Coulsdon Town railway station

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Coulsdon Town National Rail
Coulsdon Town station building.JPG.jpg
The railway station in July 2011, after its reconstruction and renaming
Coulsdon Town is located in Greater London
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Coulsdon Town

Location of Coulsdon Town in Greater London
Location Coulsdon
Local authority London Borough of Croydon
Managed by Southern
Station code CDN
Number of platforms 2
Fare zone 6

National Rail annual entry and exit
2004–05 0.183 million[1]
2005–06 0.178 million[1]
2006–07 0.285 million[1]
2007–08 0.282 million[1]
2008–09 0.296 million[1]
2009–10 0.255 million[1]

Original company South Eastern Railway
Pre-grouping South Eastern and Chatham Railway
Post-grouping Southern Railway
1 January 1904 Opened as Smitham
1 January 1917 Temporarily closed
1 January 1919 Reopened
22 May 2011 Renamed Coulsdon Town[2]

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Coordinates: 51°19′19″N 0°08′02″W / 51.3219°N 0.134°W / 51.3219; -0.134

Coulsdon Town railway station serves the northern part of Coulsdon, in the London Borough of Croydon. It is on the Tattenham Corner Line and opened on 1 January 1904. Until 22 May 2011, the station was known as Smitham.[3]

Contents

[edit] History

The station building in 2008, before reconstruction and renaming.
Current station signage showing new and former names.

The station was opened on 1 January 1904, and briefly closed during the First World War. It lies on a sharp curve, where the line swings away westwards from the Brighton Main Line. It is immediately adjacent to the closed Coulsdon North station on the Main Line, whose passenger traffic was diverted here when the latter closed on 3 October 1983. Some Tattenham Corner Line trains used to terminate at Smitham before returning to London, but nowadays the usual off-peak service is two trains per hour in each direction between London Bridge and Tattenham Corner, and one train per hour in each direction acting as a shuttle between Purley and Tattenham Corner.

The Coulsdon relief road, opened 18 December 2006 as part of the A23, passes underneath the station and meant that some rearrangement and refurbishment of the platform access routes was required. Consequently, no direct access to the London-bound platform now exists; access is only via the other platform and a new footbridge or a lift.

A new modular station building on the down side of the line, and a standard-pattern accessible footbridge were constructed by Network Rail and opened in 2010. There is no PERTIS self-service 'Permit to Travel' ticket machine at Smitham.

As part of the retender of Southern's franchise in 2009, the Department for Transport requested that in response to lobbying by Croydon Council the new company look into a better name for the station, as "Smitham" is no longer used as the name of the local area.[4] The name chosen, after an exercise in local democracy, was Coulsdon Town.[5] The change took place on Sunday 22 May 2011.[2][6] Evening services to the station were improved in December 2010.[7]

[edit] Services

Preceding station National Rail National Rail Following station
Reedham   Southern
Tattenham Corner Line
  Woodmansterne

[edit] References

Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith, Caterham and Tattenham Corner. Middleton Press, 1994. ISBN 1-873793-25-1.

[edit] External links

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