Sutton railway station (London)

Sutton railway station (sometimes referred to as Sutton (Surrey) on tickets and timetables) is in the London Borough of Sutton in South London and is the main station serving the town of Sutton. 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]

Sutton
Station platforms, looking west
Sutton
Location of Sutton in Greater London
LocationSutton
Local authorityLondon Borough of Sutton
Managed bySouthern
Station codeSUO
DfT categoryC2
Number of platforms4
AccessibleYes[1]
Fare zone5
National Rail annual entry and exit
2015–16 7.111 million[2]
– interchange  0.649 million[2]
2016–17 6.526 million[2]
– interchange  0.533 million[2]
2017–18 6.362 million[2]
– interchange  0.522 million[2]
2018–19 6.488 million[2]
– interchange  0.600 million[2]
2019–20 6.475 million[2]
– interchange  0.629 million[2]
Key dates
10 May 1847Opened (LB&SCR)
22 May 1865Start (Epsom Downs line)
1 October 1868Start (Mitcham Junction line)
5 January 1930Start (Wimbledon line)
Other information
External links
WGS8451.3601°N 0.1903°W / 51.3601; -0.1903
 London transport portal

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 Sutton to Bognor Regis, Chichester or Portsmouth. 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

Services at Sutton are operated by Southern and Thameslink using Class 377, 455 and 700 EMUs.

The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:[8][9]

Preceding station National Rail Following station
Southern
Terminus
Southern
Thameslink
Southern
Sutton Loop Line
Peak Hours Only
  Abandoned Plans  
Preceding station   London Underground   Following station
TerminusDistrict line
towards Barking or Edgware Road
Northern line
towards Edgware or Highgate

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 or a separate bus rapid transit (BRT) system called the Sutton Link will create a new tram or BRT/rail interchange in Sutton, offering services to South Wimbledon via St Helier.[10][11]

References
  1. "London and South East" (PDF). National Rail. September 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 March 2009.
  2. "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. 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. "Timetable 04: Wimbledon and Sutton Loop services" (PDF). Thameslink, December 2019.
  9. "Timetable 34: Epsom and Sutton and London" (PDF). Southern, December 2019.
  10. 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.
  11. https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/trams/sutton-link/
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