Now Bypassed: Ash Level Crossing, Surrey

Date filmed: Wednesday the 21st of August 2024 Videos filmed between 14:57 and 15:34 Route: North Downs Line Ash (ASH) Station Crossing type: Manually Controlled Barrier crossing with CCTV (MCB-CCTV) Filming location: A323 Guildford Road, Ash (GU12 6BE) Featuring: @Electra Level Crossings A level crossing located next to Ash station in the village of Ash, Surrey, near Aldershot and the border with Hampshire. The crossing is on (the now former route of) the busy A323 main road, and why be seen when looking towards Guildford. A new road bridge / bypass was under construction, quickly progressing, and opened to traffic in February 2025, and as such the crossing has since been permanently closed to road vehicles with the roads either side of it undergoing extensive remodelling. It's a needed investment, however, as the frequent trains and lowerings caused traffic problems here and on surrounding rural roads, and it's quite a high-risk crossing owing to deliberate misuse and user error. A few impatient drivers can even be seen in these videos. Even with the road traffic removed from the equation, the lack of any footbridge still puts this crossing beside this relatively busy station at risk for people jumping the barriers, so something may or may not happen to it sooner or later. An extra set of lights provided at this crossing (now defunct as the road layout that side is being re-modified) is rather intriguingly struck and bent, and it's unclear how this could be possible given its height and location. Another something that's rather odd here is the decision to install new barriers (only as of the last year or so) when it was known the crossing was to close, though you'd suspect it'd be down to a barrier strike which would be unsurprising here. Unlike a lot of crossings you see nowadays, the pair of alarms here are still working well, un-changed and date back to the crossing's original commissioning in this form back in circa. 1999 controlled from Guildford. Six trains can be seen in this video, one per lowering, and two of which were non-stop Airport trains between Reading and Gatwick, a run with a very varied stopping pattern. Hope you enjoy these videos! Trains featured: Lowering 1 (0:00): 165 112 (Great Western Railway) - 1:45 1O73 Reading ➡ Gatwick Airport | 1 minute late - Lowering 2 (2:20): 450 029 (South Western Railway) - 3:08 2J36 Guildford ➡ Farnham | On-time - Lowering 3 (3:43): 450 080 (South Western Railway) - 4:27 2J37 Farnham ➡ Guildford | On-time - Lowering 4 (5:04): 165 104 (Great Western Railway) - 5:40 1O74 Reading ➡ Gatwick Airport | 2 minutes late - Lowering 5 (6:19): 165 106 (Great Western Railway) - 7:02 1V52 Gatwick Airport ➡ Reading | On-time - Lowering 6 - My last video here? (7:32): 450 089 (South Western Railway) - 8:45 2J38 Guildford ➡ Farnham | On-time - End-of-video picture showcase: 9:13 Train details sourced from: Real Time Trains: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/sear... Open Train Times: https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps Traksy: https://traksy.uk/live Filmed on: Panasonic HC-VX1 in 4K 25fps Thanks for watching!