This railway station is worthing its weight in gold…read more This is a large station for the town of Worthing, and actually the largest of five stations that serves Worthing, including East Worthing, West Worthing, Durrington and Goring. It's only 10 miles from Brighton, and is one of the stations where a lot of trains coming through this region stop. It's also grade two listed because it's such a beautiful old building. It's large and very gorgeous. It has a big bridge over it as well, which a lot of the stations around here do.

Worthing is the major stop on the 'West Coastway' train route between Brighton and Portsmouth. This…read morebusy, 3-platform station used by over 2 million passengers a year has recently been completely refurbished and is now resplendent with bright paint and newly glazed canopies. The station opened in 1845 as an extension from the Brighton to Shoreham line, and was extended further west in stages, reaching Chichester in 1846 and Portsmouth in 1847. The attractive original flint and brick station building of 1845 survives as offices to the east of the present station. This was built in red brick in 1908, and incorporates the remnants of a second station built in 1869; the most notable feature of this part is the transverse platforms canopy, with its very unusually 'Star of David' brackets at the top of the cast-iron columns. The station has generous platform canopies and, as well as a ticket offices and toilets, has a small newsagents, café, car-park, covered cycle storage and a cash machine. Bus stops outside provide services to local villages and the town centre, 1km away. The station is staffed 24 hours a day, although the ticket office has more limited opening hours. It is served by all the West Coastway services. The week-day off-peak services are: Victoria (twice-hourly) via Hove and Gatwick Airport; Brighton (4 per hour); West Worthing (half-hourly); Littlehampton (half-hourly); Portsmouth (hourly) and Southampton (hourly).

Not to be confused with Hermann Goring By Sea, which is a town full of fascists, I suppose. Might…read morebe at home in America then? This is one of five stations in Worthing, and it's one of the tiny ones, with a the tiny little brown building on the platform with a blue overhang. It's cute and doesn't have too many people manning it day or night, and it's just a cute little place with a cute little bridge over it, and not much going on.

A small station serving the seaside town of Goring-by-Sea, between Worthing and Littlehampton on…read morethe West Coastway line. It is used by just under 0.5m passengers a year. 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 and Littlehampton. The main station building looks original, although the canopy has been renewed. Facilities include a part-time ticket office, cycle storage (part sheltered), a small car park and a platform shelter on platform 2 (westbound). There are neither toilets nor a taxi rank. There is level access to both platforms, via the road level crossing at the west end of the station. Train services are operated mostly by Southern (http://www.southernrailway.com) . Off-peak, it's served by the half-hourly London-Littlehampton service, as well as the hourly services to Southampton (daytime) or Portsmouth (late afternoon/evening) and Brighton. In the evenings there are also some local Littlehampton to Brighton all-stations services.

I've been here before Corona, but not "Durring" Corona…read more This is basically a suburb of Worthing in a little town called Durrington by the English Channel, and it's a really nice station with a typical brown brick building, which is standard for the train stations of the area, but it looks totally different, sort of like a town hall or Cathedral - or even a prison or school or something. It's odd and someone just told me that it's the modernist style. It's 12 miles from Brighton and in some ways totally different to a lot of the other stations around here. I gave this station the extra star for its weird originality.

Durrington-on-Sea is a station on the West Coastway Line from Brighton to Chichester, Portsmouth…read moreand Southampton; and serves the suburb of Worthing of the same name, which is also home to the headquarters of West Sussex Primary Care Trust, Worthing College and various central government offices. It handles over 650,000 passengers a year and is managed by Southern. The railway line was first opened in 1846, but the present station was built by the Southern Railway in a restrained, red-brick version of the Art Deco style as late as 1937, a year before the line was electrified. The main building on the northern (eastbound) platform survives in almost its original condition, albeit in need of some refurbishment. It has a square, central tower and a recessed entrance porch, reached by a wide flight of steps down to the spacious station approach. The tower has decorative relief pattern in brick. When built, the station approach side had a large clock on the tower, with the words 'Southern Railway' and 'Durrington Station' arranged symmetrically on the frontage. It is served by three trains an hour in each direction, off-peak: westbound, two to Littlehampton and one to Southampton; and eastbound, two to Victoria and one to Brighton. There is step free access from street outside main entrance to platform 1 (to London/Brighton) via a side gate, which also provides step-free access to the ticket office, via the platform. There is a footbridge with steps to platform 2 (to Littlehampton/Chichester), which can also be reached by a ramped footpath, available until 9.30pm (exit over third party land to Barrington Road). There is no level access within the station between the booking hall and platform 2; the route via external roads requires at least a 10 minute walk.

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.

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!

Polegate station serves the town of the same name on the northern edge of the Eastbourne…read moreconurbation, and is served by trains on the West Coastway line. It handles around 0.9m passengers a year. The first station on the site opened in 1846 on the Lewes to St Leonards railway line. It became the junction for Eastbourne and for the line northwards to Hailsham in 1849, with the Hailsham line being extended northwards to Eridge on the Uckfield-Groombridge Junction line in 1880. In 1881, to avoid Eastbourne-Hailsham trains having to reverse, a new station was opened further east. The Hailsham line closed in 1968, and the short direct line to Hastings has also closed, necessitating the reversal of all eastbound trains at Eastbourne. In 1986, the 1881 station was closed (it is now a restaurant) and a replacement opened on the site of the original 1846 station, on Polegate High street, and this is the station in use today. It has two platforms, with the main buildings on the north, Eastbourne-bound line. Facilities include a car park, ticket office, waiting rooms or shelters, ticket machines, and cycle storage, but no toilets. There is step-free access both to the ticket office and via short steep ramps to each platform. Between the platforms, there is a footbridge: level access is via the High Street level crossing (allow 5 minutes). Services are provided by Southern; there are two trains an hour to each of Brighton and London Victoria, both via Lewes; and four eastbound to Eastbourne, two of which continue to Hastings and Ore, and one to Ashford.

Just your average train station. Nice long and wide platforms with two waiting rooms (which are…read moreheated!) Good barrier system, although I was sad when the old signal box was removed. Great direct links to London, Brighton, Eastbourne and many more. Staff are nice, there are three (I think) ticket buying machines and two kiosks inside the station. Information packs readily available, you can buy Railcards from here too. I like the welcoming feeling of this station, which also has a night gate for late exits when the barriers are off. I'd recommend this to families, commuters and just about anyone due to the wide platforms and nice service.

A big shout-out to the lovely station attendant at Shoreham-by-Sea who volunteered to help me with…read moremy luggage and make sure that there was someone at Clapham Junction to take me to my connecting train. It made an unfamiliar journey on a very hot day so much easier and less stressful! Lovely little station and stellar staff.

Shoreham-by-Sea is an attractive, small station, serving the historic Sussex port and resort of the…read moresame name, on the east side of the River Adur. It's a busy little station, with over a million passengers a year. Opened in 1840 as the terminus of the first railway line into Brighton, it was linked to London in 1841 when the Brighton to London main line was completed. At that stage, it became most accessible cross-Channel port for services to France, although Newhaven later assumed this role. The line along the coast was extended to Worthing in 1845, and to Portsmouth in 1847. A branch line was opened in 1861 northwards via Steyning to the Horsham-Littlehampton line, but this closed to passengers in 1966. The station today retains its attractive 1840s buildings, decked out in Southern's cream-and mint green colours, with deep traditional awnings. Facilities include a tick-office and waiting room, and toilets (though these are not always open, especially at evenings and weekends). It's one of the busiest stations on the Brighton-Portsmouth line, with a basic week-day service of 4 trains an hour to Brighton, two per hour via Hove direct to London Victoria, and in the other direction three to Littlehampton, and one each to West Worthing, Portsmouth and Southampton. There are also less frequent services to Bristol and Basingstoke. All trains stop there. A practical tip: the barriers at the level crossing close several minutes before trains arrive, in which case you'll need to go via the subway, which takes a minute or so longer!

Not to be confused with Cheech-Chesthair, which is Cheech from Cheech and Chong, and a commentary…read moreon how fucking hairy he is. Chichester has a large station, situated 28 miles from Brighton, and as you would imagine it is right on the way to Southampton. It's dark because it's pretty much closed in and unusual, and only has two platforms but feels larger than it is, despite having a big road coming right across it at one end, which is a level crossing. It has a greenish blue bridge over it which looks pretty like me and Barbi, and is a cute little enclosed station for this lovely little town.

Horrid staff. Horrid and unhelpful. Running late for a train with my four children and the man by…read morethe ticket barrier was rude unhelpful. Kindness and a smile cost nothing why is it so hard to come by these days?

If you don't wanna Reagan someone, but also don't wanna Trump them, why not Bushem? That has…read morenothing to do with this and Republicans have a lot of blood on their hands. A lot. This is just a tiny village in West Sussex that only has buildings on one side of the platform, a station that looks like somebody's house with a little awning hanging over the platform, and it's super cute and nice, but it's tiny and 31 miles away from Brighton. It has a level crossing right on one end of the platform and it's a cute little town that's pretty typical of a lot of these stations in this part of the country.

The pretty little station at Bosham serves the historic village of the same name a mile and a half…read moreto the south. Opened in 1847 on the line from Chichester to Portsmouth, the building was rebuilt in 1902 in an attractive country vernacular style. It still houses the ticket office, open Monday to Fridays. There is also a small car park and covered cycle racks. There is step free access to both platforms - access between them is via the level crossing (there is also a footbridge). Train services are operated by Southern, and the basic off-peak service is one train an hour on the Littlehampton to Portsmouth stopping service, although there are through trains to and from London in the peaks and weekday evenings.