page_title: Steyning Line
section_title: Passenger traffic
hierarchical_section_title: Steyning Line / Operations / 1900 - 1965 / Passenger traffic
caption_attribution_description: Notice announcing a moonlight walk at Chanctonbury Ring from Steyning, West Sussex
context_page_description: The Steyning Line was a railway line that connected the West Sussex market town of Horsham with the once bustling south-coast port of Shoreham-by-Sea, with connections to Brighton. Covering 20 miles, the line closed on 7 March 1966, a casualty of the Beeching Axe.
context_section_description: From 1923 the line became part of the Southern Railway following the grouping under the Railways Act. The line continued to be alive during summer weekends with a variety of excursions to Brighton and Hove from places as far afield as Wolverhampton, Banbury, Oxford and Reading, via Guildford and Horsham. During the football season specials took supporters to see Brighton and Hove Albion when they were playing at home. The Southern Railway promoted use of the line by ramblers and nature-lovers, such as scheduling late-night and early-morning services to observe the sun rising.
  On 31 October 1946 the Southern Railway announced a scheme to electrify the line, but this was abandoned following nationalisation in January 1948. The line now fell under the aegis of the Southern Region of British Railways. One of the first changes made was the end of the old method of counting passenger numbers. Whereas previously a system of "clearing" was employed whereby the revenue from a passenger's ticket was redistributed to the railway companies in proportion to the distance travelled on their line, this changed to a system of "global accounts" whereby each station in a British Railways (BR) region submitted to its line manager monthly returns of all business conducted.
  Statistics of passenger tickets issued and collected show a steady rise in passenger traffic from 1948 to 1965, the year prior to closure. In 1948, 58,086 tickets were sold and 90,076 collected, ten years later these figures had risen to 106,110 and 126,272 and by 1965, they were 120,016 and 140,129 respectively. Although there was a slight decline in traffic in the early 1960s, this reflected a similar dip which had occurred 12 years previously and was modest when compared with the subsequent increase in numbers.
  On Saturday 7 October 1961 a group of senior boys attending Steyning Grammar School organised an exhibition in the waiting room at Steyning station that celebrated the line's 100th anniversary. Both the station and signalbox were decorated in bunting to mark the occasion and trains carried special headboards.
caption: A summer excursion to the Chanctonbury Ring in the 1930s
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