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CONSTRAINTS ON BRIGHTON LINE CAPACITY
 Multiple lines from London converge to two lines between Balcombe Tunnel Junction and Brighton.
Four tunnels, the listed Ouse Valley Viaduct, six busy intermediate stations and flat junctions such as Keymer impose severe capacity constraints throughout this section.
Any future speeding-up of services is impossible because of insufficient headways.
The route is already at capacity and an increase in the number of trains between London and the Sussex Coast through Haywards Heath is also impossible.
Network Rail’s recent investigations for DfT to increase capacity with the introduction of double-deck trains suggest £800m on infrastructure alone (lowering track in tunnels and stations) to permit UIC GB gauge trains to operate. An alternative proposal of extending conventional trains to 16-car length indicates an expenditure of £900m. But this would involve an enormous upheaval in moving points and track to accommodate platform lengthening.
Both options are extremely costly and would slow services through extended dwell times at stations while all these passengers get on and off. Similarly, these longer or higher capacity trains would still be hampered by unavoidable incidents such as late-running, accidents, train failures, derailments, adverse weather conditions, etc.
Network Rail would still require periodic engineering blockades and weekend possessions to maintain a heavilyused railway upon which trains run every few minutes.
Reasonable diversionary routes are no longer available whereby long-distance train journeys are imposed upon many hundreds of people. Alternatively, Rail Replacement Buses are highly unpopular and are always a very poor substitute for a train journey.
If the Brighton Line is to meet the demand being imposed upon it, then only by increasing capacity on the parallel Uckfield route can the current and future demands for high quality rail travel ever be satisfied.
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