Betchworth - Least Used Station in Surrey
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- Опубліковано 21 лип 2019
- Every December the Office of Rail and Road update their passenger usage stats for stations, and as Longcross saw an increase in usage, Betchworth is now the NEW Least Used Station in Surrey, so it was time to take a trip with a special compnion who came up with a rather scientific way of measuring the length of the platform ...
Watch Steves 'Leaves on the line' video: • Why November is the mo...
The ORR Estimates of Station Usage are here: dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statist...
I feel like Steve is your most confused guest so far, loving it!
He's wearing an infinitely recurring t shirt.
And so cute with it...
Can confirm. I was very confused.
"There's nothing here!" except the village of Betchworth or course, just half a mile away or so, not bad for a country station, with a population of 1052 (2011 figures). 'Moon base to Steve..... are you reading me?......... no?........ definitely nothing here! This is one of the most nerdy videos yet... yes... let's be very overexcited.
Isn't that just how he always looks?
(sorry, Steve!)
I don't know I stumbled across these videos since I don't have any interest in trains, but there is something about Geoff's enthusiasm that makes me want to watch more
Well, if Steve was off by 1 mm when he was measuring Geoff's height, it could have been 17mm instead of 18mm, then you would have 1905/17 = 112.06. Next, I noticed that Geoff measured the distance from the ruler to the front of Steve's eye, but that is not where the light converges, it converges on the retina further down, so the distance should actually be around 720mm. If you multiply them together, you get 80.68m, which is still excluding the fact that Geoff measured curve and Steve straight line, so that number is still a bit higher and that is already pretty close to the 85 m measurement.
For @standupmaths anything under 50% is good.
My small contribution to the passenger count was made in about 1964 with friends Chris and Alan. There was a very pleasant walk from Betchworth station to Merstham via Colley Hill, Reigate Hill and Gatton Bottom. I feel there was a signal box in those days (controlling the level crossing at least) and the rail service was steam operated. I don't feel the same enthusiasm about the walk now..... the M25 parallels it for about 4 miles!
Steve is a Gem... two rail-fans out for a day in the park doesn't get much better- Invite Steve back (!!)
I think Longcross went up because of the Disney film production there like Aladdin and Star Wars, which Disney infamously hid a Millennium Falcon near the station
700m away on the other side of the M3 behind a wall of shipping containers on the old tank test track.
And the new housing estate.
Lizi Cee That and the Disney production
So the bump-up will become permanent ?
Longcross Studios have been in operation since at least the mid 00's.
This beautiful station is what started my passion for all things railway.
Yes, Betchworth village is remote from the station, on the other side of the A25, over the roundabout mentioned. A case of having to put the station nearer the railway line than the village!! 😁
Really interesting! Thankyou for teaching me some stuff about our local station😂😂
It's YOUR station.
Why am I not the least bit surprised that the first thing Geoff thought of when she said her name was Jasmine was tea? 😂
A local station to me, spent many hours there as a kid drawing the station building. Also lots of disused railways lines here with the old pits both narrow gauge and full gauge lines went away from Betchworth Station. there was even a presentation society there for a while. They moved a long time ago down to Amberley Chalk pits museum me and my dad use to help there for a little while before it moved. Great memories of Betchworth station.
Geoff: What does it feel like to be at the least used station?
Jasmine: ALL MINE 😂😂😂
Steve is acting like he just woke up and realised he wasn't in his bed.
That's how I always act.
@@SteveMould *Snorts into milk*
@@SteveMould I just assumed you didn't actually know Geoff and didn't know what the video was about - you were just too polite to say no when he asked you to be in it.
@@ericjamieson I mean some of that is true.
If we reverse calculate, height of Geoff in ruler should have been 16mm . The maximum absolute error while calculating the height in ruler can be 2mm (1mm for head and 1mm from bottom , since he has to coincide both of them manually , otherwise it would have been 1mm) so Steve is still within the error range! Good job Steve!
PS the reverse calculation I did was by dividing the actual distance of platform by the distance between Steve's eye and ruler which comes out to be 119.875 approximately 120. Now since the ratio between sides and height triangles is equal hence the height measured should be actual height of Geoff/120 which comes out to be 16mm approximately.
As soon as he said “I’m gonna do this on a calculator” my respect dropped!
Eh I mean most mathematicians would go "it's about 100" and you'd know it's minorly over but why spend 5-10 mins getting that precision when you have a phone in your pocket. Even Matt Parker will indeed use a calculator despite doing many manual long division videos too.
Ok....it took me waay too long to realise you were messing with the sign....well done.
Dear old Betchworth Station. When I was 16, my mother and I moved to Boxhill, and I used to walk down the hill every morning to this station to get a train to Redhill to go to college. And back again of course. That was 1991 to 93. The trains stopped there slightly more frequently back then, though not that much more frequent. Now I'm 46 and live in Worthing, but mum still lives on Boxhill and I still use the train to visit her and still use that station occasionally. I can relate to the girl who described the station as " all mine ", that's how it feels when you're there!
Because of the pandemic, I haven't been back for over a year, and I kind of affectionately miss " my little station ". And I'm sure I used that dusty old phone box a fair few times to call a cab when trains didn't turn up and I got stranded!
I was there a few weeks ago on a Sunday to get a train back to West Worthing
I used to live in Buckland, next to Betchworth. My daughter lives there now. It was the station for the chalk mining nearby. Dr Who and a Tonka toy advert was filmed there. The narrow gauge line is now at Amberley museum.
Used to have very long exchange sidings for the chalk pits. Track was still there in the late 1980s when I used to hike around there for Duke of Edinburgh's Award.
Yay! This station is fairly local to me, and it's on the wonderful North Downs line. Good to see it being "promoted", even if as part of a trig lesson. :)
To confirm the sparsity of station use there, I have been to that station, but not by train. I drove up to catch a glimpse of the Flying Scotsman about a year or two ago, a train whose schedule had been unintentionally leaked to the public at the time.
My first memory of using the North Downs line was in 1987, and Betchworth station was memorable to me because I noticed the distinctive platform lamps. That station is instantly recognizable from those.
I used to get the train from Betchworth all the time however a couple years a go they stopped the parking next to the station. Therefore its easier to go from reigate 😂 probably the reason for the decline
A lovely video. I would also have to say that the antique station building is quite pretty all around and it fits very well in the natural surroundings of the area. A pity there are so few passengers, though. Best greetings to Geoff amd Steve. 👋👋
Come for the railroad nerdery, stay for a geometry lesson!
yes they need to go
I never thought I'd see my local station on a Geoff Marshal video! I remember my dad calling me from that phone box to say he'd arrived back from work and for us to come and pick him up. I didn't use it unless I was going to redhill though as most of the time I would have to change at dorking anyway so I would just ride my bicycle to dorking instead. I actually know the person that lives across the old car park in the house as well! It's most famous round here for being a pain in the arse, as it's one of the main roads north to get into south london and everytime a train comes through the barriers are down for ages blocking up traffic!
You two have such good camera chemistry 😍
Been watching you for months and in the time of watching, I got into a relationship with a fellow train spotter so I've introduced him to your channel and he also loves it!! So now we watch your videos together
How do I find a fellow trainspotter?
Betchworth has the cutest station building! Classic!
The notification cuts off the Surrey part of the thumb and I thought Betchworth somehow beat British Redcar Steel for least used station in the UK.
We should have a 'Least Used Station of All Time in the UK' or in England near the end of the series. That would be pretty awesome (and calm). Or even 'The Least Used Station Out of Every Least Used Station'.
You're in luck. Geoff did Redcar British Steel - Least Used Station in Britain a few months ago. ua-cam.com/video/5QCB6UdlnVw/v-deo.html
Steve was probably a couple of mm of, when measuring Geoff at a distance, 16mm fits.
710*1905/16 = 84534
MOE DK But 16 doesn’t account for the curve. And all the decimal places they dropped out would have made a difference. The real question is from this information can we determine what the curve of the track is.
Betchworth holds a special place in annuals of British Industrial Railways, Adjacent to the station on the north side of the line was The Dorking Greystone Lime Company quarry and kilns, Both the standard gauge and narrow gauge railways were operated by a collection of eclectic steam locomotives, they became so well known amoungst enthusiast that when the quarry ceased trading an attempted was made to set up a museum on the site. All the Locomotives that survived until the quarry closure, Four Narrow gauge and two standard gauge have survived into preservation. Here's the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum page about quarry -
www.narrowgaugerailwaymuseum.org.uk/collections/industrial-railways/dorking-greystone-lime-company/
I can see it when driving down the A25 - wanted to have a closer look - thanks
Steve, your trigonometry skills are impeccable! Reminded me of the Musgrave Ritual!
The maths was fine but any measurement errors are multiplied by 105.8.
Just down the road from me! I frequently drive past there but have never yet alighted! Great video as always 😀👍🏻
I must have missed this video; two UA-camrs I enjoy watching, both at a station I regularly wait next to (at the level crossing) but have never used. (Howdy from Reigate!)
Yay good to see Steve again on your series!!
Another funny video. Well done Geoff. I thought we were at least going to get the platform length in stevie steps! LoL! Looking at the unscientific method of the original measurements it’s no wonder it was so far out. LoL!
Nice to see we finally got the Paddington prism reflectors explanation though, except of course, I already knew that... 😂😂😂
This man deserves a Million subs.
Railways and maths .... best video ever!
I feel like part of Steve's problem is that he uses Tau.
I mean it's not relevant to the math done here, but still a mistake. XD
How dare you!
11:25 Had to do a double take at that station signage, well done
Nicely entertaining vid with Steve and also Jasmin and ‘her’ station :) Guest spot filled by the Stoneblower and vaguely educated by the almost working maths. Lost count of the times I travelled through Betchworth back in my BR days!
We frequently drive past Betchworth station over that level crossing. For many years, until a recent upgrade, it amused me by having a warning sign telling drivers to beware the "Uneven level crossing"!
Blimey - good job you know where you are going. A very nice area. I remember steam there!
Another great video! I love the North Downs Line!
Wish Steve had been my maths teacher!
Well, I haven't been in school for well over 20 years and it's nice to know that I'm just as mystified by math now as I was then.
Yep… I didn’t understand any of it as well
Watch some numberphile videos. + or - 100 should be a good start.
@@mats7492 Basically you can use some basic geometry to work out how far away something (with a known height) is. Or if you know exactly how far away it is, you can work out the height instead. But you have to know one to deduce the other. (They used that to estimate mountain heights before accurate altimeters.)
Because the triangles are just slices of your cone of vision, any of those "slices of vision" you could pick share certain, constant, geometric properties - regardless of how far away you're looking. We know this, because our eyesight doesn't get all wobbly when looking far away, so its properties must be constant.
Lots of people can get lost in the mechanics of the specific calculation being done and find it hard to pick out the reasoning behind doing what they're doing, so I hope I was able to explain the actual idea going on there separate from the nitty-gritty of the numbers in play in the video.
"The height of Geoff" should be the name of Geoff's autobiography.
I’ve passed through here on the way to Gatwick and I didn’t know it was least used
Platform 0 from Redhill. There's a nice walk if you go over the lovely level crossing and through The Colley follow the direction of the line and then go back over down to Brockham and then plenty of pubs back to Reigate.
I can already tell without watching this is going to be great!
Love ur vids Geoff!!!
Love the old style Streetlights on this station too, Gone past this station lots to and from Guildford,
There is a good article on the Lime works railway network that used to be connecgted with the line at Betchworth in the September 2019 issue of Old Glory magazine. The article is entitled 'Betchworth Limeworks - Five railways on four gauges !'
So is a Mould Measurement equivalent to a Parker Square
Hi Geoff, some more info about Betchworth.
The main reason for the station being there ( I think) was the quarry that was at Betchworth. There even used to be a siding where the narrow gauge railway would run from which was on the eastbound platform
Looking forward to the rengineered thameslink trains next year.
Amazing maths! Plus a Network Rail stoneblower
The use of those reflectors was crystal clear, to me at least. You want to check whether the construction work has alarmed the faireys! They are notorious for bending railway tunnels way out of shape, just for the (malicious) fun of it. If they do, a ritual offering of an apple and a banana left on a plate at the end of service will set things right, generally.
Throughout the entire video, I was wondering where had I seen steve before. Then when his channel was shouted out I knew who he was.
Surrey is my 2nd favourite county in the UK and whenever I make time, there is a possibility that I could also visit this quiet station one day...
Is this on the North Camp line, Gatwick to Reading? A lovely little journey
Yes, the beautiful North Downs line, thankfully not axed by Beeching back in the day. It's a lifeline for me sometimes, when travelling west and not being a Megabus cheapskate. :)
The trains alternate every half hour between a "faster" one Gatwick-Redhill-Guildford-Reading, and a slower "stop train", but at off-peak times, only half of the slower trains actually call at Betchworth.
Haha, you sneakily changed the sign to Bletchworth :D
And yes, I thought the same about the reflectors video, I noticed you never really explained what they were used for. I was like, and now they're gonna say it's for slights movements because of construction, but then the video was over... :)
Used to go through here on freight services from Woking to Redhill and Tonbridge. I believe there used to be a narrow gauge rail system heading from the station, many moons ago.
Also Geoff the Belmond British Pullman Train goes through there too with 35028 Clan Line
In circa1986 I was a Signalman there, I used to call my girlfriend from that very Phone Box. The Signalbox door was the bricked up area between the phone box and the crossing at the corner of the building. The only mischief that I will publicly admit to, was taking a sleeping bag to night shift, and an alarm clock so I was ready for the 0300 freight train. Two hours kip after the mail train after midnight, wake up for the freight, another kip until the 0500 mail train, then hand over just before the first passenger train - glory days!
Interesting video! 👍
I once took a train to Betchworth for a genuine 'going near there' reason. About 40 years ago...
Steve and Geoff's humour play off each other well I think. The calculated estimate would probably seem more accurate if it had been written 75±4m as it truly was, since 85 is only 6 off 79 and a curve like that adding 6m feels a lot more right to me than adding 10m? Dunno. (Of course the other extreme is that it was wrong by 14m which is even worse.)
Any calculation of the sort done on that platform has a degree of accuracy attached to it. Therefore it is possible Steve's calculation may have been within the limits, and therefore not necessarily a failure.
Lovely lampposts!
Perhaps Steve should make a video on the maths (including triangles!) of how the Stoneblower that passed them measures the track when it’s working...
Notice how the sign saying the station name changes over time
Redhill platform is shorter due to the old sidings to the limeworks there.
Trying to get my head around seeing GWR in Surrey
God's Wonderful Railway got its tentacles into all sorts of odd places.
The Reading to Gatwick service is more in South Western's territory if anything. It barely touches the other GWR services in Reading.
Reading - Wokingham - [Farnborough] - GUILDFORD - DORKING - REDHILL
The GWR North Downs line passes through the Surrey Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. :)
Have you done a video on stations in the New Forest, just a thought.
You missed the historic limekiln siding just beyond the platform... 😁
You guys are hilarious 🤣😂. Great fun to watch👍
I wonder how much effect these videos have on the passenger figures, after all, you know what railway enthusiasts are like for rare stations / track / traction etc
Good to see a least used station have a wheelchair ramp
Not seen that before and Surprised it wasn’t mentioned
Historical factoid: the Reading - Redhill - Tonbridge line used to be the home of the Class 206 tadpole DEMU trains in the old BR days. They were called "tadpoles" bcz the 2-4 car units were made up of the slab-sided 2-EPB units, connected to Class 201 Diesel Electric Hastings units, hence the tadpole monicker. They were in operation on the North Downs line up until the mid 90s when NSE introduced ageing Class 125 DMUs (or similar) on the line.
I really want Geoff to report on the bike parking at Utrecht Central station. After August 19, because then finally the new section will open. You may need some assistance to find them all. I recommend against counting the number of places (available or total). How much railway station bike parking is there in all of Brittain?
Geeky question. When you measured the platform was the platform dead level? If it wasn't. I assume it could cause a difference. I remember doing a similar experiment to measure the hieght of a tree at school a long time ago.
That wouldn't make any difference. You only have to sight in the whole Geoff.
My train line get on at dorking deepdene! Change for holmwood station which is quiet 1 every hour! Must be quiet number too?
Well, that's firmly been rechristened Bletchley but it now needs distinguishing from the other place - Nether Bletchley? Bletchley-in-the-Styx? Bletchley Southern?
Bletchley (Surrey)?
Is Mould triangle congruent to Parker square?
YAY! Finally a Least Used Station I can visit for free, as my dad works for GWR, and so I have a free travel pass for the GWR network
The Surrey Hills are very beautiful, so it's worth a visit. Just don't be like my Mum who complained about the North Downs line "yes, it's very pretty, but that train is SO SLOW!" (and she wasn't even using the slower one on that route, LOL). It's the Surrey Hills, where's the need to travel quickly? And that route is still a lifeline for me to reach the west, Wales and Cornwall.
I can't say I'm surprised! Lovely as Betchworth is, there's not really much of it close enough to the station for it to be of any use! I live about a minute's walk from Reigate station (the next stop), and if I ever wanted to get to Betchworth and wasn't able to drive there, I think I'd consider getting a bus rather than a train.
Really would love to collaborate with you @Geoff Marshall when you do Derbyshire's - Dove Holes. However great video as always.
Nice Video Geoff Im In London Tomorrow
I'm also going to Beaulieu Road to see Union Of South Africa A$
Perhaps the Least Used Station in each jurisdiction should be "demoted" to a flag stop each year. Then locals would band together to get "their" station promoted back to the regular stopping league.
Are u going up north to see the new 195s and 331s Geoff
Oh interesting to see
I do not think Steve's method measures the length of the platform unless his eyesight line is actually on the level of the platform... he might be off by the square root of (the difference of his eyes height & 952.5(half Geoff's height)) squared.
Why didn’t you just use the metre stick the whole way?
Driven through that level crossing many times and always think 'what a nice looking station' must actually go there by train
i wonder what the most used surrey station is?
Guildford
Probably Gatwick 🤔
everything_is_depressing_123 Gatwick is in West Sussex
Very pretty lampposts at Betchworth I see - prettiest of all the least-used stations, perhaps?
Which station were you now? I've seen several names passing in this video...
So each time you identify a low useage station, do Network Rail add it to closure list?
Doubt it. Most of time they're willing to keep it open.
Next video: Stand Up Maths analyzes train routes
John Bicycle this is a thing now
Steve's channel is great - I think he's better with a script though :-).