Southern - Bognor Regis review 1

Plaque at Bognor Regis railway station

Barnham to Bognor Regis  24/5/08

Cost of ticket: £10.00 (Southern Ranger)

Dept: Barnham 11.41   Arrive: Bognor Regis 11.48

Journey time: 7 minutes

Distance:  3 miles   Weather: cloudy

Train type: Class  EMU

Railway Company: Southern

Frequency of trains: 4 per hour

Barnham station is a three-platform station with a nice cafe called the Interchange cafe with a good choice of food and drinks. It is a busy station with quite a few passengers present. There are eight trains an hour in each direction. Also of note is a wonderful subway, which curves sharply as you come to the station entrance, which is higher up than the subway shop.   It is in the process of being redecorated with a man painting and lots of old track being piled up by platform 1. There is a nice signal box but this is going to be replacing in the next few weeks. We leave the mainline straight away to the south west along two tracks and into open fields. It is fairly flat and the train goes slow at first past ancient semaphore signals and then speeds up. It is just isolated farms as we reach 60 mph. Then industrial units appear on the right and we start slowing down as houses appear on both sides of the track. We go into a short cutting, past a signal box and into Bognor Regis station. It has four platforms with some carriage sidings next to the station. It has the original Victorian station building and looks like a seaside terminus with its different platforms. Outside on the front of the station buildings are a couple of plaques.

Summary: Although it is a short branch it is busy enough all through the year with both holidaymakers and commuters going to Brighton or Worthing or Chichester.   MC