Sutton railway station (London)

Sutton National Rail
Station platforms, looking west
Sutton
Location of Sutton in Greater London
Location Sutton
Local authority London Borough of Sutton
Managed by Southern
Station code SUO
DfT category C2
Number of platforms 4
Accessible Yes[1]
Fare zone 5
National Rail annual entry and exit
2012–13 Increase 6.353 million[2]
2013–14 Increase 6.607 million[2]
2014–15 Increase 6.779 million[2]
– interchange  0.644 million[2]
2015–16 Increase 7.111 million[2]
– interchange  Increase 0.649 million[2]
2016–17 Decrease 6.526 million[2]
– interchange  Decrease 0.533 million[2]
Key dates
1847 Opened (LB&SCR)
1865 Start (Epsom Downs line)
1868 Start (Mitcham Junction line)
1930 Start (Wimbledon line)
Other information
Lists of stations
External links
WGS84 51°21′36″N 0°11′25″W / 51.3601°N 0.1903°W / 51.3601; -0.1903Coordinates: 51°21′36″N 0°11′25″W / 51.3601°N 0.1903°W / 51.3601; -0.1903
London transport portal
UK Railways portal

Sutton railway station is in the London Borough of Sutton in south London and is the main station serving Sutton town. It is served by Southern and Thameslink trains, and lies in Travelcard Zone 5, 14 miles 75 chains (24.04 km) down the line from London Bridge,[3] measured via Forest Hill.[4]

History

The former Sutton station in a 1905 postcard
The present day Sutton station

Sutton station was opened by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) on 10 May 1847, when the railway opened its line from West Croydon to Epsom. A branch to Epsom Downs was opened on 22 May 1865, followed by a line to Mitcham Junction on 1 October 1868. The final change to the station came when the branch to Wimbledon opened on 5 January 1930.

Until the early 1980s, it was possible to catch a direct express train to the coast from here to Bognor Regis, Chichester or Portsmouth. This service, until its withdrawal, also gave Sutton its fastest ever journey time to London Victoria, of 17 minutes. Since the mid-1980s, these express services have been routed via East Croydon in order to serve Gatwick Airport; passengers from Sutton for the south coast now have to change at Horsham, or alternatively travel to West Croydon station and walk, take the bus or use Croydon's Tramlink service to reach East Croydon station.

Today, travel to London Victoria takes just over 25 minutes on the direct route via Carshalton and Hackbridge.

Layout

The four platforms at Sutton station are numbered 1 to 4 from north to south. Platforms 1 and 2 are on the lines to Wimbledon, Epsom, Leatherhead, Dorking, and Horsham. Platforms 3 and 4 are on the Epsom Downs Line, which becomes single-track about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) south of the station. Platforms 1 and 3 are used by services from outer termini to Central London. Trains from Central London use platforms 2 and 4. Terminating trains which return to central London generally use platform 4.

Platforms 1 and 2 can accommodate 12-coach trains, and were used by the express services to Bognor Regis and Portsmouth Harbour until they were diverted in the early 1980s to serve Gatwick Airport. Nowadays all trains calling at Sutton are formed of ten coaches or fewer. At the London end of platform 1, there are the remains of a fifth platform, which was a bay for local services via Mitcham Junction.

Two waiting rooms serve the station. One has its own cafe; the other has a Starbucks kiosk adjacent to it. An M&S Food to Go shop sits adjacent to the concourse within the station building.[5]

Three lifts serve all platforms – one each for platforms one, two/three and four.

The installation of a side entrance serving the Quadrant was completed in summer 2014.

Wimbledon branch

Parliamentary approval for a line from Wimbledon to Sutton had been obtained by the Wimbledon and Sutton Railway (W&SR) in 1910, but work had been delayed by the First World War.[6] From the W&SR's inception, the District Railway (DR, now the District line) was a shareholder of the company and had rights to run trains over the line when built. In the 1920s, the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL, precursor of London Underground) planned, through its ownership of the DR, to use part of the route for an extension of the City and South London Railway (C&SLR, now the Northern line) to Sutton.[6] The SR objected and an agreement was reached that enabled the C&SLR to extend as far as Morden in exchange for the UERL giving up its rights over the W&SR route. The SR subsequently built the line, one of the last to be built in the London area. In both the 1910 and 1920s proposals, the next station towards Wimbledon was to be Cheam on Cheam Road, but the SR dropped this station and replaced it with West Sutton station.[7] The line opened on 5 January 1930 when full services on the line were extended from South Merton.[6]

Services

All services at Sutton are operated by Govia Thameslink Railway, under the Southern and Thameslink brands.

The typical off-peak service (Monday to Saturday) from the station is:[8]

There are direct services to/from Guildford, Clandon, Dulwich, and Peckham Rye during weekday mornings and evenings.

On a Sunday the service from this station is:

Connections

London Buses routes 80, 164, 280, 470, S1, S3 and S4, night route N44 and non-TFL route 420 serve the station.

Future

A planned extension to the Tramlink light rail system will create a new tram interchange at Sutton, offering tram services to South Wimbledon via St Helier and Morden .[9]

References

  1. ↑ "London and South East" (PDF). National Rail. September 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 March 2009.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Station usage estimates". Rail statistics. Office of Rail Regulation. Please note: Some methodology may vary year on year.
  3. ↑ "London's Rail & Tube services" (PDF). Retrieved 15 September 2011.
  4. ↑ Yonge, John (November 2008) [1994]. Jacobs, Gerald, ed. Railway Track Diagrams 5: Southern & TfL (3rd ed.). Bradford on Avon: Trackmaps. map 22. ISBN 978-0-9549866-4-3.
  5. ↑ "National Rail Enquiries - station information for Sutton". www.nationalrail.co.uk.
  6. 1 2 3 Jackson, Alan A. (December 1966). "The Wimbledon & Sutton Railway – A late arrival on the South London suburban scene" (PDF). The Railway Magazine. pp. 675–680. Retrieved 7 May 2009.
  7. ↑ Wilson, Geoffrey (September 2008). "The Wimbledon & Sutton Railway" (PDF). Merton Historical Society: Bulletin 167: 10–13. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  8. ↑ https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/timetabling/electronic-national-rail-timetable/ (Timetable Nos. 172, 173, 179, and 180 May 2018)
  9. ↑ White, Anna (26 September 2017). "Exclusive: Tramlink extension set to bring 10,000 new homes to south-west London as TfL promises £70m to project". Evening Standard. Retrieved 27 September 2017.
Preceding station National Rail Following station
Carshalton   Southern
Sutton & Mole Valley Lines
Epsom Downs Branch		   Cheam
Carshalton Beeches     Belmont
Carshalton Beeches   Southern
London Victoria via Norbury
   Terminus
Carshalton   Thameslink
Thameslink		   West Sutton
  Southern
Sutton Loop Line
Limited Service		  
  Abandoned Plans  
Preceding station   London Underground   Following station
TerminusDistrict line
towards Barking or Edgware Road
Northern line
towards Edgware or Highgate
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