Lost Hastings area train stations: When you could get a train from Hastings to Glyne Gap

He writes: There is good news that services on the Hastings to Eastbourne railway line are to be improved. But unfortunately this cannot go as far as reviving two stations that closed many years ago.

The first to be lost was the halt at Glyne Gap, which only had a short life. It opened in 1905, when a low-cost steam railcar service was introduced, and was aimed mainly at helping workers reach the Glyne Gap gasworks then under construction, where the Ravenside shopping centre is today. The gasworks came into full use in 1907, closing in 1969 and being demolished in 1971.

The small Glyne Gap station was just to the east of the pedestrian tunnel under the line, with steps going down to the tunnel entrance on both sides. It closed in 1915 because of competition from the Hastings-Bexhill trams service. Back in the 1990s there was a campaign to rebuild the station, in order to help give traffic-free access to the Ravenside shops, but this was unsuccessful.

Another lost station was the West Marina, which stood off Bexhill Road, behind the big store at the bottom of West Hill Road. It was built when the railway system in the Hastings area was created in 1846-51. It covered a large area, and was primarily an engine and goods depot, with a coal yard, several sidings, freight sheds, engine sheds, a watering point and a turntable.

In 1935 the Hastings-Brighton line was electrified, and as steam power then gradually declined, the use of the many steam facilities at West Marina lessened, and in 1967 the station was closed. Remnants of it can still be found behind the store’s car park, where there is part of the platform, and across the line is a train washing facility which was built in 1958. The store and row of houses standing there today are where there were sidings, a goods shed and a crane.

Hastings still has a station, of course, but it’s where there were sidings and a goods shed just two decades ago. The original Hastings station, which opened in 1851, was originally V-shaped allowing the two rival railway companies running the services to have separate platforms and booking areas.

The whole station was reconstructed in a neo-Georgian style in 1931 , with all trains running through two new island platforms, as today. A beautifully decorated and huge central booking hall welcomed travellers. This was all replaced in 2004 by the ‘modernist’ glass-fronted building on a different site that we have now.

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