Trains to Clapham Junction - Station Details and further Information on the Clapham Junction Area
Clapham Junction train station is near St John's Hill in the south-west of Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. Many routes from London's two busiest termini, Waterloo and Victoria, funnel through Clapham Junction and so the station is one of the busiest in Europe by number of trains using it, more than one hundred an hour outside peak time. It is not in Clapham, but the area around the station is commonly known as Clapham Junction and it has been identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.
Each day about 2,000 trains, most stopping, pass through the station, more than through any other station in Europe. At peak times 180 trains per hour pass through of which 117 stop. It is not the busiest station by number of passengers, most of whom pass through. Roughly 430,000 pass through each weekday, of whom 135,000 are at rush hour times. Interchanges make some forty per cent of the activity and by that count too it is the busiest station in the UK.
The main entrance, at the south from St. John's Hill, leads into a subway some 15 ft wide which runs beneath the eastern ends of all platforms and on to a northern exit, which has restricted opening hours. The subway becomes very crowded during rush hours: ticket barriers at the ends are pinch points.
A very wide covered footbridge joins all platforms at their western ends but does not provide entry to or egress from the station. In 2007 Network Rail announced access improvements to be completed in 2009 which included re-opening the Brighton Yard entrance on St John's Hill and installing lifts to the platforms.
All services from Waterloo, by South West Trains, and many from Victoria, by Southern and Gatwick Express, pass through the station as do the West London Line services of London Overground and Southern. The station is named Clapham Junction because it forms the junction of several rail lines. |
