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"Clapham Junction" redirects here. For other uses, see Clapham Junction (disambiguation).
Coordinates: 51°27′53″N 0°10′14″W / 51.4646°N 0.1705°W Clapham Junction railway station is near St John's Hill in the south-west of Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. Many routes from London's two busiest termini, Waterloo and Victoria, funnel through Clapham Junction and so the station is one of the busiest in Europe by number of trains using it, more than one hundred an hour outside peak time. It is not in Clapham, but the area around the station is commonly known as Clapham Junction and it has been identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.[2]
[edit] HistoryBefore the railway came the area was rural and specialised in growing lavender; Lavender Hill is to the east of the station. The coach road from London to Guildford ran slightly to the south of the future station site, past The Falcon public house at a crossroads in the valley between St. John's Hill and Lavender Hill. On 21 May 1838 the London and Southampton Railway, which became the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) that day, opened its line from Nine Elms as far as Woking. That was the first railway through the area but it had no station at the present site.  The second line, from Nine Elms initially to Richmond, opened on 27 July 1846. Nine Elms was replaced in 1848 as the terminus by Waterloo Bridge station, now Waterloo. The line to Victoria opened by 1860. Clapham Junction station opened on 2 March 1863 as a joint venture of the L&SWR, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) and the West London Extension Railway (WLER) to be an interchange station for the Windsor, South Western Main Line, Brighton and WLER lines.[3] Additional station buildings were erected in 1874 and 1876. When the station was built Battersea was regarded as a poor district while Clapham, a mile east, was more fashionable. The railway companies, seeking to attract a middle and upper class clientele, adopted the grander of the two names. The station brought development to the area around it; the population rose from 6,000 in 1840 to 168,000 by 1910.
[edit] Clapham rail disasterMain article: Clapham Junction rail crash On the morning of 12 December 1988 two collisions involving three commuter trains occurred slightly south-west of the station. Thirty-five people died and more than 100 were injured.   [edit] Today
Each day about 2,000 trains, most stopping, pass through the station, more than through any other station in Europe. At peak times 180 trains per hour pass through of which 117 stop. It is not the busiest station by number of passengers, most of whom pass through. Roughly 430,000 pass through each weekday, of whom 135,000 are at rush hour times. Interchanges make some forty per cent of the activity and by that count too it is the busiest station in the UK.[citation needed] The main entrance, at the south from St. John's Hill, leads into a subway some 15 ft (4.6 m) wide which runs beneath the eastern ends of all platforms and on to a northern exit, which has restricted opening hours. The subway becomes very crowded during rush hours: ticket barriers at the ends are pinch points. A very wide covered footbridge joins all platforms at their western ends but does not provide entry to or egress from the station. In 2007 Network Rail announced access improvements to be completed in 2009 which included re-opening the Brighton Yard entrance on St John's Hill and installing lifts to the platforms.[4] The station has limited public toilet facilities; refreshment kiosks in the underpass, on the overpass, and on some platforms; and a small shopping centre in the St. John's Hill entrance. British Transport Police maintain a neighbourhood policing presence at Clapham Junction.[5] [edit] FutureClapham Junction has no London Underground service but in 2007 the alignment of the proposed Chelsea-Hackney line possibly connecting to Clapham Junction was safeguarded . Secretary of State for Transport Geoff Hoon announced in February 2009 the allocation of £75m for extending the London Overground East London Line to Clapham Junction, a link which will permit travel from Clapham Junction through Brixton and Peckham to Shoreditch in east London. A planning application from Metro Shopping Fund for a £39.5 million project at the station was withdrawn shortly before Wandsworth Planning Committee was to consider it on 20 May 2009. Clapham Junction is overcrowded during rush-hours and it is generally agreed that improvement is needed. The plan included a new entrance on St John's Hill, straightened and extended platforms 15-17, more ticketing facilities, an enhancement of current works to give step-free access to all platforms by 2011, a new step-free entrance on Grant Road, and a new 'high street' from St John's Hill to Falcon Road with retail space and an art house cinema. To pay for the rail improvements there would have been two 42-storey residential buildings above the station. In 2009 the station was identified as second worst National Interchange station on the network, scoring a satisfaction rating of only 39% in a mystery shopper exercise conducted as part of a "Better Rail Stations" review undertaken for the Department for Transport. The station is one of ten set to receive a share of £50m funding for improvements, referenced in the review as "upgrade interchange: new entrances & more retail".[6][7] Heathrow Airtrack is a proposed new UK rail link from Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 (T5) towards the south, built on the disused southern portion of the former West Drayton to Staines railway line with direct services to Reading, Guildford, and London Waterloo, which will call at Clapham Junction. This will create a major interchange for those in the south and those travelling from Gatwick Airport to Heathrow avoiding central london. If permission is granted, work is forecast to begin in 2010, with rail services operating by 2014 [edit] Services All services from Waterloo, by South West Trains, and many from Victoria, by Southern and Gatwick Express, pass through the station as do the West London Line services of London Overground and Southern. Typical off-peak service an hour is about 110 trains (one train every 30 seconds) is:
 [edit] Platforms The station has 17 platforms, numbered 1 to 17 (number 1 is disused), divided in two groups. Platforms 1-6, the northern group, lie a west-southwesterly direction and platforms 7-17, the southern group are oriented in a southwesterly direction. Sidings leading into railway sheds at the west of the station separate the two groups. The main service usage at the platforms is:
Platforms 11-17 have very wide gaps between platforms and trains. [edit] TechnologyUntil 2003, when an extensive electronic train information display system was installed throughout the site, the large number of destinations sharing platforms made the station confusing for those unfamiliar with it. [edit] The junction The station is named Clapham Junction because it forms the junction of several rail lines. The name is not shared by any actual rail junction in or near the station. Nearby rail junctions are:
[edit] References
[edit] External links
Categories: 1863 architecture | British railway junctions | London Overground stations | London Travelcard zone 2 | Railway stations in Wandsworth | Railway stations opened in 1863 | Railway stations served by Southern | Railway stations served by South West Trains | British Transport Police stations | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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