Steyning Line - Operations - 1900 - 1965 - Freight Traffic

Freight Traffic

Until 1926 the line transported milk in 17-gallon churns, but this was switched to road haulage during the General Strike of that year. Farmers realised how much more convenient it was to use road transport which collected the churns directly from their farm and took them directly to their destination. Once the strike ended the milk traffic remained on road thereby depriving the railway of a major source of freight. This pattern was to be repeated during the strike of 1955 when more freight traffic, particularly coal, was diverted to road, much of it never to return. The freight losses contributed to British Rail's decision to close goods yards on the line as elsewhere on the rail network.

Nevertheless, the line continued to serve two important industrial enterprises - the cement factory at Beeding and the brickworks at Southwater. The cement works received gypsum from Robertsbridge and coal from Dover, whilst once a week cement was transported to the British Portland Cement depot at Southampton via Shoreham and the South Coast main line. In 1960, for example, the cement works received 7000 coal wagons, 2300 gypsum wagons and 100 wagons of general stores; it sent out 7670 cement wagons and 240 flints wagons. Traffic continued beyond the line's closure until 1981 via a single line linking the works with the South Coast main line. The cement works closed in 1991 after more than 100 years of operations at Beeding.

Itchingfield Junction was the site of the last accident on the line as well as the first. Early in the morning of 5 March 1964, a goods train from Brighton to Three Bridges that had been diverted via Steyning overran the signal before the junction and collided with a down goods from Three Bridges to Chichester traversing the junction. The two crew on the up trains, apparently asleep possibly due to diesel fumes, were killed.