Celebrate 200 Years of Railway History!  Saturday 27th September 11.00 - 11.30am

In 1825, the Stockton & Darlington Railway opened the world’s first passenger railway station on Tuesday 27th September - a milestone that transformed travel forever. Steam locomotives carried passengers and goods at unprecedented speed, sparking a transport revolution that connected towns, boosted industry, and shaped modern Britain.

This special SideTracked Railway 200 event at Reigate Station is part of a nationwide celebration running from Wednesday 24th to Tuesday 30th September 2025. All finds and hides from this event count towards your SideTracked statistics, and a unique profile badge will be created especially for this event. Whether your chosen location is old, disused, miniature, or still bustling today, it’s part of a railway story that’s been 200 years in the making.

Reigate Station

Reigate railway station serves the town of Reigate, Surrey, on the North Downs Line. It is 24 miles 27 chains (24.34 miles, 39.17 km) measured from London Charing Cross via Redhill. The station is managed by Southern.

The original Reigate stations were located two miles from the town centre in a hamlet then known as Warwick Town but which later became Redhill. Red Hill and Reigate Road station was opened by the London and Brighton Railway on 12 July 1841. The nearby town was then served by a horse-drawn omnibus service operated by the railway. This was followed on 26 May 1842 by the South Eastern Railway (SER) Red Hill station (later misleadingly renamed 'Reigate'). Both these stations closed on 15 April 1844 when a new joint Redhill and Reigate station opened on the site of the present Redhill railway station.

The current Reigate station opened on 4 July 1849 with the opening of the branch line from Redhill to Reigate by the Reading, Guildford and Reigate Railway; the original station building from that time is still in use today. The station was initially called Reigate Town. The station was operated by the SER until 1898, the South Eastern and Chatham Railway until 1922, the Southern Railway (UK) until 1947 and British Railways until 1997.

The line between Redhill and Reigate was electrified on 1 January 1933 but the remainder remains unelectrified.

The station has two platforms, numbered from left to right when looking towards Redhill. Platform 1 is long enough for an eight-car train but platform 2 can only accommodate up to six carriages. The platforms are connected by a subway.

Platform 1 is served by through services going eastbound towards Redhill and Gatwick Airport. Platform 2 is used by all westbound services towards Dorking, Guildford and Reading, as well as by eastbound services to Redhill and London that originate at Reigate.

The station also incorporates a signal box, opened on 10 March 1929 to replace an earlier box at the other end of the station. The box controls the North Downs Line from Gomshall to Redhill and operates the adjacent level crossing gates. It is a Southern Railway type 11b brick built box and has 24 levers.