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The United Kingdom has a lot of train stations.
I mean, there’s one here, one here, one
here, one here, one here, one here, one here,
one here, one here, one here, and then there
are a few others.
Now, you’d think, with all these very real
train stations, that they wouldn’t need
imaginary ones, but you’d also think that
Britain wouldn’t voluntarily vote themselves
out of the world’s largest trading block
and we all know how that turned out.
Sometimes they like to spice things up, unless
we’re talking about food, of course, but
let’s get back on track.
Right here is Newhaven Marine station.
This station does not physically exist—there’s
no platform, no ticket machine, you can’t
even buy a ticket to the station—but according
to all legal definitions, it does indeed exist.
Now, the explanation behind this duality is
a bit complex but, for whoever’s watched
this work of art, it’s tangentially related
to that.
Back in ye olde days, when Cosby was cool,
MTV played music, and wars were less warm,
Newhaven, England was a crucially important
ferry port.
Of course, back in those olde days, tunnels
hadn’t been discovered yet so these ferries
were the only way to get a vehicle to or from
the continent.
From Newhaven, ferries travelled regularly
to Dieppe, France, and this was a super-popular
way to cross the channel, but one thing I
know about boats is that they’re not trains
so how is this relevant to this nonexistent
train station?
Well, it turns out, that in ye olde days,
Newhaven Marine station actually did exist—both
physically and legally.
The station was part of the ferry terminal
so, this way, one could take the train from
London or wherever in the UK and board directly
onto the ferry to France, and this was great
and everyone loved this until they didn’t.
You see, eventually they figured out how tunnels
worked and, in 1994, the Channel Tunnel was
opened.
Now one could either take the Eurostar train
from London or, if they wanted their weird
wrong-sided car on the continent, one could
drive to Dover, load their car into one of
these car train-cars, ride for 30 minutes,
and voila—you’re in France.
This was great and everyone loved this, except
for the ferry people because ferries were
now less great and everyone loved them a little
less.
The number of people using ferries, especially
as foot passengers without cars, dropped dramatically
and with that, the number of people using
Newhaven Marine station did too.
After all, Newhaven Harbour station was only
a two-minute walk away so the only thing Newhaven
Marine station was good for was for those
getting on the ferry, and eventually, the
ferry terminal was moved to another spot so
there went from being very little reason to
use the station to none at all.
Thought the years, service to the station
was reduced and reduced and reduced until
eventually, only one train a day stopped at
the station and barely any passengers boarded.
Of course, in the US one train a day would
be an improvement for some small towns, like
Houston, but this is the UK where they haven’t
yet recognized how hassle-free, quick, cheap,
and all-around great highways are.
Given the low passenger numbers at Newhaven
Marine Station, in 2006, when it was discovered
that the canopy over the platform was in disrepair
in danger of collapsing, it was decided that,
rather than pay to repair it, it was easier
to just close the station altogether.
However, in the UK, there’s a big difference
between physically closing a station and legally
closing it.
Legally closing a station is a complicated,
expensive, and time-consuming process designed
to prevent railways from closing unprofitable
stations that they’re obligated to serve,
so often, the railroads will leave a station
open, even if it only gets a few-dozen passengers
a year, and run only a few trains a week or
so.
That’s exactly what Southern Railway did
with Newhaven Marine except, the difference
was that you couldn’t physically get on
that train—once a day, a train would pull
into the platform, fulfilling the requirements
for serving the station, but fences blocked
off access to that platform.
The railway company, though, was responsible
for both running trains and transporting passengers
to this station so they had to figure out
how to deal with that second part.
Therefore, they put a sign up giving instructions:
one could call a taxi from Newhaven Marine,
ride it to Newhaven Harbour, submit the receipt
to Southern, and get reimbursement, but in
practice, Newhaven Harbour is only a two-minute
walk away so nobody would ever do this, except
maybe the taxi-man’s wife.
In 2017, they took things a step forward and
demolished the entire station and the building
it was attached to, but as Newhaven Marine
was still legally a station, a train would
still pull into where the platform used to
be once a day.
It appears, though, that the story of Newhaven
Marine station might come to end fairly soon.
On January 15th, 2020, the first major step
towards station closure was initiated as a
proposal for closure was posted, and a public
comment period was opened.
So, unless there’s some major public outcry
about the closing of a station that nobody
uses, which I’m definitely not encouraging
HAI viewers to start, Newhaven Marine station,
which no longer exists, will be closed for
good very soon.
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