London Victoria Railway Station

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Main facade

London Victoria ( IATA station code ZEP ) is one of the main train stations in London . It is located in the City of Westminster near Buckingham Palace and is named after the nearby Victoria Street . From here trains run to the southern suburbs of London and the south-east of England. In 2014, 81.356 million rail passengers used the station. In addition, Victoria is a major hub of the London Underground network , which was used by 86.73 million passengers in 2014 and is considered to be chronically congested.

Victoria Coach Station , London's terminal for coaches, is about 600 meters southwest of the station .

railroad

investment

Entrance to Victoria Railway Station

From an operational point of view, the station consists of two parts: from the east part (tracks 1 to 8) the trains to Kent , from the west part (tracks 9 to 19) the trains to Surrey , Sussex , Brighton and to London-Gatwick airport . There are currently three British rail companies serving Victoria Station: Gatwick Express , Southern and Southeastern . London Victoria is one of 18 UK train stations that are not managed by a rail company, but by the rail infrastructure company Network Rail .

Although both parts of the station were built around the same time, they can be clearly distinguished from one another due to the materials used at the time and the different construction of the station halls. The western station concourse has been under monument protection ( Grade II ) since 2001 , including the walls of the forecourt and the platforms.

history

Creation of the train station and the access route

The Crystal Palace , the exhibition hall of the Great Exhibition of 1851, was moved from its original location in Hyde Park to Sydenham in 1854 . This created a major tourist attraction in the still rural area outside the city and the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB & SCR) opened a branch of the Brighton Main Line there that same year . While construction was still going on, the West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway (WELCPR) was planning another route to the Crystal Palace, which began in Battersea at the southern end of the new Chelsea Bridge . This line went into operation in 1858. Shortly thereafter, LB & SCR leased most of the route and built a connection to the Brighton Main Line at Norwood Junction . Those responsible quickly realized that a new terminus was required north of the Thames to better develop the City of Westminster.

In the summer of 1857 there were first plans in this regard. The station was called Grosvenor Terminus during the project phase , but renamed Victoria a short time later, as it would be located on Victoria Street. Three other railway companies were also looking for suitable locations in Westminster: the Great Western Railway (GWR), the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) and the East Kent Railway (EKR). The first two had a rail connection to Battersea due to the joint ownership of the West London Line with LB & SCR. In 1858 the EKR leased the remaining lines of the WELCPR and negotiated with LB & SCR about usage rights in the event that the latter would build its own line to Westminster. On July 23, 1859, the four companies jointly founded the Victoria Station and Pimlico Railway (VS&PR) joint venture - with the intention of building a route from Battersea across the river to the planned terminus. The following month, the EKR was renamed the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LC&DR). The new route partly followed the Grosvenor Canal and required the construction of a new Thames bridge, the Grosvenor Bridge . It had multi-rail tracks to accommodate the broad gauge trains of the GWR.

Separate parts of the station

Station concourse (eastern part)

The station was built in two parts. On October 1, 1860, the western section of the LB & SCR station was opened, comprising six platforms, ten tracks and the Hotel Grosvenor with 300 rooms. In 1898, LB & SCR had its station section torn down and replaced with a larger brick building in the neo-renaissance style. The work that included the renovation of the hotel was completed in 1908. On December 1, 1909, the LB & SCR began electrical operations on the route to London Bridge , using overhead lines .

Station concourse (eastern part)

On June 28, 1860, the LC&DR and the GWR jointly leased the eastern part of Victoria Station for a period of 999 years, whereby the GWR contented itself with a share of 6.67%. The LC&DR opened its main line to Canterbury on December 3, 1860 and began using the station section of the LB & SCR on the same day. This temporary use ended on August 25, 1862, when LC&DR and GWR opened the eastern section of the station (with a wooden facade). This part had eight tracks, five of which were mixed with broad gauge for the GWR, which let trains run from here to Windsor .

From 1899, the LC&DR formed a joint operating company with the South Eastern Railway , the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SE&CR). The consequence of this was a rationalization of the access to Victoria. The eastern section of the station was also rebuilt and reopened on June 16, 1906. The GWR no longer served the station from 1915. The reasons for this were, on the one hand, the First World War and , on the other hand, the competition from electrified subways in West London.

United station

One of the last steam trains in Victoria Station (1961)

Both parts of the station had a separate entrance and their own station board; a wall made the separation clear. With the entry into force of the Railways Act 1921 , LB & SCR and SE&CR went into the new company Southern Railway (SR) in 1923 . In 1924, both parts of the station were connected by removing the separating wall and the platforms were given uniform numbering. SR concentrated its express trains to the English Channel ferries at Victoria Station. Its most famous features were the Pullman trains Golden Arrow (1926) and Brighton Belle (from 1933) and Night Train Night Ferry to Paris (from 1936).

In 1933 the station got its own cinema for rail travelers. It was designed by Alastair Macdonald, son of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald , and was in operation until 1981. The GWR remained co-owner of the station until 1932. She reserved usage rights, but never made use of them. In the 1920s and 1930s, SR electrified almost all of the routes departing from Victoria. It completely replaced the overhead contact line system introduced by LB & SCR a few years earlier with busbars . In 1948 the state British Rail took the place of the Southern Railway. In 1984 the Gatwick Express was introduced, which has ensured a non-stop connection to Gatwick Airport ever since . Since the privatization of British Rail in the mid-1990s, the infrastructure company Network Rail has been responsible for the station. In the 1980s, the interior of the station was extensively rebuilt. A shopping arcade was created in the main hall and above the western platforms.

On February 18, 1991, an IRA bomb exploded . One man was killed and 38 people were injured. The Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorism unit had decided not to evacuate the station despite having received a telephone warning.

London Underground

Victoria Line platform southbound
Circle Line and District Line platforms

There are two metro stations, which were built on two different levels and more than a century apart. The older one on the north side of the bus station was built using the open construction method immediately below the street and serves the Circle Line and District Line . The newer station, closer to the train station, serves the Victoria Line , which runs in deep-lying tunnels. Both stations have their own counter hall and are connected by a pedestrian underpass under the bus station.

The first part of the underground station was opened by the Metropolitan District Railway , the predecessor of the District Line, on December 24, 1868, when it opened its first section between South Kensington and Westminster . The station building was rebuilt at the beginning of the 20th century. It was initially single-storey and was later integrated into an office building that was built around it. On July 1, 1905, the line was electrified. The opening of the Victoria Line station took place on March 7, 1969, when the third section of that line south of Warren Street opened. During the construction work on the last section, Victoria Station served temporarily as the southern terminus. From July 23, 1971, trains continued to Brixton .

With over 80 million passengers annually, Victoria is one of the most heavily used underground stations in London. The station is much too small for so many passengers, which often leads to overloads. For this reason, the entrances often have to be closed during rush hour; the station can then only be left but not entered. Crossrail 2 would make the situation even worse. Extensive renovation and expansion work therefore began at the end of 2010. A new counter hall will be built under Bressenden Place by summer 2016, which will lead to both the Victoria Line and the Circle / District Line. In addition, the existing counter hall will be expanded by 2018 with additional escalators.

If the S-Bahn line Crossrail 2 is implemented as planned, Victoria would be supplemented by a new tunnel station.

See also

Web links

Commons : Victoria Train Station (London)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Estimates of station usage. (Excel, 1.1 MB) Office of Rail Regulation, 2014, accessed on December 29, 2017 (English).
  2. ↑ COUNTS - 2014 - annual entries & exits. (PDF, 44 kB) (No longer available online.) Transport for London, 2015, archived from the original on February 21, 2016 ; accessed on December 29, 2017 (English).
  3. ^ Victoria railway station: The former LB & SCR railway station and rear concourse. (No longer available online.) In: National heritage list of England. National Heritage, formerly in the original ; accessed on February 1, 2013 (English).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / list.english-heritage.org.uk  
  4. ^ Adrian Gray: The London to Brighton Line 1841-1877 . Oakwood Press, Blandford Forum 1977, OCLC 4570078 , p. 42-43 .
  5. ^ Gray: The London to Brighton Line 1841–1877. P. 45.
  6. ^ John Howard Turner: The London Brighton and South Coast Railway 2: Establishment and Growth . Batsford, London 1978, ISBN 0-7134-1198-8 , pp. 116-117 .
  7. ^ Turner: The London Brighton and South Coast Railway 2. p. 122.
  8. ^ John Betjeman: London's historic railway stations . John Murray, London 1972, ISBN 0-7195-3426-7 , pp. 98 .
  9. ^ John Howard Turner: The London Brighton and South Coast Railway 3: Completion and Maturity . Batsford, London 1979, ISBN 0-7134-1389-1 , pp. 172-175 .
  10. ↑ a b GWR Memorandum for the Board, January 23, 1931. National Archives RAIL 1057/2931.
  11. ^ HP White: A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: 2 Southern England . Phoenix House, London 1961, OCLC 271476914 , p. 40 .
  12. ^ Geoffrey Body: Railways of the Southern Region . Patrick Stephens Ltd, London 1989, ISBN 1-85260-297-X , pp. 201 .
  13. ^ A b A. B. Marshall, DF Dendy: History of the Southern Railway . Ian Allan, London 1968, ISBN 0-7110-0059-X , p. 396 .
  14. ^ Railway Agreement. GWR and Victoria Station. The Times, February 9, 1933, p. 18.
  15. ^ John Bowyer Bell: The Irish Troubles: A Generation of Violence 1967-1992 . Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1994, ISBN 978-0-7171-2201-1 , pp. 786 .
  16. ^ District Line. Clive's Underground Line Guides, accessed February 1, 2013 .
  17. ^ John R. Day, John Reed: The Story of London's Underground . Capital Transport, London 2001, ISBN 1-85414-316-6 , pp. 65 .
  18. ^ District Line. Clive's Underground Line Guides, accessed February 1, 2013 .
  19. ↑ Victoria ( Memento from December 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  20. ↑ Victoria station. Crossrail 2, 2018, accessed April 1, 2018 .
Previous station Transport for London Next station
Sloane Square   Circle Line   St. James's Park
  District Line  
Green Park   Victoria Line   Pimlico
Previous station National Rail Next train station
final destination   Southeastern
Catford Loop Line 		  Denmark Hill
  Southeastern
Chatham Main Line (via Herne Hill) 		  Brixton or
Bromley South
  Southern
Brighton Main Line 		  Battersea Park or
Clapham Junction or
East Croydon
  Southern
Oxted Line 		  Clapham Junction
  Southern
Gatwick Express 		  Gatwick Airport
  Venice Simplon Orient Express
London – Paris – Venice 		  Folkestone West

Coordinates: 51 ° 29 '43.4 "  N , 0 ° 8' 39.8"  W.