In response to your article about traffic delays at the barrier crossing adjoining Portslade and West Hove station, this has been a source of annoyance and frustration to road users for years.

Bus drivers may well be delayed, with consequent knock-on effect to timetabled journeys, but many car drivers and pedestrians also have to suffer quite extraordinary delays on occasions and the build-up of traffic covers a wide area, to north, south, east and west.

I am not sure the problem is due to an over-zealous signalman, as your article suggests. Are the movements of the barriers activated by the trains themselves, passing over mechanisms some distance away? Perhaps Southern could confirm this.

My observations, taken from both Portslade and Southwick stations, seem to suggest that fast trains from Shoreham, non-stop to Hove, cause the barrier to be lowered at Portslade as soon as they leave Shoreham.

In the other direction, a fast, west-bound service leaving Hove and not calling at intermediate stations to Shoreham will immediately cause the barriers at Portslade to lower.

There are very few manned signal boxes in the area. I believe the nearest are at Lancing, Arundel, Barnham and Three Bridges. This leads me to believe the operation at Portslade is controlled by the trains themselves.

The current railway timetable shows that seven trains per hour

in each direction pass through Portslade (at off-peak times). Since very few run on time, it is obvious that services will stack up behind each other and it is quite possible for as many as three trains to follow each other, again in both directions.

This is the heart of the problem. Engineering trams, specials and additional rush-hour services add to the difficulties.

The only solution to the matter, as far as the buses are concerned, is to divert some of the services away from Portslade Station. This might well cause hardship to many passengers and in any event, the roads could not cope with the additional traffic and large modern vehicles, so this can be dismissed.

Other than that, patience and understanding must prevail.

Trevor Bolton,

-Southwick