Gatwick Express - Gatwick Express History - B

Gatwick Express - B

Gatwick Express History

Gatwick Airport railway station opened in June 1958. Initially, the rail service was provided entirely by London to Brighton stopping services, but more trains began to call with the introduction of the summer timetable in June 1958.

One of the key elements of this was the extension of Three Bridges to Bognor Regis stopping services to start and terminate at London Victoria. These trains would run through a reversible platform at Gatwick where a portion would detach and wait in the platform for passengers until the next up train from Bognor Regis was attached and the train would depart for Victoria.

For this service British Rail used a small batch of seven Class 402 2HALs in order to work with the trains used on the Bognor Regis services, suitable for airport link use because of their larger luggage space.

This situation lasted until the early 1970s when increased passenger and luggage travel to the station was rendering the old system obsolete. British Rail therefore decided to adapt a number of Class 423 4VEPs with increased luggage capacity (at the expense of fewer second class seats) and were redesignated as Class 427 4VEGs.

The service however remained much the same, with the units attaching and detaching from Bognor Regis bound services running via Redhill. This led to somewhat extended journey times which meant the service lacked any real purpose, as the faster services began calling at Gatwick Airport from the early 1970s, and made the option of travelling to Gatwick from London on the service lack appeal to those who knew better.

In 1975 British Airports Authority airport director John Mulkern, British Caledonian Airways chairman Adam Thomson and British Rail's Southern Region regional manager Bob Reid, formed the Gatwick Liaison Group to discuss matters of mutual interest.

As a subsidiary of this, the Gatwick Promotion Group, under the chairmanship of the airport public relations manager David Hurst, was formed to market the airport. One of the first successes of the group was to persuade the British Rail board to redevelop Gatwick station by building a raft over the platforms, and this was opened by British Rail chairman Peter Parker in 1980.

It was a long-term aim of the group to have a non-stop service between the airport and central London in order to counter the perceived distance from the capital, for both UK and overseas passengers.

At first the service from Bognor Regis, which by this stage only stopped at East Croydon, was branded Rapid City Link.

Gatwick Express Overview

Gatwick Express Franchise(s):

Gatwick Trains

28 April 1996 – 22 June 2008

Part of the South Central franchise

22 June 2008 - 25 July 2015

Part of the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise

26 July 2015 – 31 March 2025

Gatwick Express Main Route(s): London Victoria – Gatwick Airport

Gatwick Express Other Route(s): Brighton

Gatwick Express Fleet Size:

18 Class 387

Gatwick Express Stations Called At: 7

Gatwick Express Stations Operated: 0

Gatwick Express Parent Company: Govia Thameslink Railway

Gatwick Express Reporting Mark: GX

Gatwick Express Technical Length: 43.3 kilometres (26.9 mi)

Gatwick Express Route

London Victoria

Gatwick Airport

Haywards Heath

Burgess Hill

Hassocks

Preston Park

Brighton

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