West Worthing Level Crossing

Wednesday March 25 2020 at 12.49 & 12.59. The 13.21 Brighton to here (13.51) train and then, from the opposite side, the 12.44 Littlehampton to London Victoria (14.29) train. Not all videos turn out as well as I’d hoped and this is messy. The first train of the day was filmed here in 2011 and even then 2 cyclists got in front. In 2014 the lifting mechanisms and barriers were replaced. The boxes had become very rusty. There has been a lot of criticism of the delays here and you can see it was busy on a day when it certainly wasn’t supposed to be. A local paper has asked if this is the most hated level crossing in Britain. Network Rail have responded by saying: “ . . . our signallers always try to minimise the time barriers stay down” which of course is nonsense. They aren’t allowed to delay an empty train in order to release dozens waiting in traffic. The big problem here is the road layout. Once the barriers are raised the traffic lights have to go through 3 phases before the first vehicle in each queue gets to move. Few trains terminate next to NR level crossings and the station only has 2 platforms, but there are a number of sidings just past it.