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Gatwick Express

Non-stop trains between London Victoria and Gatwick Airport, running on to Haywards Heath and Brighton; the fastest take 31 minutes from London. It began under British Rail in 1984, has run only Class 387/2 Electrostars since 2016 and has been publicly owned since May 2026.

2026Current operator since
714 miles (1,149 km)Route miles, all of GTR
4Stations served
316 millionJourneys a year, all of GTR, ORR (2025–26)

Facts

Current operator since
31 May 2026
London terminals
London Victoria
Type
Airport express train brand
Depots
Lovers Walk (Brighton)
Main routes
Non-stop between London Victoria and Gatwick Airport twice an hour, with trains running on to Haywards Heath and Brighton; four trains an hour between Victoria and Gatwick are promised from December 2026.
Stations managed
236, for all of GTR (Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern and Gatwick Express)
Operating company
Thameslink Southern Great Northern Ltd, owned by DfT Operator (public ownership since 31 May 2026). It runs Gatwick Express with Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern as the Greater Thameslink Railway (GTR).
Class 387 Electrostar, schematic side elevation, 2 cars
Class 387 Electrostar · Bombardier Transportation (now Alstom), Derby · indicative

Routes 1 routes · 4 stations

London Victoria – Brighton: schematic, not to scale London Victoria — change for Circle, District, VictoriaLondon Victoria Gatwick AirportGatwick Airport Haywards HeathHaywards Heath BrightonBrighton

Schematic, not to scale. Ringed stations are interchanges. Each strip is one service route with its stops in order. Where fast and stopping trains share a route, the strip shows the one with most stops, and a route whose stops all lie on a longer one is left out. Station order from TfL open data.

StationZoneInterchanges
London Victoria1Circle, District, Victoria
Gatwick Airport
Haywards Heath
Brighton

Stations, zones and interchanges from TfL open data (2026-10-06). National Rail interchanges are listed where TfL groups the stations together.

Fleet

ClassUnitsFormation and notes
Class 387 Electrostar27four-car Class 387/2s, bought for Gatwick Express; GTR runs them in a pool of 46 Class 387s shared with Southern

History 10

  1. British Rail's Gatwick Express carries its first passengers: non-stop trains from Victoria, with Class 73 locomotives, refurbished Mark 2 coaches and luggage vans, advertised as taking 30 minutes.
  2. National Express takes over Gatwick Express, one of the first franchises let at privatisation.
  3. The first of eight Alstom Class 460 Juniper trains, ordered by National Express, enters service.
  4. Gatwick Express stops being a separate franchise and becomes part of Southern; some peak trains run on to Brighton.
  5. Refurbished Class 442s from South West Trains start replacing the Class 460s, which have all gone by September 2012.
  6. Southern and Gatwick Express join Govia Thameslink Railway's Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise.
  7. The first Class 387/2 in Gatwick Express colours carries passengers between Victoria and Gatwick.
  8. The last of the 27 Class 387/2s takes over, and the Class 442s leave Gatwick Express.
  9. Non-stop trains return after the pandemic, two an hour instead of four, running on to Brighton from Monday to Saturday; they had been suspended since 30 March 2020.
  10. Gatwick Express passes into public ownership with the rest of GTR.

Sources 24

How we source figures →

unverified the 27 Class 387/2s as Gatwick Express's fleet in 2026: last stated by RAIL in February 2025; GTR runs its Class 387s across Gatwick Express and Southern, and Wikipedia lists five 387/2s (387201 and 387205 to 387208) with Southern, stabling at Stewarts Lane, Battersea (Wikipedia), the exact handover date of 22 June 2008 (Wikipedia); National Express says only that it handed over in June 2008, whether every train runs on to Brighton, including on Sundays: Gatwick Express's timetable page gives the route as Victoria, Gatwick Airport, Haywards Heath and Brighton, but in 2022 Sunday trains ran only between Victoria and Gatwick, route strip: TfL's route data lists 12 stations between Victoria and Brighton; only the four Gatwick Express publishes as its calls are drawn