Trains to London Bridge - Station Details and further Information on the London Bridge Area
London Bridge station is a National Rail and London Underground (tube) station in the London Borough of Southwark, which occupies a large area on two levels immediately south-east of London Bridge and 1.6 miles east of Charing Cross. It is one of the oldest train stations in the world and is the fourth busiest rail terminal in London.
The main-line station is one of 18 train stations managed by Network Rail and is a major transport terminus and interchange for south London. It serves over 54 million people a year.
The tube station serves the Jubilee Line and the Bank branch of the Northern Line. It consists of a ticket hall and entrance area with its main frontage on Tooley Street, along with entrances and exits on Borough High Street.
The station is in Travelcard Zone 1. London Bridge is one of two rail termini in London located south of the river Thames, the other being Waterloo. For this reason neither have a direct connection to the Circle Line.
The through platforms, 1-6, are on the north side of the station. Platforms 1-3 are served by trains starting and ending at Cannon Street. Services to and from Charing Cross use platforms 4-6 and a through line (no platform) to the south of platform 6. Platforms 5 & 6 are also served by First Capital Connect with its Thameslink Bedford to Brighton services via Luton, St Albans, St Pancras International, Farringdon, City Thameslink, Blackfriars and Gatwick Airport. Platform 6 is the busiest railway platform in Europe, due to the necessity of routing all trains heading to Charing Cross and Blackfriars through it.
The terminal platforms, 8-16, are on the south side of the station and are mostly served by Southern services to south London and the south coast.
London Bridge is due to receive a major revamp as part of the Thameslink Programme, increasing its through platforms from six to nine. Current space restrictions mean that many options have been investigated including a two-level concourse. The number of terminating platforms will be reduced from nine to six. Work is not expected to be complete until 2015 with the bulk of the work taking place after the 2012 Olympic Games.
London Bridge Tube Station
The Underground station is between Borough and Bank on the Northern Line, and between Southwark and Bermondsey on the Jubilee Line. The station is the sixth busiest on the Underground network and is the only station on the London Underground network with 'London' in its name (while the NR termini are named, for instance 'London Waterloo' the Underground station is simply named 'Waterloo').
Originally Northern Line trains ran to a terminus at King William Street bypassing London Bridge, but the construction of a new station at Bank to provide greater capacity and allow northward extension required a new tunnel alignment, and provided the opportunity for a station at London Bridge. The station entrance was originally at Three Castles House on the corner of London Bridge Street and Station Approach, but has since been moved to Borough High Street and Tooley Street. The Northern Line platforms were rebuilt during the late 1990s to increase the platform and circulation areas in preparation for the opening of the Jubilee Line.
The Northern Line station opened on 25 February 1900 as part of the City & South London Railway's (C&SLR's) revised route from Borough to Bank and Moorgate. The Jubilee Line station opened on 7 October 1999 as part of the Jubilee Line Extension, although trains had been running through non-stop from the previous month. To enable the Jubilee Line to be constructed, months of major engineering works to relocate buried services in the surrounding streets had to be undertaken. A new ticket hall was created in the arches under the main-line station, providing improved interchange. During excavations a variety of Roman remains were found, including pottery and fragments of mosaics; some of these are now on display in the station.
There are two platforms on each line and two main sets of escalators to and from the Tooley Street ticket hall. All four platforms are directly accessible from the Borough High Street entrance/exit. |
