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Thursday 6 Feb 2025

Landslip repairs completed ahead of schedule on railway between Three Bridges and Gatwick Airport

Region & Route:

Southern

| Southern: Sussex

• The first phase of work to repair a significant landslip between Three Bridges and Gatwick on the busy Brighton Main Line has been completed ahead of schedule.
• Most train services have already restarted this morning (Thursday) and teams are working to restore the remainder on Friday morning, by moving trains back into position.
• Passengers are advised to check the latest service information online before they travel.

Since engineers discovered the landslip, caused by substantial rainfall, on the afternoon of 27 January, Network Rail has been working around the clock to repair the damage along a 30-metre stretch of the railway.

The slip led to one of the four tracks being blocked on the busy main line between Three Bridges and Gatwick Airport, disrupting services and passengers.

The first phase of work, which began on Monday morning, has now been completed and involved the installation of 59 6-metre-long steel piles. Engineers also installed a steel beam to the back of the sheet pile wall, attaching anchors into the ground beneath the track.

The second phase of work will be carried out away from the track from the bottom of the embankment, when the slope of the embankment will need to be rebuilt with new material added to the earthworks. A full train service is expected to run during this final phase.

Network Rail’s Sussex route director, Lucy McAuliffe said: “We want to thank passengers as well as the local community at Three Bridges for their patience – we know that there’s never a good time to close any of the tracks on the railway, but we needed to repair this landslip straightaway to keep everyone safe.

“It has been a challenging site to work on, but we’ve managed to do the work we needed to get the railway re-opened much sooner than we thought was possible, and I want to thank the team for all their effort in doing so. Our teams will continue to work at the site in the coming weeks, but importantly, the full service will be able to run.”

Jenny Saunders, Customer Services Director for Govia Thameslink Railway which runs Southern, Thameslink and Gatwick Express, said: “The Brighton Main Line is a key artery, carrying thousands of passengers between the coast and the capital, and Network Rail has done a great job getting it fully open again. Most of the services we had to amend are already back in place and we’re working hard to get trains back in position across the network to restore the last few for Friday morning. We’ll have the latest information on our websites so please keep checking online before you travel.”

Online journey planners such as nationalrail.co.uk will not be fully updated with Friday’s train service until later today.