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===In popular culture===
===In popular culture===
Baal Ham is the star of [[Peter Sellers]]' mockmentary "Balham Gateway to the South".
Baal Ham is the star of [[Peter Sellers]]' mockmentary "[[Balham, Gateway to the South]]".


The video for the single ''[[Missing (Everything but the Girl song)|Missing]]'' by [[Everything But the Girl]] repeatedly uses the same shot from a moving vehicle passing between the two tube entrance buildings, while in another shot [[Tracey Thorn]] is seen walking down the side of one of them.
The video for the single ''[[Missing (Everything but the Girl song)|Missing]]'' by [[Everything But the Girl]] repeatedly uses the same shot from a moving vehicle passing between the two tube entrance buildings, while in another shot [[Tracey Thorn]] is seen walking down the side of one of them.

Revision as of 17:54, 7 December 2011

The entrance buildings of Balham's railway (extreme left) and Underground (right) stations

Balham station consists of two adjacent stations (a London Underground station and a National Rail station) located in the Balham area of south London, England. The station is located on the A24 Balham High Road in the London Borough of Wandsworth, and is in Travelcard Zone 3.

The two stations are interconnected, albeit owned and operated separately, with separate ticket-issuing facilities and gatelines.

National Rail station

Balham National Rail
LocationBalham
Local authorityWandsworth
Managed bySouthern
Station code(s)BAL
Number of platforms4
Fare zone3
National Rail annual entry and exit
2007–08Increase 5.544 million[1]
2008–09Decrease 5.085 million[1]
2009–10Decrease 5.052 million[1]
Railway companies
Original companyLondon, Brighton and South Coast Railway
Pre-groupingLondon, Brighton and South Coast Railway
Post-groupingSouthern Railway
Key dates
1863Opened as Balham
9 March 1927Renamed Balham and Upper Tooting
6 October 1969Renamed Balham
Other information
External links
London transport portal

The National Rail station at Balham, which is managed by Southern is located on the Brighton Main Line, four stops south of London Victoria. Although on a north-south route, the tracks pass through Balham on an approximately east-west axis, with Victoria towards the west.

The tracks are on an embankment and access to the platforms is via an underpass beneath them. There are four tracks and four platforms, although only two are regularly used in service. Just beyond the south/east end of the station, the line divides into two branches. One branch is the Brighton Main Line, continuing towards East Croydon, with the other heading towards Crystal Palace. Further south, there is another branch which heads towards Mitcham Junction and Sutton. Between Balham and Mitcham Junction, a new station at Mitcham Eastfields was opened in 2008.

History

A 1908 Railway Clearing House map of lines around Balham station

The West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway opened a station nearby named Balham Hill on 1 December 1856, when the line ran from Crystal Palace to Wandsworth Common. From the outset the line was worked by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway which purchased the line in 1859, after it had been extended to Battersea Wharf. Balham Hill station was resited by the LB&SCR to its present location during 1863 as part of works to widen the line, and improve the route between East Croydon and Victoria.[2] It was known initially as Balham and Upper Tooting.[3] Further remodelling of the line and was undertaken in 1890 and 1897 to increase capacity.[4]

The lines through the station to Crystal Palace were electrified in 1910, by means of the LB&SCR 'Elevated Electric' overhead system. Work on electrifing the remaining services through the station had begun in 1913 but was interrupted by the First World War and not completed until 1925.[5] By this time the LB&SCR was absorbed into the Southern Railway following the 1921 Railways Act.

In 1925 the Southern Railway decided to adopt a third rail electirication system and the lines through the station were converted between June 1928 and September 1929.[6]

When sectorisation was introduced in the 1980s, the national rail lines were served by Network SouthEast until the privatisation of the British Railways.

Upon privatisation in the 1990s, the national rail lines came under the Connex South Central franchise, which was replaced by the current operator in 2000.

Services

All services are operated by Southern. While the station is physically on the Brighton Main Line, train services form part of the South London Lines and the Sutton & Mole Valley Lines. To the north, trains operate to London Victoria via Clapham Junction; and Milton Keynes Central via Kensington (Olympia) and Watford Junction.

To the south and east, typical destinations include Template:LUL stations via Crystal Palace, Croydon stations (West Croydon and East Croydon), Caterham, Epsom Downs and Sutton.

  • The main line station
  • Up Main platform in 1961
    Up Main platform in 1961
  • The view in 1982
    The view in 1982

London Underground station

Balham London Underground
The station entrances
LocationBalham
Local authorityWandsworth
Managed byLondon Underground
OwnerLondon Underground
Number of platforms2
Fare zone3
London Underground annual entry and exit
2008Increase 11.560 million[7]
2009Decrease 11.550 million[7]
2018Decrease 13.06 million[8]
2019Steady 13.06 million[9]
2020Decrease 5.24 million[10]
2021Increase 5.36 million[11]
2022Increase 9.22 million[12]
Railway companies
Original companyCity and South London Railway
Key dates
13 September 1926Line opened
6 December 1926Station opened
15 October 1940Closed
12 January 1941Reopened
Other information
External links
London transport portal

The station opened on 6 December 1926 as part of the Morden extension of the City & South London Railway (although the line had opened slightly earlier, on 13 September 1926),[13] which later became part of the Northern Line. The Station is located on the Northern Line between Template:LUL stations and Template:LUL stations stations. It has entrances on the east and west sides of Balham High Road linked by a pedestrian subway. The surface buildings were designed by the architect Charles Holden. It is the only station on the Morden branch of the Northern line with an interchange to a National Rail station of the same name.

World War II

The memorial plaque in the entrance hall

During the Second World War, Balham was one of many deep tube stations designated for use as a civilian air raid shelter. At 20:02 on 14 October 1940, a 1400 kg semi-armour piercing fragmentation bomb fell on the road above the northern end of the platform tunnels, causing a large crater into which a bus then crashed. The northbound platform tunnel partially collapsed and was filled with earth and water from the fractured water mains and sewers above, which also flowed through the cross-passages into the southbound platform tunnel, with the flooding and debris reaching to within 100 yards of Template:LUL stations. According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), sixty-six people in the station were killed[14] – although some sources report 68 – and more than seventy injured. The damage at track level closed the line to traffic between Template:LUL stations and Template:LUL stations, but was quickly repaired, with the closed section and station being reopened on 12 January 1941.[15] In October 2000 a memorial plaque commemorating this event was placed in the station's ticket hall. It stated that 64 lives were lost, which differed from the CWGC register at the time, and other sources. On 14 October 2010 this was replaced with a new commemorative plaque which did not give the number of fatalities.[16]

Baal Ham is the star of Peter Sellers' mockmentary "Balham, Gateway to the South".

The video for the single Missing by Everything But the Girl repeatedly uses the same shot from a moving vehicle passing between the two tube entrance buildings, while in another shot Tracey Thorn is seen walking down the side of one of them.

The bombing of the station during World War II is briefly mentioned in Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, while the film based on the book depicts the station's flooding. Both the novel and the film date the event incorrectly, with the novel placing it in September 1940, and the film dating it as 15 October rather than the previous day. The film also refers to the fracturing of gas mains, as well as water.

London Bus routes 155, 249, 315, 355 and Night routes N155 serve the station and its surrounding area.

  • The underground station
  • Tube station entrance, west side
    Tube station entrance, west side
  • Roundel on northbound Northern line platform
    Roundel on northbound Northern line platform
  • Northbound Northern line platform looking north
    Northbound Northern line platform looking north
  • The original memorial plaque, replaced in October 2010
    The original memorial plaque, replaced in October 2010

References

  1. ^ a b c "Estimates of station usage". Rail statistics. Office of Rail Regulation. Please note: Some methodology may vary year on year.
  2. ^ Turner, John Howard (1978). The London Brighton and South Coast Railway 2 Establishment and Growth. Batsford. pp. 126–129, 238–9. ISBN 0-7134-1198-8.
  3. ^ "About the borough - Borough history". Wandsworth Borough Council. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 24 January 2008.
  4. ^ Turner, John Howard (1978). The London Brighton and South Coast Railway 3 Completion and Maturity. Batsford. pp. 81–4, 141–9. ISBN 0-7134-1389-1.
  5. ^ Moodie, G.T. (1968). Southern Electric 1909-1968=Ian Allan. pp. 7, 23.
  6. ^ Moodie, (1968) p.25.
  7. ^ a b {"Multi-year station entry-and-exit figures (2007–2017)". London Underground station passenger usage data. Transport for London. January 2018. Archived from the original (XLSX) on 31 July 2018. Retrieved 22 July 2018. Cite error: The named reference "infobox_stats_ref_tube_2007" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  8. ^ "Station Usage Data" (CSV). Usage Statistics for London Stations, 2018. Transport for London. 23 September 2020. Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  9. ^ "Station Usage Data" (XLSX). Usage Statistics for London Stations, 2019. Transport for London. 23 September 2020. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  10. ^ "Station Usage Data" (XLSX). Usage Statistics for London Stations, 2020. Transport for London. 16 April 2021. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
  11. ^ "Station Usage Data" (XLSX). Usage Statistics for London Stations, 2021. Transport for London. 12 July 2022. Retrieved 7 September 2022.
  12. ^ "Station Usage Data" (XLSX). Usage Statistics for London Stations, 2022. Transport for London. 4 October 2023. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  13. ^ Rose, Douglas (1999). The London Underground, A Diagrammatic History. Douglas Rose/Capital Transport. ISBN 1-85414-219-4.
  14. ^ "Casualty List for Balham". cwgcuser.org.uk. Retrieved 21 January 2008.
  15. ^ "Northern Line, Dates". Clive's Underground Line Guides. Retrieved 21 January 2008.
  16. ^ http://www.ukniwm.org.uk/server/show/conMemorial.52421/fromUkniwmSearch/1
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Balham railway station.
Preceding station National Rail National Rail Following station
Wandsworth Common   Southern
South London Line (Outer)
London Victoria to Sutton via Crystal Palace 		  Streatham Hill
  Southern
Sutton & Mole Valley Line (Epsom Branch)
West London Line 		  Streatham Common
  Southern
Sutton & Mole Valley Line (Horsham Branch) 		  Mitcham Eastfields
Preceding station   London Underground   Following station
Template:LUL lines

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