The Cuckoo Line

Serving the Sussex countryside from Rotherfield through to Polegate, the 'Cuckoo Line' was a fine example of a cross-country railway branch line which failed to survive into the modern era. Serving Sussex towns including Mayfield and Heathfield, a single line of rails provided a service to the local community for over 80 years before falling casualty to the axe of Dr Beeching, with the last passenger trains running in 1965. Half a century later the opportunity has come to take a new look at this railway. The course of the 'Cuckoo Line' has now all but disappeared from the landscape - replaced by roads, housing and industrial development, but this important new book records the line, its stations and rolling stock through-out its history. Using three new sources of previously unpublished photographs and descriptive notes on train and locomotive working, The Cuckoo Line presents a vivid portrait of the line and a way of life lost in the half century since closure