Cranleigh Line - Retrospective

Retrospective

The Cranleigh Line could, according to one author, have become a useful and important route, but its potential was lost to years of mismanagement and poor timetabling. Rivalry with the LSWR from the line's inception meant that connections between services on the line were never very good. The author cites the example of the timetable in July 1922 where a passenger on the 09.44 service from Brighton which arrived at Horsham at 10.48 would have to wait until 13.05 until the next connection to Guildford, the previous working having already departed at 10.20. A similar inconvenience was faced by passengers travelling south on the 08.08 from Guildford who had to wait 70 minutes at Horsham for an onward connection to Brighton. The Southern Railway had not improved matters much by 1947, when passengers arriving at Christ's Hospital on the 15.57 from Brighton had four minutes to catch the 16.53 from Guildford to Horsham, and missing this connection would mean a wait until 18.15 for the next train.

The author also highlights the fact that little was done in the way of attracting commuters on to the railway. In 1959 the earliest train which would allow users to arrive in London at a respectable time was the 06.51 from Baynards which waited 13 minutes in Cranleigh before proceeding northwards. Passenger traffic ebbed away from the line as better travel possibilities were offered by buses and then cars, a situation which neither the Southern Railway nor British Rail did anything to change. By the end of its working life, BR regarded the line as an uneconomic backwater and tried to make it as unattractive as possible to potential users in order to ensure that it could be closed without too much complaint.