones. This would probably suit people who aren't contactless - but not modern enoug & I come from a village and partner drives buses. so it's clear if it's viable or not in places like Berwick, just outside Lewes

Berwick (Sussex) station serves the little village of Berwick at the head of the Cuckmere Valley…read moreand is not to be confused with its rather better known namesake, the Scottish border town of Berwick on Tweed. Berwick station was opened in 1846 on the line from Lewes to Eastbourne. It serves a largely rural area, with the village itself a mile or two away on the other side of the A27. The station is mainly used by commuters but is also popular with walkers and cyclists, as there are several long-distance paths nearby, as well as the gardens at Michelham Priory three miles to the north. At weekends, a bus service operated by Cuckmere Community Bus connects a number of the villages and attractions in the area: details at: http://www.cuckmerebus.freeuk.com The station itself consists of an attractive small building - possibly the 1846 original - on the down (Eastbourne) side, and a wooden building with waiting room on the up (Lewes) side. There is a busy level crossing at one end, operated from an attractive little signal box (from 1876) with old-fashioned semaphore signals. The station is staffed on weekday mornings, but there is a ticket machine on the up platform, as well as cycle storage and a small car park. Both platforms have level access for wheelchairs, and both have a push-button information point giving train times. There is no toilet. The station is operated by Southern, which provides an hourly service each way on the Brighton to Ore (Hastings) service, with occasional through services to London Bridge and Victoria in the weekday peaks. Saturday and Sunday services are also hourly.

Pevensey & Westham station is located on the line between Eastbourne and Hastings, and serves the…read moretwo villages in its name. The line opened in 1846 as part of the extension from Lewes to St Leonard's later extended to Hastings. The station building on the north side is in the traditional style, although somewhat modernised. The train service is provided by Southern Trains, and comprises an (weekday off-peak) hourly service to London via Eastbourne and Lewes, and an hourly Brighton to Ore service, together providing a half-hourly service from Hastings to Eastbourne. The station is the main railhead for Pevensey Castle. The station has a small car park (charge) and a ticket office and waiting room (open limited hours), ticket machines, and step-free access to both platforms (via road level crossing).

Well kept rural station that transports you back to the age of steam. With its little tea room and…read moretoy museum its well worth a visit.

Newhaven is a quaint, old train station located at the port area of New Haven. Although the…read moreNewhaven Harbour station is closer to the port proper, this station is very convenient to those passengers needing access to the DFDS ferry port office at New Haven. Served by Southern, the station has two platforms, a ticket machine, ticket office, and a free to use toilet. The mid 1800's station serves over 300k passengers each year and is served by the Seaford Branch Line of Southern's East Coastway Line. If you are arriving by boat from Dieppe, France, this makes it very easy to hop over to Brighton in no time. During off-peak times, there are two trains heading westward to Brighton. There is also a morning train that connects to London Victoria Station. The ticket counter staff are very friendly, and the inside waiting room has three quite comfortable leather couches. Overall the station is a nice place to lounge in while waiting on your train and is a significant foil to the bare bones bus stop and ferry terminal located nearby.

Newhaven Town is the larger of this small Channel port's stations, and is a short walk from the…read moretown centre across the swing bridge over the harbour. Opened from Lewes in 1847 by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, the aim was to turn Newhaven into 'the Liverpool of the south'. Although it became a bustling port, with regular ferry services to Dieppe, it never quite grew as early promotional material suggested. The town eventually had three stations, Town, Harbour and Marine, the largest of which, by far, was Marine, used for passengers transferring to the ferry service to Dieppe. This is now closed and in a very sorry state, and Harbour station - used by foot passengers for the ferry - is just a halt. The station has a small stone building on the London-bound side with a short canopy, although it only has rather mean pedestrian access, owing to work under way on the port area behind. The Seaford platform has a basic bus-type shelter. There is a footbridge, but many choose to cross using the busy level crossing at the Lewes end. (This also provides level access to both platforms). The basic off-peak weekday service is every half hour on the Brighton to Seaford, with a few through London trains in the peaks. Aside from level access, the station has a mornings-only ticket office - and that's about it for facilities.

This is a tiny little unmanned station with trains to Eastbourne and London, via Lewes…read more Unfortunately, because of the size of the station there is only one train an hour in each direction, apart from during rush hour, but if you know you will be able to get a particular train, it is a very convenient station. During rush hour times, trains also run to and from London Bridge. There is a small car park, shared with the East Sussex paragliding club, and it is free! Although it is an unmanned station, any problems that occur with trains is piped through the loud speakers, presumably from Eastbourne so you are not just left standing.

It's a surprise to find a station serving as a small village as Balcombe, especially on a main…read moreline. However, the lack of good roads to and from the village, and its proximity to London, ensures a healthy flow of commuter traffic, with Balcombe acting as a rail-head for several villages around - it is used by just over 100,000 passengers a year. It's an attractive small station, the east side nestling in a cutting, and surrounded on all sides by mature trees and shrubs, and is very popular at week-ends with walkers exploring the surrounding woodlands. The station opened on 12 July 1841 as an intermediate station on the then London and Brighton Railway, later amalgamated into the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. The 1841 census shows that there were 550 railway labourers living in the village at the time - which must have been challenging for the locals! The station has been rationalised over the years, but retains a small building on the down (Brighton) platform, complete with Victorian canopy, ticket office and toilet. The office is only open at peak times (the toilet is also closed when the office is shut). If this is the case, you need to buy a 'permit to travel' from the machine and buy a ticket on board. The up platform (for London) has a small waiting shelter with step-free access from the car park, and there are car parking spaces and a cycle rack on this side of the station. A footbridge provides access between the platforms, and also provides the exit to London Road at the top of the cutting. Note that there is no step-free access to the Brighton platform. An oddity is the extension of the Brighton platform under the small tunnel at the south of the station: this is only used to board and alight from trains, and a sign warns not to enter the tunnel when a through (ie non-stopping) train is approaching which they do, at some speed. The service is fairly sparse: off-peak, Monday to Saturday there is one train an hour in each direction, on the First Capital Connect service from Bedford to Brighton via London Bridge. On Sundays, an hourly service is provided by Southern on the Brighton to London Victoria line. Additional services stop during rush hours in both directions. To the north of the station is Balcombe tunnel, 800 yards long, and to the south the famous Ouse viaduct, the first long railway viaduct in southern Britain. At 1,475 ft (450m) long, faced with Caen stone and with four Italianate pavilions at each end, it is regarded as one of the most attractive in the UK.

Haywards Heath is one of the principal stations on the main line between London and Brighton,…read moreserving the commuter town of the same name which has grown up around it. It's not an architectural gem, but it's functional and has a good range of train services. The station opened in July 1841 as the temporary southern terminus on the London to Brighton Railway, and became a through station when the line to Brighton opened in its entirety in September of that year. In 1847 a line was opened from Wivelsfield, just south of Haywards Heath, to Lewes, providing direct lines to Newhaven and Hastings, and 1864 another line opened, to the north, towards Horsted Keynes on the Lewes to East Grinstead line. The line to Horsted Keynes closed in 1963. The station was rebuilt with two long, spacious island platforms in 1933, when the Brighton line was electrified. The street-level buildings are in an unremarkable version of the Modernist style, of brick with concrete canopies. The platforms level buildings are similarly functional and have deep awnings. Since electrification the station has become an important station for dividing trains heading respectively on the lines east towards Lewes and west to Hove and the 'West Coastway' line (avoiding Brighton) and for the same trains joining when heading north. Indeed, it is now the busiest station for this practice in the UK. The station has a regular off-peak service each hour as follows: Northbound Bedford via London Bridge and St Pancras 4 per hour London Victoria 2 per hour Watford Junction - hourly Southbound Brighton 5 trains per hour Littlehampton via Hove and Worthing 2 per hour Eastbourne 2 per hour (one extended to Hastings and Ore) Note: the half-hourly fast Victoria-Brighton trains do not stop here in the off-peak. In the peak hours all Brighton trains call here, providing an intensive service. All northbound trains stop at Gatwick Airport. The station is staffed 24 hours a day, and has a ticket office, waiting rooms, toilets and a large buffet, and step free access is available across the whole of the station (via lifts). There is also storage for over 60 bicycles and a 630-space car park. A limited number of local buses call at the station: see http://www.compass-travel.co.uk .

Whilst I may be living in Haywards Heath, I spend much of my time in Brighton for study,…read moresocialising and shopping. Hence, I am a frequent user of the station. It's one of the main connectors of the south, so is a featured stop for fast services as well as the stop at every station trains. This makes it handy for getting to Gatwick, Brighton and London and you end up waiting less time for a train than at other stations in the area. I think that this is a reason why Haywards heath has become such a popular commuting town and the large station car park attests to this claim! Being a busier station, you also find coffee/snack bars and waiting rooms that are actually open. Now whilst not a fault of the station I do find that a higher percentage of trains get delayed than I would like, so these waiting features are really appreciated. The station staff are helpful for any traveling inquiries or suggestions of cheaper way to get from a to b (sadly, I never seem to qualify for such savings). There are also 3 self service ticket machines if you want to save some time or are cutting your arrival a bit fine before your train departs. There is also a covered area to store bicycles if you are feeling like a healthy commute. All in all, you could do far worse if you have to kill 15-20 minutes waiting for a train than Haywards Heath!

Eastbourne's railway station is one of the busiest on the south coast, handling over 3.2 million…read morepassengers a year. The present station is the third on the site, and was designed by F D Bannister and completed in 1886. The first station opened in 1849, followed by the second in 1866, but was expanded to handle the increasing traffic as Eastbourne developed as a resort. It is a grade II listed building. It is a handsome and well-preserved Italianate building in red and yellow brick, with a central clock tower, although the façade is not symmetrical: on the left is a large French pavilion-style roof with fish-scale tiles and iron cresting, and on the right a rectangular hall. Unfortunately, the street view is marred by an appalling clutter of traffic lights and pedestrian barriers. The concourse is triangular and has an attractive glazed roof, with the ticket office, cafes, newsagents and toilets opening from it. The station was built with four platforms, although it now has only three. These are adequate to handle the standard off-peak service of half hourly trains to Brighton and London Victoria and three trains an hour to Hastings, one of which continues to Ashford via Rye.

I was on my way back from visiting my sister in Seaford as I stepped off my train onto the platform…read moreI nearly fell through the gap from the train and the platform also nearly loosing my back brace. The rest of my journey from the train to the gate was great until I put my ticket in and it dragged me with it and it squeezed me through the little ticket eater. It felt like I had just been in a washing machine and I was shookith to the core as my grandchildren say. After I came out the top of the gate where my ticket came out I grabbed it and walked home it was a 2 hour walk because the gate ate my wallet as well. Im definitely coming back here because I have no choice.

I hope my review of Angmering isn't Angering you…read more This is not too far from Brighton, about 15 miles away in the countryside, and it's right next to a secondary school so Aletta (not Aletta but I'm in love with Aletta so)... a lot of... students use it to get to their little country houses and whatnot. How nice it must be to be middle class or rich in the suburbs of Sussex. Looking at you, Keane. It's a cute little station in the middle of nowhere with a nice dark brown house with a couple of chimneys on top of it. There's a level crossing right at the station which adds to the beauty for a nice element.

Angmering is a small station situated on the outskirts of Littlehampton, serving the suburb of East…read morePreston and the pretty village of Angmering to the north. It is on the 'West Coastway' line between Brighton and Chichester. The station was opened on 16 March 1846 when the London, Brighton & South Coast railway line was extended from Worthing to Ford Junction, before its extension onwards to Chichester. The present building was built in the 1860s. The station has a traditional but rather plain brick-built building with a generous awning on the eastbound platform (to Brighton/London). Facilities include a staffed ticket office, ticket machine, and a privately-run food outlet selling sandwiches, snacks, confectionery and hot and cold drinks. (NB No toilets). There's a decent sized car-park with two disabled parking bays, and cycle racks behind the building and also on the westbound platform. There's a privately run taxi-office just behind the main station building as well. There is level access to both platforms, via the road level crossing at the west end of the station. Off-peak, it's served by the half-hourly London-Littlehampton service, as well as the hourly Brighton-Portsmouth and Brighton-Southampton services. In the evenings there are also some local Littlehampton to Brighton all-stations services.

Some you win, some you Lewes…read more This is a very pretty little station located in East Sussex with a nice beige brown exterior with some red trim and some nice little attractive stuff on top of the building. It looks like quite the complex from afar and has big wide platforms - several of them in fact - and a gorgeous facade as well. So it's hard not to give this lovely station 5 stars, and it dates back to 1846 as well, which makes it even more interesting, and in the last few years it has been getting more usage - which is great.