Vauxhall station

For the station in Birmingham, formerly known as Vauxhall, see Duddeston railway station.

Vauxhall
Station entrance to National Rail Vauxhall station, July 2024
Vauxhall Location of Vauxhall in Greater London
Location	Vauxhall
Local authority	London Borough of Lambeth
Managed by	South Western Railway
Station code(s)	VXH
DfT category	B
Number of platforms	8 National Rail 2 London Underground
Accessible	Yes[1]
Fare zone	1 and 2
London Underground annual entry and exit
2019	32.30 million[2]
2020	15.46 million[3]
2021	13.62 million[4]
2022	20.88 million[5]
2023	20.77 million[6]
National Rail annual entry and exit
2019–20	19.997 million[7]
2020–21	4.987 million[7]
2021–22	11.651 million[7]
2022–23	13.012 million[7]
2023–24	13.932 million[7]
Key dates
11 July 1848	Opened (LSWR)
23 July 1971	Opened (London Underground)
Other information
External links	TfL station info page Departures Facilities
Coordinates	51.4854°N 0.1229°W / 51.4854; -0.1229
London transport portal

Vauxhall (/ˈvɒksɔːl/, VOK-sawl) is a National Rail, London Underground and London Buses interchange station in central London. It is at the Vauxhall Cross road junction opposite the southern approach to Vauxhall Bridge over the River Thames in the district of Vauxhall. The mainline station is run by the South Western Railway and is the first stop on the South West Main Line from London Waterloo towards Clapham Junction and the south-west. The Underground station is on the Victoria line and the station is close to St George Wharf Pier for river services.

The station was opened by the London and South Western Railway in 1848 as Vauxhall Bridge station. It was rebuilt in 1856 after a large fire, and given its current name in 1862. In the early 20th century, Vauxhall saw significant use as a stop for trains delivering milk from across the country into London. The tube station opened in 1971 as part of the Victoria line extension towards Brixton, while the bus station opened in 2004. It remains an important local interchange on the London transport network.

Location

The station sits just to the east of Vauxhall Bridge, on a viaduct with eight platforms, straddling South Lambeth Road and South Lambeth Place, alongside Vauxhall Cross.^[8][9] On the National Rail network it is the next station on the South West Main Line along from London Waterloo, 1 mile 29 chains (2.2 km) to the south-west. On the Underground it is on the Victoria line between Pimlico to the north and Stockwell to the south.^[10] The area has several surrounding railways, including the line from Victoria to Streatham.^[11] The station is on the boundary of zones 1 and 2 of the London Travelcard area and, although a through station, it is classed as a central London terminus for ticketing purposes.^[1][12]

Vauxhall bus station is at ground level, across the road from the railway station. It has a photovoltaic roof supplying much of its electricity, and caters for around 2,000 buses per day.^[13]

History

Mainline station

A 1912 Railway Clearing House map of lines around Clapham Junction. Vauxhall station is at the extreme right of this map

The station is incorporated within the Nine Elms to Waterloo Viaduct. It was opened by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) as "Vauxhall Bridge Station" on 11 July 1848 when the main line was extended from Nine Elms to Waterloo, then known as "Waterloo Bridge Station". The viaduct was constructed to minimize property disturbances; nevertheless some 700 properties were demolished extending the line past Nine Elms and through Vauxhall.^[14]

In the period when Vauxhall was opened, there was no way for an inspector to move through the length of a train to check tickets, so it was used as a ticket stop, like several other stations. Having arrived at Vauxhall, the train would stop for as long as necessary while all tickets could be examined and collected.^[15][16]

On 13 April 1856, the station caught fire and was almost totally destroyed. The line was quickly repaired and services through to Waterloo resumed without much delay.^[17] After being rebuilt, the station was renamed "Vauxhall" in 1862.^[18][a] In the same year, the LSWR widened the main line through the station.^[20] Vauxhall was remodelled in 1936, which included an overhaul of the signalling system up to Waterloo.^[21]

Milk trains

In 1921, United Dairies opened a major creamery and milk bottling plant opposite Vauxhall station.^[22] Subsequently, milk trains regularly stopped at the station.^[11][23] The regular daily milk train was from Torrington, but services from all over the West Country would stop at Clapham Junction in the evening,^[24] and reduce their length by half so that they did not block Vauxhall station while unloading. They would then proceed to Vauxhall, and pull into the Up Windsor Local platform, where a discharge pipe was provided to the creamery on the other side of the road.^[23][25] There was also pedestrian access from below the station, under the road to the depot, in the tunnel where the pipeline ran. Unloaded trains would then proceed to Waterloo, where they would reverse and return to Clapham Junction to pick up the other half of the train. The procedure was then repeated, so that the entire milk train was unloaded between the end of evening peak traffic and the start of the following morning.^[25]

Modern developments

In 2017, work began to modernise the station layout and reduce congestion as part of an £800 million works programme to improve access to Waterloo. The existing lift was replaced and a new staircase was added between platforms 7 and 8 and the concourse.^[26]

London Underground

The subway entrance to Vauxhall tube station, July 2024

Vauxhall Underground station

The first proposed underground station at Vauxhall was as part of the West and South London Junction Railway. The line was intended to connect Paddington to Oval via Vauxhall, crossing the River Thames slightly downstream of Vauxhall Bridge. It was rejected in January 1901 for failing to comply with Standing Orders and giving correct notice of eviction, and the plans were quietly shelved.^[27] Another abandoned scheme to connect Cannon Street with Wimbledon would have seen an interchange at Vauxhall; these plans were scrapped in 1902 owing to lack of funds.^[28]

The current deep tube London Underground station is on the Victoria line, which was the first major post-war underground project in Central London. The line was given approval to be extended from Victoria underneath the Thames to Vauxhall (and onwards to Brixton) in March 1966. To construct the escalator shaft, the ground beneath it was frozen with brine.^[29] The station platforms were designed by Design Research Unit and decorated with a motif from the 19th-century Vauxhall Gardens, designed by George Smith.^[30][31] At the same time, Vauxhall Cross road junction was rebuilt in order to accommodate the new Underground station.^[32] The Underground station was opened on 23 July 1971 by Princess Alexandra, as part of the extension of the Victoria line to Brixton.^[18][30]

In October 1982, the first automated ticketing system on the Underground was installed at Vauxhall on an experimental basis. The two machines were a "Tenfare" which sold the ten most popular single tickets, and "Allfare" which supplied single and return tickets to any tube station. The experiment ran until July 1983, and was subsequently used in the design of the rollout of the Underground ticketing system across the network.^[33]

In 2005, the existing fixed staircase between the two escalators down to platform level was replaced by a new escalator. Installed by Metronet as part of the Tube Private Public Partnership, the escalator was installed due to the high numbers of passengers using the station.^[34]

In the late 2000s, one potential option for extending the Northern line to Battersea was a route via Vauxhall station. Despite the benefit of connecting to the Victoria line and National Rail services, the option had a significantly higher cost than others, and increased the potential for increased overcrowding at the station.^[35] A route via Nine Elms was chosen instead.^[36] In the mid 2010s, the Underground station was upgraded and refurbished at a cost of £36m, as part of the Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea regeneration project.^[37] Lifts were installed to provide step-free access to the Victoria line.^[38]

Bus

Main article: Vauxhall bus station

The bus station opened on 4 December 2004. It was designed by Arup Associates and features a distinctive metallic design constructed out of stainless steel.^[39] The station has been criticised for its proximity to the heavy traffic around Vauxhall Cross. In 2011, Transport for London announced they would demolish the bus station and construct a "linear walkway" instead. This was scrapped, but in 2017, they revived the demolition plans as part of general improvements in the area following support from Lambeth Council. The rebuilding is expected to take place between 2019 and 2021.^[40] Kate Hoey, member of parliament for Vauxhall has criticised the proposals, calling them a "stitch up".^[41]

Services

National Rail

Vauxhall railway station platforms from the western end.

Vauxhall railway station is served by the South Western Railway to and from London Waterloo. Approximately 460 trains travel between the stations each day.^[42]

There are 8 platforms at the station, arranged into 4 islands, which, from north to south:

• Platforms 1 and 2 on Waterloo–Reading line towards London Waterloo
• Platforms 3 and 4 on Waterloo–Reading line towards Reading
• Platform 5 on South West Main Line fast line towards London Waterloo
• Platform 6 on South West Main Line fast line towards Weymouth
• Platform 7 on South West Main Line slow line towards London Waterloo
• Platform 8 on South West Main Line slow line towards Weymouth

In practice, platforms 5 and 6 are not used for passenger calls as fast trains do not call at this station.

The typical off-peak service consists of:^[43]

•  2 tph to Chessington South
•  2 tph to Dorking
•  2 tph to Guildford via Cobham
•  2 tph to Guildford via Epsom
•  2 tph to Hampton Court
•  2 tph on the Hounslow Loop Line via Hounslow and Richmond, returning to Waterloo (anti-clockwise)
•  2 tph on the Hounslow Loop via Richmond and Hounslow, returning to Waterloo (clockwise)
•  2 tph on the Kingston Loop Line via Kingston and Richmond, returning to Waterloo (clockwise)
•  2 tph on the Kingston Loop via Richmond and Kingston, returning to Waterloo (anti-clockwise)
•  2 tph to Shepperton
•  2 tph to Weybridge via Hounslow
•  2 tph to Windsor & Eton Riverside
•  2 tph to Woking
•  24 tph to London Waterloo

London Underground

Vauxhall is between Pimlico and Stockwell on the Victoria line with a peak time service frequency of 36 trains per hour, or around one every 100 seconds.^[44]

Connections

London Buses routes 2, 36, 77, 87, 88, 156, 185, 196, 344, 360, 436, 452 and night routes N2, N87 and N136 serve the adjacent bus station.^[45][46]

London River Services are available from nearby St George Wharf Pier.^[47] The service was opened in September 2011 by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, with the aim of expanding boat transport along the Thames by 20%. A service runs approximately every 40 minutes to the City of London and Canary Wharf.^[48]

Preceding station	London Underground			Following station
Stockwell towards Brixton		Victoria line		Pimlico towards Walthamstow Central
Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
London Waterloo		South Western Railway South West Main Line		Clapham Junction or Queenstown Road (Battersea)

Incidents

• On 11 September 1880, a light engine collided with a service from Waterloo to Hampton. Five passengers were killed.^[49]
• On 29 August 1912, a light engine collided with a rake of nine carriages. One passenger was killed and 43 were injured.^[50]
• On 20 September 1934, two electric suburban trains collided at Vauxhall. The driver of one train and a passenger were taken to St Thomas' Hospital for treatment.^[51]
• On 9 October 2000, an untrained student worker was hit by a train near Vauxhall station while unsupervised. An inquest in May 2002 returned a verdict of unlawful killing.^[52]
• On 5 May 2016, a fire broke out in one of the signal cables at Vauxhall station. Services from Waterloo through the station were cancelled and the next major down station, Clapham Junction was closed as an overcrowding measure.^[53][54]

Name

The name Vauxhall is phonetically similar to the Russian word for a railway station, вокзал (vokzal). One theory for this similarity is that Tsar Nicholas I visited Britain in the mid-19th century to study the railway network. At the time, every train on the South Western Railway called at Vauxhall as a ticket stop. From this, the Tsar concluded that Vauxhall was a major transport interchange, and the word was introduced as the generic term in Russian.^[55]

References

Notes

1. A station in Birmingham called "Vauxhall" had been opened by the London and North Western Railway on 1 March 1869; it was renamed "Vauxhall and Duddeston" on 1 November 1889 and "Duddeston" on 6 May 1974.^[19]

Citations

1. Standard Tube Map (PDF) (Map). Not to scale. Transport for London. April 2024. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 May 2024. Retrieved 3 June 2024.
2. "Station Usage Data" (XLSX). Usage Statistics for London Stations, 2019. Transport for London. 23 September 2020. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
3. "Station Usage Data" (XLSX). Usage Statistics for London Stations, 2020. Transport for London. 16 April 2021. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
4. "Station Usage Data" (XLSX). Usage Statistics for London Stations, 2021. Transport for London. 12 July 2022. Retrieved 7 September 2022.
5. "Station Usage Data" (XLSX). Usage Statistics for London Stations, 2022. Transport for London. 4 October 2023. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
6. "Station Usage Data" (XLSX). Usage Statistics for London Stations, 2023. Transport for London. 8 August 2024. Retrieved 16 September 2024.
7. "Estimates of station usage". Rail statistics. Office of Rail Regulation. Please note: Some methodology may vary year on year.
8. "Vauxhall (Ground Floor)". National Rail Enquiries. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
9. "Near Vauxhall Bridge Road". Transport for London. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
10. Brown, Joe (19 February 2015). London Railway Atlas. Ian Allan. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-7110-3819-6.
11. Davies & Grant 1983, p. 68.
12. "'London Terminal' stations". Network Rail. Retrieved 12 September 2017.
13. Glancey, Jonathan (11 April 2005). "Architecture – Route master". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
14. Jackson 1984, p. 213-215.
15. Patmore 1982, p. 171.
16. Bradley 2015, p. 52.
17. "Destruction Of Vauxhall Railway Station". The Times. London. 14 April 1856. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
18. Butt 1995, p. 238.
19. Butt 1995, pp. 83, 238.
20. "Railway Intelligence". The Times. London. 11 April 1862. p. 10. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
21. "Southern Railway Improvements". The Times. London. 16 May 1936. p. 8. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
22. "United Dairies, Limited". The Times. London. 12 November 1921. p. 17+. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
23. Course 1962, p. 92.
24. Maidment 2015, p. 15.
25. "The Torrington Milk Train". SVS Films. 21 January 2012.
26. "Network Rail invites passengers to learn more about Vauxhall station improvements". Network Rail (Press release). 13 March 2017. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
27. Badsey-Ellis 2005, p. 98.
28. Badsey-Ellis 2005, p. 135.
29. Day & Reed 2010, pp. 163, 168.
30. Day & Reed 2010, p. 171.
31. Lawrence 1994, p. 197.
32. "Vauxhall takes on new look". The Times. London. 9 April 1970. p. 5. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
33. Day & Reed 2010, p. 184.
34. "New escalator to improve Vauxhall Station". Transport for London. 9 June 2005. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
35. "Proposals for a Northern Line extension to Nine Elms and Battersea" (PDF). Real Estate Opportunities and Treasury Holdings. May 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 July 2017. Retrieved 9 September 2021.
36. "Northern line extension". Transport for London. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
37. "£36m upgrade of Vauxhall Tube station reaches half way". Transport for London. 18 December 2014. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
38. "Vauxhall Tube upgrade begins next year". Nine Elms on the South Bank. 20 May 2013. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
39. "An Ode To Vauxhall Bus Station". September 2016. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
40. "End looms for Arup Associates' long-threatened Vauxhall bus station". Architects' Journal. 26 September 2017. Retrieved 7 December 2018.
41. "Outcry after Lambeth votes to demolish Arup Associates' 'iconic' Vauxhall bus station". Architects' Journal. 21 December 2017. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
42. "Vauxhall to London Waterloo". The Train Line. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
43. "Timetables". South Western Railway. Select the appropriate timetable to verify the train frequency. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
44. "Victoria line trains now run every 100 seconds making it the second most frequent line in the world". Evening Standard. 22 May 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
45. "Buses from Vauxhall" (PDF). TfL. 29 June 2024. Retrieved 28 June 2024.
46. "Night buses from Vauxhall" (PDF). TfL. June 2022. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
47. "MBNA Thames Clippers Timetable" (PDF). 21 May 2018. Archived from the original (Timetable) on 14 September 2018. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
48. "New floating Thames pier opens at Vauxhall". BBC News. 15 September 2011. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
49. "The Vauxhall Railway Accident". The Times. London. 28 September 1880. p. 4. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
50. Brodrick, Nick. "LSWR "lavatory brake third"". Steam Railway (375, 30 April – 27 May 2010). Bauer Media: 56.
51. "Electric Trains In Collision". The Times. London. 21 September 1934. p. 12. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
52. "Student rail worker 'unlawfully killed'". BBC News. 20 May 2002. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
53. "Vauxhall Station fire: Ongoing disruption follows blaze". BBC News. 5 May 2016. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
54. "Vauxhall station fire disrupts London rail services". 5 May 2016. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
55. Reeves, Phil (21 September 1997). "From Vauxhall to Vokzal". The Independent. Archived from the original on 11 August 2022. Retrieved 12 September 2018.

Sources

• Butt, R. V. J. (October 1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199. OL 11956311M.
• Badsey-Ellis, Antony (2005). London's Lost Tube Schemes. Capital Transport. ISBN 185414-293-3.
• Bradley, Simon (2015). The Railways - Nation, Network and People. Profile Books. ISBN 978-1-84668-209-4.
• Course, Edwin (1962). London railways. B. T. Batsford.
• Davies, R; Grant, M.D. (1983). London and its railways. David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-8107-5.
• Day, John R; Reed, John (2010) [1963]. The Story of London's Underground. Capital Transport. ISBN 978-1-85414-341-9.
• Jackson, Alan (1984) [1969]. London's Termini (New Revised ed.). London: David & Charles. ISBN 0-330-02747-6.
• Lawrence, David (1994). Underground Architecture. Capital Transport. ISBN 978-1-854-14160-6.
• Maidment, David (2015). A Privileged Journey: From Enthusiast to Professional Railwayman. Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1-473-85949-4.
• Patmore, John Allan (1982). A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Southern England. David & Charles. ISBN 978-0-715-38365-0.

External links

• Train times and station information for Vauxhall station from National Rail