Celebrate 200 Years of Railway History! Sunday 28th September 11.30am - 12.00pm
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 Redhill 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.
Redhill Station
Redhill railway station serves the town of Redhill, Surrey, England. The station is a major interchange point on the Brighton Main Line, 22 miles 40 chains (36.2 km) measured from London Charing Cross. It is managed by Southern, and is also served by Thameslink and Great Western Railway.
The original station was opened by the London and Brighton Railway (L&BR) on 12 July 1841 on a site to the south of the proposed junction with the South Eastern Main Line to Dover. The nearby market town was served by a horse-drawn omnibus service operated by the railway. This station was designed by the architect David Mocatta, and was one of a series of standardised modular buildings used by the railway. It closed on 15 April 1844, when the L&BR began to share the South Eastern Railway (SER) Redhill and Reigate station, and was demolished soon afterwards.
On 26 May 1842 the SER opened what was originally called 'Redhill', but later misleadingly renamed 'Reigate' station, on their own stretch of line just beyond the junction. Passengers transferring between the two railways did so at the old Merstham station further up the line. The SER wanted to replace their 'Reigate' station with a joint station immediately before the junction, but the L&BR opposed the plan. As a result, the SER forced the issue by ending the arrangements at Merstham, thereby forcing passengers to transfer between the two stations at Redhill by foot.
On 15 April 1844 the SER built a new station at the present site, named 'Redhill and Reigate' which was to be used by both railways as the interchange station. On the same day the two existing stations were closed. The branch line to Reigate was opened in 1849 with a new station called Reigate Town. Nevertheless, the London Brighton and South Coast Railway (the successor of the L&BR) continued to operate the omnibus service for its own passengers.
The SER 'Redhill and Reigate' station was rebuilt and enlarged on the same site in August 1858 when it was renamed 'Redhill Junction'. The chronic congestion at the station was however eased after 1 May 1868 when Redhill ceased to be on the South Eastern Main Line to Dover following the opening of the 'Sevenoaks cut off' line between St Johns and Tonbridge railway station. A ten-year agreement between the SER and the London Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR the successor to the L&BR after July 1846) over the use of the station and lines to Coulsdon was signed 1 February 1869 and renewed ten years later.
During the 1880s, as traffic increased, the disputes over the use of line and Redhill station re-occurred. This became known as the 'Southern Lines Controversy' and ultimately led to the construction of the Quarry Line by the LB&SCR in 1899, which avoided Redhill. The LB&SCR diverted many of its Brighton Main Line trains to the new line, but retained running powers over the original line and the use of Redhill station. These were continued until both the SER and the LB&SCR came under the ownership of the Southern Railway 1 January 1923 and the name of the joint station was changed to Redhill in July 1929.
The Brighton Main Line and the line from Redhill to Reigate were both electrified under the Southern Railway on 1 January 1933. The Redhill to Tonbridge Line was electrified under British Rail in 1993.