The Cuckoo Trail, East Sussex – Beeching Cuts
December 5, 2016 | 3 minute readThe Cuckoo Trail was a line that ran from Tunbridge Wells to Polegate. It ran through several towns in the Wealden Area; Groombridge, Eridge, Rotherfield & Mark Cross, Mayfield, Heathfield, Horam, Hellingly and Hailsham. The line was built by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway and was opened to traffic in 1849. The line was passed into the control of the Southern Railway in 1923, due to the ‘Grouping’ act put in place that year. The Beeching Report spelt the end for this line. The section from Eridge to Hailsham was closed to passenger traffic in 1965 (The line was used for freight up until 1968).
At present day, the route of the line is used as a cycle path called The Cuckoo Trail. The line is an interesting case study. It gives evidence that the Beeching Act was too focused on making a profit, not the social and cultural impacts. We will never be able to prove for sure that the line staying open would have had a large impact on the area. We do however have plenty of evidence that would support the idea to keep the railway.
The closure of the line was hotly disputed. British Railways agreed that especially the town of Hailsham would be affected by the closure. It was a growing town and buses would be unable to cope with the demands of the increasing population. The report even showed that although there were a few stations making hardly any money. There were a few towns like Hailsham that were registering a profit from their passenger tickets and freight levels.
Villages and Towns Served by the Cuckoo Trail
Although Horam was making between £0 and £5,000 per annum, Heathfield and Hailsham were making between £5,000 and £25,000. This means that the towns were actually making money from passenger traffic. It is difficult to find out the costs of running the railway. However, it is most likely that the costs of running the line outweighed the money that the line was making. However, because Beeching and his team based their judgment on how much profit the lines were made without taking into account the social and cultural influence on the railway. I find that this was a rather short-sited view on the situation.
At the time that Beeching was writing his report, the tickets that were given out were very basic. It didn’t give much information on where they brought the ticket or even how much the ticket cost. Nowadays, someone can buy a ticket and the ticket will show a range of information, including where they brought the ticket, and how far they will be travelling. It is even logged onto a computer database, so you can easily see how many passengers are using a station at any one time or day. This means that it would be much easier for Beeching to collect his report on the present day. Also if he had made his report in the present day, he would probably have come to a different conclusion about closing certain lines. The more accurate ticketing system would give a better picture of what lines are being used the most.
As Beeching was against any conflicting interests on the closure of a certain line, the closures had an impact on many local economies. Particularly Hailsham which as I mentioned was a growing town and the buses that were introduced were not able to cope with the strain of passenger demands.
Since the closure of the line in 1968, there has been a call for the reopening of the line. In 2014 the Sussex Express published an article which called for the line to be reopened in 15-inch gauge form. They also mentioned that environmentalist Steve Woods believes excessive road building like the Polegate bypass is scarring the countryside, therefore a railway which would relieve the stress of the roads and be more environmentally friendly. The project they said would cost in the region of £10 million.
A more recent and wider campaign has noted the Cuckoo line as a ‘missing link’ between key towns. The Campaign for Better Transport aims to reopen over 170 lines in the UK. They also campaign for better roads, better buses and better aviation. It is unlikely that the Cuckoo Line will be opened any time in the near future. However, it’s certain that a reopening of the line between Polegate and Eridge would have a massive positive impact on the local economies of Heathfield and Hailsham. Four-fifths of the Cuckoo trail is still owned by Wealden District Council between Polegate and Heathfield. This means it would be relatively easy for certain parts of the line to be reopened.