The above photo, taken from a balloon over Spring Gardens, shows the line up from Vauxhall to Waterloo Station with a Eurostar to the left and suburban trains to the right.
Nine Elms in Vauxhall, now the site of the New Covent Garden flower market, was from 1834 the London terminus of the London & Southampton Railway, one of the first to be approved by Parliament. (See old map) The Metropolitan extension to Waterloo was opened in 1848 taking a sinuous course (photo above) to avoid the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, a gas works and Lambeth Palace.
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Special funeral trains ran from 1854 between London Necropolis Station and Brookwood Cemetery, offering one-way tickets for coffins, and returns for everyone else. There were two stations at Brookwood, one essentially "Church of England" and one non-conformist or non-Christian. The service was used by rich and poor. Indeed, the first burial was of still-born twins who were buried in the "allotment" maintained by St Saviours', Southwark as an alternative to burying paupers in what were essentially mass city centre graves. (St Saviours' parish church became Southwark Cathedral in 1905, but "St Saviours" was also an administrative area in what is now north Southwark, bordering on the Thames and including St Saviours' dock, which still exists, just beyond the Design Museum. St Saviours' infant mortality rate in the 1850s was 19% in the first year of life.) The entrance to the Necropolis Station can still be seen at 121 Westminster Bridge Road (see photo on left) but the station has not been used since it was bombed in April 1941. However, a special funeral train ran from Waterloo in 1979, carrying the body of Earl Mountbatten. The Brookwood service briefly competed with a similar funeral railway service which ran from Kings Cross to New Southgate from 1861 to 1863. Brookwood won out mainly because it had opened first, had agreed lower charges with the owner of the railway lines, and by 1861 had already entered into contracts with many London parishes. Further information about the Cemetery Railway can be found at the Brookwood Cemetery website |
The Northern Underground Line was opened in the 1870s. It now serves 50 stations and carries just over 200 million passengers each year. The tunnel from Morden to East Finchley via the City is over 17 miles long. One of our local stations - Kennington, with its beautiful dome - is the oldest surviving station on the Underground.
The Victoria Undergound Line opened in July 1971, to complaints from residents that the noise from trains running under their homes was very disturbing. The ground around the escalator shaft at Vauxhall station, near the river, was so soft that it had to be frozen before the tunnel could be driven through it!
Eurostar services to Paris and Brussels began in 1994, running from Waterloo through Vauxhall down to the Channel Tunnel.
Over 800 trains (i.e. 400 each way) now pass through Vauxhall station each day on their way between Clapham Junction & the Continent and Waterloo. Clapham Junction is the busiest station in Britain, if you include trains (to/from Victoria & Waterloo) that do not stop. Birmingham New Street has more trains that stop.
