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Brighton Main Line Closure Hits Gatwick Trains

Brighton Main Line closure Gatwick sends travelers to rail replacement buses outside Gatwick Airport station
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5 min read

Engineering works are closing key Brighton Main Line sections used by airport bound trains, cutting direct rail access to London Gatwick Airport (LGW) across Saturday, January 17, 2026, and Sunday, January 18, 2026. The planned closure covers the corridor between Gatwick and Purley or East Croydon, plus connected branch lines around Redhill that normally feed airport and South Coast services. If you are flying, meeting an arrival, or transiting through the airport by rail this weekend, the practical move is to treat the journey as a multi leg trip with bus substitutions, longer run times, and more points of failure.

The change is not limited to one operator. National Rail lists impacts to Gatwick Express, Southern, Thameslink, and Great Western Railway services, with Gatwick Express trains not running and other routes relying on alternative trains and rail replacement buses.

Who Is Affected

Travelers heading between central London and Gatwick are the core group, because the closure blocks the usual fast paths that run through East Croydon and Purley. On Saturday, the affected northern boundary is framed around Purley, and on Sunday it is framed around East Croydon, which matters because it changes where you are forced to leave the train and join a bus.

South Coast travelers are also exposed. Trains can still run on some southern legs, but the closure north of Gatwick disrupts through journeys and pushes more passengers into interchange stations like Three Bridges and East Grinstead. If you are connecting onward by rail after landing, the disruption can propagate into missed meet and greet transfers, delayed car pickups, and late hotel check ins when the rail plan breaks into multiple steps.

Anyone using the Redhill area branches should plan for a different day or a different mode. The works also cover the branches between Reigate and Redhill and between Redhill and Tonbridge, and some bus plans have directional restrictions at Reigate and Redhill for certain routes, which can be confusing if you are trying to improvise at the station.

What Travelers Should Do

If you can still change plans, the cleanest fix is moving your rail dependent airport trip off this weekend, or shifting to a coach, a prebooked car, or an overnight at an airport hotel to remove the risk of bus substitution delays. Gatwick's own rail guidance is explicit that journeys between central London and the airport take much longer than usual during the January closure weekends, so treat your original rail timing as unreliable.

If you must travel this weekend, choose one primary routing and one backup before you leave. One common pattern is using the diverted Southern service between London Victoria and Gatwick, which runs via a diversion and calls at Clapham Junction only, and then completing any last mile needs at the airport. Another pattern is routing to East Grinstead and then using rail replacement buses onward to Gatwick or Three Bridges, depending on whether you are aiming for the airport itself or for onward South Coast stations.

Over the next 24 to 72 hours, monitor two things, your operator's live service page and the station level bus arrangements at your interchange point. The critical failure mode in this setup is not just a slower train, it is a missed connection between a train and a bus, or a crowded bus queue that makes a planned interchange take far longer than expected. Check National Rail and your operator again shortly before departing, and if you see repeated wording about amended timetables and limited buses on your segment, that is the threshold to switch to a car, a taxi, or an airport hotel staging plan rather than gambling on the last workable train.

Background

Network Rail is using these weekend blocks to do maintenance and resilience work on a heavily used corridor, including track, power, drainage, structures, and access improvements. The reason the disruption feels disproportionate to travelers is that the Brighton Main Line is not just a local route, it is also the spine for airport access, South Coast links, and crew and rolling stock positioning across multiple operators.

First order effects hit the source asset, the rail corridor between Gatwick and Purley or East Croydon, which removes the simplest airport access by train and forces bus substitution and diversions. Second order effects appear quickly, because when passengers are rerouted onto fewer paths and fewer interchange stations, demand spikes for taxis and rideshares around the airport and around key interchange hubs such as East Croydon, Redhill, East Grinstead, and Three Bridges. That pressure can spill into airport hotels as travelers decide to stage closer to the terminal the night before, and it can also ripple into missed onward connections for those continuing to the South Coast, especially when a flight arrival is already late and the traveler is trying to catch the last workable bus linked routing.

This weekend is also not the last near term pinch point. The same Gatwick to Purley or East Croydon closure pattern is scheduled again on Saturday, January 24, 2026, and Sunday, January 25, 2026, and Gatwick's advisory notes additional Sunday impacts on the Purley branches toward Caterham and Tattenham Corner during the January closure weekends. If you are booking late January trips, avoid building an itinerary that depends on a tight rail transfer through this corridor on those dates.

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