Kensington (Olympia) station

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For other places with the same name, see Kensington station (disambiguation).
Kensington (Olympia) London Overground National Rail London Underground
Kensington Olympia stn building.JPG
Station entrance
Kensington (Olympia) is located in Greater London
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Kensington (Olympia)

Location of Kensington (Olympia) in Greater London
Location Olympia
Local authority Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Managed by London Overground
Station code KPA
Number of platforms 3
Accessible Handicapped/disabled access [1]
Fare zone 2
London Underground annual entry and exit
2008 increase 1.320 million[2]
2009 decrease 1.275 million[2]
2010 increase 1.290 million[2]
National Rail annual entry and exit
2007–08 increase 2.203 million[3]
2008–09 decrease 1.924 million[3]
2009–10 decrease 1.834 million[3]
1862 Opened
Lists of stations DLR · Underground · National Rail · Tramlink
External links Departures • Layout
  Facilities • Buses
Portal icon London Transport portal
Portal icon UK Railways portal
Coordinates: 51°29′55″N 0°12′39″W / 51.4986°N 0.2108°W / 51.4986; -0.2108

Kensington (Olympia) station is a station in West London managed and served by London Overground and also served by Southern and London Underground. It is in Travelcard Zone 2. On the Underground it is the terminus of a short District Line branch, built as part of the Middle Circle, from Earl's Court; on the main-line railway it is on the West London Line from Clapham Junction to Willesden Junction by which many trains bypass Central London.

Contents

[edit] History

A station was opened by the West London Railway as its southern terminus on 27 May 1844 as "Kensington", located just south of Hammersmith Road; it closed at the end of November 1844 due to the losses made. Although a scant and erratic goods service ran, the line re-opened to passengers with a new station called "Addison Road" on 2 June 1862, located to the north of Hammersmith Road. Metropolitan Railway trains started serving the station in 1864, via a link to Latimer Road, with District Railway trains arriving in 1872. This enabled the so-called "Middle Circle" service to operate via Paddington to the north and South Kensington to the south. From 1869, the L&SWR operated trains from Richmond to London Waterloo via Addison Road, until their branch via Shepherd's Bush closed in 1916.

In 1940, Addison Road, as well as the link to the Metropolitan line at Latimer Road, closed along with the other West London Line stations, but in 1946 it was renamed "Kensington (Olympia)" and became the northern terminus of a peak-hour shuttle service to Clapham Junction, which was mainly for the benefit of the workers of the Post Office Savings Bank (later National Savings Bank), situated in nearby Blythe Road.[4][5] There was also a District line shuttle to Earl's Court. The current District Line bay platform opened in 1958, but the previous (1872) connection between the District and the main line south of the station was not finally lifted until 1992. Between 1979 and 2008 [6] the Clapham Junction service was supplemented by a Cross Country route from Brighton to Manchester Piccadilly(via Birmingham New Street).[7]

There was an Express Dairies creamery and milk bottling plant located close to the station. Served by milk trains from the Great Western Railway, they would enter from Old Oak Common and proceed along the West London Line to a siding adjacent to the station.[8]

In 1994, a full passenger service between Willesden Junction and Clapham Junction was reinstated after a gap of 54 years.[9]

This station is quieter than in the past, even though for many years the passenger service was only a few peak-hour main-line trains to and from Clapham Junction, with Underground trains only during exhibition times. Many freight trains pass through the station, as the West London Line is the main freight route from north of London to the south-east of England and the Channel Tunnel.

Before Eurostar services transferred in November 2007 to St Pancras International Eurostar trains passed through Kensington Olympia going from Waterloo International station to North Pole depot and the station was a backup terminus for the services should Waterloo International have become unusable and immigration facilities were maintained there.[10] [11]

The link to the Great Western Main Line at North Pole Junction, three miles to the north, avoiding the western central London terminus of Paddington station, meant that the station was to play an important role in the Cold War should a nuclear exchange have seemed likely.[12] Secret plans entailed use of the station, in the prelude to a nuclear war, to evacuate several thousand civil servants to the Central Government War Headquarters underground bunker in Wiltshire.[13]

[edit] Motorail

The former British Rail Motorail services which carried passengers and their cars between London and many parts of the country used to terminate here.[14] In the London Midland Region timetable for 1970-71 services are shown from Olympia to Perth, Stirling, Carlisle, St Austell, Totnes, Newton Abbot and Fishguard (connecting with the ferry for Rosslare).[15].

The car park for the service is now used by Earls Court Olympia for exhibition vehicles, & Europcar for car rental and is called "Olympia Motorail Car Park P4".[16][17]

[edit] Location

The railway here forms the boundary between two London Boroughs and the southbound platform lies in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea while the northbound and London Underground platforms are in Hammersmith and Fulham.

London bus routes 9, 10, 27, 28, 49, 391, C1, night route N9, N28 and coaches routes 701 and 702 all pass close to the station.

[edit] Name

The station appears in some National Rail maps and timetables as Kensington Olympia. However, on London Underground maps and the London Overground-maintained station signage it appears as Kensington (Olympia). The name Kensington (Olympia) is also used on the latest National Rail "London Connections" map.[18] The variant with brackets is the name given to the station in the London Railway Atlas, published by Ian Allan in 2009.[9] On the dot matrix indicators on District line trains, the station is shown as simply Olympia.

[edit] Services

National Rail services are provided by London Overground and Southern.

The London Overground services in trains per hour are:

Southern operate between Milton Keynes Central and South Croydon typically once an hour.

The shuttle to High Street Kensington runs at weekends and only during major exhibitions on weekdays (except for one train a day). There is no service New Years Eve or New Years Day when these days fall on or partly on a weekend.[20]

For a period before Decemeber 2011 the District line had a irregular short shuttle service of two or three trains per hour to High Street Kensington via Earl's Court. One late evening train ran daily from Kensington (Olympia) to Upminster.

[edit] Gallery

  • Post Office workers' train from Clapham Jct, 1968

  • Looking north 1968

  • London Underground freight heads south to Lillie Bridge, 1968

  • Former station entrance sign, showing the original name, Addison Road

  • Kensington Olympia in 1988

  • Silverlink EMUs 313122 and 313123 at Kensington (Olympia)

  • Aerial view of Kensington (Olympia)

  • Current (right) and former (left) southbound platforms at Kensington (Olympia)

  • Mainline platforms

  • London Overground platform signage installed 2007.

  • London Underground platform signage

[edit] References

  1. ^ "TFL: Standard Tube Map" (PDF). http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/standard-tube-map.pdf. Retrieved 2011-07-02. 
  2. ^ a b c "Customer metrics: entries and exits". London Underground performance update. Transport for London. 2003-2010. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/corporate/modesoftransport/tube/performance/default.asp?onload=entryexit. Retrieved 8 May 2011. 
  3. ^ a b c "Station usage". Rail statistics. Office of Rail Regulation. 30 April 2010. http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.1529. Retrieved 17 January 2011.  Please note: Some methodology may vary year on year.
  4. ^ Glover, J. London's Overground, Hersham, Ian Allan, 2012, pp35-36
  5. ^ Cherry, B.; Pevsner, N. (2002). The Buildings of England, London 3: The North West. London: Yale University Press. p. 223. 
  6. ^ "Train services from Brighton withdrawn". The Argus. 12 October 2008. http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/3749781.Train_services_from_Brighton_withdrawn/. 
  7. ^ "Cross Country Train Services to and from Brighton". http://www.1s76.com/. 
  8. ^ "The Torrington Milk Train". SVS Films. 2012-01-21. http://svsfilm.com/nineelms/torr.htm. 
  9. ^ a b London Railway Atlas, J. Brown (Ian Allan, 2009)
  10. ^ "Belgian Branch Line News 1996". Ccl.kuleuven.be. http://ccl.kuleuven.be/~corn/blnews96.html. Retrieved 2011-07-02. 
  11. ^ The Committee Office, House of Commons. "House of Commons - Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs - Fifth Report". Parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk. http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199899/cmselect/cmenvtra/89/8906.htm#a7. Retrieved 2011-07-02. 
  12. ^ "1960s: Cold War cabinet seeks headquarters to withstand nuclear war". The Times. 30 December 2008. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5415893.ece. Retrieved 31 March 2011. 
  13. ^ "Page 5". Subbrit.org.uk. http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/features/sfs/new_page_5.htm. Retrieved 2011-07-02. 
  14. ^ "Kensington Olympia Station". Disused Stations. http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/k/kensington_olympia/index2.shtml. Retrieved 2011-07-02. 
  15. ^ London Midland Passenger Timetable 4 May 1970-2 May 1971, pp.51-53.
  16. ^ By kpmarek No real name given + Add Contact (2009-05-02). "Olympia Motorail Car Park | Flickr - Photo Sharing!". Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/kpmarek/3501584823/. Retrieved 2011-07-02. 
  17. ^ "London Kensington Car Rental". Europcar. http://www.europcar.com/car-rental-LONDON_KENSINGTON.html. Retrieved 2011-07-02. 
  18. ^ "National Rail Enquiries — Maps". Nationalrail.co.uk. http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/tocs_maps/maps/. Retrieved 2011-07-02. 
  19. ^ "North London Line/West London Line timetable from 22nd May 2011." (PDF). http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/richmond-clapham-junction-to-stratford-large-print.pdf. Retrieved 2011-07-02. 
  20. ^ http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/livetravelnews/realtime/track.aspx?offset=weekend

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kensington Olympia station
Preceding station   London Overground National Rail London Overground   Following station
West London Line
towards Stratford
National Rail National Rail
Shepherd's Bush   Southern
Milton Keynes - South Croydon		   West Brompton
Terminus   Southern
Olympia to Wandsworth Road
Limited service		   West Brompton
Preceding station   Underground no-text.svg London Underground   Following station
Terminus District line
    Disused Railways    
National Rail National Rail
Uxbridge Road
Line open, station closed		   West London Line   West Brompton
Line and station open
Shepherd's Bush
Line and station closed		   L&SWR   West Brompton
Line and station open
Preceding station   Underground no-text.svg London Underground   Following station
Uxbridge Road
towards Barking		   Metropolitan line   Terminus
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