Wimbledon station

Wimbledon station is a National Rail, London Underground, and Tramlink station located in Wimbledon in the London Borough of Merton, and is the only London station to serve all three. The station serves as a junction for services from London Underground District Line and National Rail operators (South West Trains and First Capital Connect) and Tramlink Route 3. Some early morning services on the First Capital Connect route are provided by Southern. The station is in Travelcard Zone 3.

History
The first railway station in Wimbledon was opened on 21 May 1838 when the London & South Western Railway (L&SWR) opened its line from its terminus at Nine Elms in Battersea to Woking. The original station was to the south of the current station on the opposite side of the Wimbledon Bridge.

On 22 October 1855 the Wimbledon & Croydon Railway (W&CR) opened its line from Wimbledon to West Croydon via Mitcham and on 1 October 1868 the Tooting, Merton & Wimbledon Railway (TM&WR) opened a line to Tooting Junction (now just Tooting station).

On 3 June 1889 the Metropolitan District Railway (MDR, now London Underground's District Line) opened the extension of its line from Putney Bridge, making Wimbledon station the new terminus of that branch and providing Wimbledon with a direct connection to the developing London Underground system. The station was rebuilt on its current site for the opening of this service.

District Line steam-hauled services were replaced by an electric services from 27 August 1905. Mainline suburban services were gradually replaced by electric rolling stock either side of World War I although long distance journeys continued to use steam-haulage until much later.

The station was rebuilt again with its current Portland stone entrance building by the Southern Railway (SR, the post Grouping successor to the L&SWR) in the late 1920s as part of the SR's construction of the line to Sutton. Parliamentary approval for this line had been obtained by the Wimbledon and Sutton Railway (W&SR) in 1910 but work had been delayed by World War I. From the W&SR's inception, the MDR was a significant shareholder of the company and had rights to run trains over the line when built. In the 1920s, the London Electric Railway (LER, precursor of London Underground) was, through its ownership of the MDR, able to obtain approval to use part of the route for an extension of the City and South London Railway (C&SLR, now the Northern Line) to Sutton. The SR objected and an agreement was reached that enabled the C&SLR to extend as far as Morden in exchange for the LER 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. It opened on 5 January 1930.

On 2 June 1997 the Wimbledon to West Croydon line was closed by Railtrack for conversion to operation as part of the Tramlink tram operations. Part of platform 10 was utilised for the single track terminus of tramlink route 1 and rail tracks and infrastructure were replaced with those for the tram system. The new service opened on 30 May 2000. The other part of platform 10 is currently used as a terminus for First Capital Connect services.

Oyster cards
Wimbledon station presents an unusual problem with the Oyster card "Pay as you Go" electronic ticketing system. Ordinarily, London Underground passengers with Oyster cards must "touch in" at the start of their journey and "touch out" at the end. Those who fail to "touch out" will be charged the maximum possible Underground fare from their starting point. Tramlink passengers who enter Wimbledon station cannot "touch out", since tram stops provide no facility to do so. Instead they must "touch in" a second time on the tram platform at Wimbledon, after passing through the ticket barrier. The system will then recognise that no tube journey has been made.

Future
If Crossrail Line 2 is built, one of the route options involves taking over the Wimbledon branch of the District Line as far as Parsons Green, and routing trains via Chelsea and central London to Hackney and on to Leytonstone tube station and beyond. This would provide another set of transport links for the area.

There is also a proposal for an extension of the Tramlink services running from Wimbledon to Sutton via Morden, St. Helier and Rose Hill. This scheme would require some rearrangement of platforms and tracks within the station as the single platform currently in use would not be able to handle the additional traffic.

Services


The typical off-peak service frequency is:


 * South West Trains
 * 16tph (trains per hour) to Waterloo
 * 4tph to Guildford
 * 2tph to Chessington South
 * 2tph to Dorking
 * 2tph to Hampton Court
 * 2tph to Shepperton
 * 2tph to Woking
 * 2tph to Waterloo via Kingston & Richmond
 * First Capital Connect
 * 2tph to Luton
 * 2tph to Sutton
 * London Underground
 * 6tph to Upminster via Tower Hill
 * 6tph to Edgware Road via High Street Kensington
 * Croydon Tramlink
 * 6tph to New Addington Tram Stop

Long-distance services to the likes of Portsmouth Harbour station and Southampton Central station do not call at the station, except during occasional late nights, during engineering works and at peak times during the Wimbledon Tennis Championships.

Miscellaneous facts

 * Wimbledon station is the only London station that provides an interchange between rail, underground, and tramlink services
 * Wimbledon station was the most southerly point on the Underground system until the nearby Morden Underground station opened in 1926
 * Part of the route of the W&CR through Mitcham reused the route of the Surrey Iron Railway that had closed in 1846
 * Until 1990, the station featured a stuffed Airedale dog "Laddie" in a glass case. When alive, the dog had been used to collect for railway charities.