Horsham would have been an important midway point in two of the original proposals for a London to Brighton railway via the Adur valley but in the event Sir John Rennie's proposed direct line through Three Bridges and Haywards Heath was given parliamentary approval. As a result, the original Horsham station was the terminus of a single track branch line from Three Bridges opened by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway in February 1848. Between 1859 and 1867, the station was enlarged on several occasions to coincide with the doubling of the branch line from Three Bridges; the extension of the railway from Horsham along the Arun Valley Line; the opening of new lines from Horsham to Shoreham via Steyning and from Christ's Hospital to Guildford. Finally, in 1867, a new route to Dorking, Leatherhead and thence to London, was opened. The station was again partially rebuilt and resignalled, with three signal boxes, in 1875. The present station was built by the Southern Railway in the International Modern Style in 1938 to coincide with the electrification of the line. The building was designed by James Robb Scott and is grade II listed, see external links below. The lines to Guildford and Shoreham both fell victim to the Beeching Axe in the mid 1960s, the former being closed to passengers on 14 June 1965 and the latter on 7 March 1966. In September 2011, the station frontage was closed to undergo extensive refurbishment work to the main ticket hall. It reopened late in 2012 with a new side entrance, internal lift access, relocated barriers and stairway, a new ticket office, and new information screens. The platforms received a rebuild of the roofing and refurbished waiting rooms. Previously, the building was shared with Henfield Hire, who vacated in order to give the floor space needed to create the new features and new ceiling and lights and so completing a complete reconfiguration of the layout.
Accidents and incidents
On 9 January 1972, an engineers train overran signals and was in a rear-end collision with an electric multiple unit at the station. Fifteen people were injured. The crew of the engineers train had failed to check their brakes on departure from and thus failed to discover that the isolation cock between the two locomotives had not been opened.
Services
Services are operated by Southern and Thameslink. As of May 2019, the off-peak service is:
2 trains per hour to Bognor Regis, 1 stopping at all stations and 1 running semi-fast to Barnham.
There is no Saturday evening or Sunday service on the Dorking line, whilst the fast service via Crawley to and from Victoria drops to hourly in the late evening. On weekends, the Thameslink service to Peterborough runs only as far as. Sundays see hourly services to both Victoria and London Bridge and to Bognor Regis. From 10 December 2007, the service towards Portsmouth Harbour/Southampton Central and Bognor Regis now divides at this station and attaches here towards London Victoria via Gatwick Airport and East Croydon during off-peak hours, as part of the new West Coastway timetable.
Motive power depot
A small wooden motive power depot was built at the station in 1876. This was replaced by a brick-built ten-road semi-roundhouse together with a 46 ft turntable in 1880. This in turn was extended with a further eight-roads in 1900. In 1927 the Southern Railway installed a 55 ft turntable. This depot was closed in 1964.
New services from Horsham have been introduced to destinations north of central London from December 2018. The new timetable was originally proposed in May 2014, with services between Horsham and extended to Peterborough via St Pancras International, Stevenage and St Neots.
