The line serves the suburbs of South London, as well as the towns of Redhill, Horley, Crawley, Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill.

The Brighton Main Line was completed in December 1862, when the LB&SCR opened the direct route between Croydon and Victoria via Thornton Heath.

The most serious accident on the Brighton Main Line occurred in October 1947, when two trains collided in fog near South Croydon station, killing 32 people.

The listed structures on the route include the Ouse Valley Viaduct, the north portal of Clayton Tunnel and all three termini.

It serves Gatwick Airport and the towns of Redhill, Horley, Crawley, Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill, as well as the South London suburbs.

[1][2] The London Victoria to Windmill Bridge Junction section of the Brighton Main Line is 10 mi 2 ch (16.1 km) in length and has nine stations in total.

[2][16] All other stations (New Cross Gate, Brockley, Honor Oak Park, Forest Hill, Sydenham, Penge West, Anerley and Selhurst) are managed by London Overground.

[46][47] Passenger trains began running on the L&GR between Deptford and its temporary London terminus at Spa Road on 8 February 1835.

[50][56] The cost of the line was originally estimated to be around £400,000, but difficulties encountered during the excavation of the cutting at New Cross, meant that an additional £216,000 was required.

[50] The official opening ceremony for the L&CR took place on 1 June 1839, although passenger trains for the general public did not start until four days later.

[56][57] Since the area between New Cross and Croydon was sparsely populated and largely undeveloped countryside, the majority of passenger journeys on the line were between the two termini.

John Rennie the Younger favoured a line via Merstham and Horley, while the engineers Robert Stephenson and Nicholas Cundy preferred longer, but cheaper routes via Dorking and Shoreham-by-Sea.

[51][54][59] The London and Brighton Railway (L&BR) company, formed to promote Rennie's more direct route,[60] received parliamentary approval for its scheme on 15 July 1837.

Completion was delayed due to bad weather during the winter of 1840-41 and the first section, from Croydon to Haywards Heath, did not open until 12 July 1841.

[70] Since the new terminus was not designed to handle freight, a spur line primarily for goods trains was built to Bricklayers Arms and opened on 1 May that year.

[74] In 1839, anticipating that disputes might arise over the use of the line north of Redhill, parliament instructed the L&BR to sell the Coulsdon–Redhill section to the SER.

[75] On 27 July 1846, parliamentary authority was granted to merge the L&CR and L&BR to form the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR).

[77] A west–south spur linking Crystal Palace and Norwood Junction stations was opened in 1857, allowing trains from Brighton to reach the Pimlico terminus.

[6][h] Although LB&SCR trains could access Victoria station via Crystal Palace,[80] John Rastrick advised that a shorter route to the West End of London would be "most desirable".

The proposal was authorised by parliament on 3 July 1860[80] and the new double-track line opened on 1 December 1862 with intermediate stations at Thornton Heath and Streatham Common.

[81][i] A further act of parliament was passed on 18 July 1864 authorising a link between the Victoria and London Bridge arms of the Brighton Main Line that allowed trains to travel between Norwood Junction and Thornton Heath without a reversal.

[75] Congestion at the junctions at the south end of Redhill station prompted the LB&SCR to propose a two-track bypass of this section of line.

The chosen system used overhead wires, energised to 6,700 V AC, and multiple units equipped with pantographs for current collection.

During the 1950s, work continued to modernise the signalling system, which included the installation of colour lights between Selhurst and East Croydon in March 1954.

[57][141] Remodelling of Windmill Bridge Junction was undertaken, with the creation of an additional flyover to eliminate conflicting movements between trains on the slow lines.

[149] A third new route launched by Network SouthEast was the Bedford–Brighton Thameslink service via the Snow Hill tunnel under central London, which began on 16 May 1988.

[159][160] The Gatwick Express and Southern franchises were merged in May 2008, to allow capacity increases and better use of train paths on the Brighton Main Line.

[165] The new franchise, also incorporating services on the Great Northern Route, was awarded to FirstGroup, which began operating trains under the First Capital Connect brand on 1 April 2006.

Awarded to Govia, the new franchise took the form of a management contract, reducing the risks to the operator arising from the introduction of new services as part of the Thameslink programme.

[171] Govia was heavily criticised for the poor implementation of a new timetable in May 2018, which routed additional services from the Brighton Main Line via the Thameslink core.