Buses replace late night / early morning trains between Brighton and Lewes / Seaford overnight  

Route(s) affected

Between Brighton and Lewes

Description

Urgent repairs to the railway between Brighton and Lewes / Seaford means all lines will be blocked. As a result, trains will be cancelled or altered. Replacement buses will be available to help you complete your journey.

Disruption is expected from 23:00 today until approximately 05:30 on Friday 21 August.

Customer advice:

Network Rail will be taking an additional possession between Brighton and Lewes, closing the line overnight. This means a number of late night and early morning services running in the Brighton, Lewes, and Seaford areas will be cancelled or terminate short of their destinations.

If you are travelling in these areas tonight or early tomorrow morning, you are strongly advised to check your journey before travelling and allow extra time, as late night rail services will not run.

Confirmed rail replacement buses:

The following replacement buses have been confirmed to help you complete your journey:

Tonight:

• 23:00 Lewes to Seaford – Operated by Wealden

• 23:09 Brighton to Seaford – Operated by Triangle

• 23:41 Brighton to Seaford – Operated by Big Lemon

• 23:55 Seaford to Brighton – Operated by Big Lemon

• 00:47 Lewes to Brighton – Operated by Wealden

Tomorrow morning:

• 04:50 Seaford to Brighton – Operated by Group Travel

• 05:24 Seaford to Lewes – Operated by Triangle
  

Please check online journey planners and station departure boards before travelling for the latest real-time information.

Can you tell me more about the incident?

Network Rail is taking an additional, short-notice possession of the railway between Brighton and Falmer tonight to carry out urgent engineering work.

A "possession" means that Network Rail temporarily takes full control of a stretch of track and stops all standard train operations. This creates a safe working environment so that track teams, maintenance engineers, and heavy rail machinery can access the railway lines, power cables, and signalling systems safely.

While regular maintenance is usually planned months in advance, short-notice work like this is sometimes required to address safety-critical repairs or complete urgent infrastructure upgrades before the next day's full timetable resumes. Network Rail schedules these possessions during the late evening and overnight hours when fewer passenger trains are operating to keep daytime disruption to a minimum.

Check before you travel:

You can check your journey using the National Rail Enquiries real-time Journey Planner.

Compensation:

You may be entitled to compensation if you experience a delay in completing your journey today. Please keep your train ticket and make a note of your journey, as both will be required to support any claim.