History
The London Brighton and South Coast Railway opened a station called Keymer Junction on the Lewes line, just beyond the junction, towards the end of 1854, although, it appears that some trains may have called at Keymer Crossing from the completion of the junction in 1847. The station was closed on 1 November 1883 to allow for the proposed remodelling of the junction. However, when the railway later sought Parliamentary authority to abandon their planned changes, they were required to provide a replacement station to the north of the junction on the present site.
The second Keymer Junction station was opened on 1 August 1886 and retained that name until 1 July 1896 when it was renamed Wivelsfield. Construction of the new station involved widening a narrow, high embankment. Just over two months after it opened, heavy rain caused a landslip which caused a long section of the Up (northbound) platform, and the waiting room building, to collapse and fall down the embankment.
On 23 December 1899, a serious accident happened here, when a red signal was obscured by thick fog. A train from Brighton collided with a boat train from Newhaven Harbour at 40 mph, and six passengers were killed and twenty seriously injured. The accident resulted in improvements made to the signalling at Keymer Junction.
Read more about this topic: Wivelsfield Railway Station
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