Sutton railway station (London)

Sutton
Sutton station at the end of Sutton High Street
Location	Sutton
Local authority	London Borough of Sutton
Managed by	Southern
Station code(s)	SUO
DfT category	C2
Number of platforms	4
Accessible	Yes
Fare zone	5
National Rail annual entry and exit
2004–05	4.716 million
2005–06	4.750 million
2006–07	6.042 million
2007–08	6.411 million
2008–09	6.059 million
2009–10	5.687 million
2010–11	5.769 million
2011–12	6.065 million
2012–13	6.353 million
2013–14	6.607 million
2014–15	6.779 million
– interchange	0.644 million
Key dates
1847	Opened (LB&SCR)
1865	Start (Epsom line)
1868	Start (Mitcham Junction line)
1930	Start (Wimbledon line)
Other information
External links	Departures Facilities
London transport portal

Sutton railway station is in the London Borough of Sutton in south London. It is the main station for Sutton town. It is served by Southern and Thameslink trains. It is in Travelcard Zone 5.

History

The former Sutton station in a 1905 postcard

The present day Sutton station

Taxi outside the station by night

Sutton station was opened by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) on 10 May 1847 when the railway opened its line from West Croydon to Epsom. A branch to Epsom Downs was opened on 22 May 1865 followed by a line to Mitcham Junction on 1 October 1868. The final change to the station came when the branch to Wimbledon opened on 5 January 1930.

Until the early 1980s, it was possible to catch a direct express train to the coast from here to Bognor Regis, Chichester, and Portsmouth. This service, until its withdrawal, also gave Sutton the fastest ever journey time of 17 minutes to London Victoria. Since the mid 1980s, these express services are routed via East Croydon to serve Gatwick Airport and passengers from Sutton for the south coast now have to change at Horsham or travel to West Croydon and walk, take the bus or use Croydon's Tramlink service to get to East Croydon.

Today, the service to London Victoria takes just over 25 minutes on the direct route via Hackbridge.

Layout

The four platforms at Sutton station are numbered 1 to 4 from north to south. Platforms 1 and 2 are on the lines to Wimbledon, Epsom, Leatherhead, Dorking, and Horsham. Platforms 3 and 4 are on the Epsom Downs Line, which becomes single track about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) south of the station. Platforms 1 and 3 are used by services from outer termini to Central London. Trains from Central London use platforms 2 and 4. Terminating trains which return to central London generally use platform 4.

Platforms 1 and 2 can accommodate 12-coach trains and were used by the express services to Bognor Regis and Portsmouth until they were diverted in the early 1980s to serve Gatwick Airport. Nowadays all trains calling at Sutton are formed of ten coaches or fewer. At the London end of platform 1 there are the remains of a fifth platform which was a bay for local services via Mitcham Junction.

Two waiting rooms serve the station: one has its own cafe; the other has a Starbucks kiosk adjacent. An M&S Food to Go shop sits adjacent to the concourse within the station building.

Three lifts serve all platforms - one each for platforms one, two/three and four.

The installation of a side entrance serving the Quadrant was completed in Summer 2014.

Wimbledon branch

Parliamentary approval for a line from Wimbledon to Sutton had been obtained by the Wimbledon and Sutton Railway (W&SR) in 1910 but work had been delayed by World War I. From the W&SR's inception, the Metropolitan District Railway (MDR) was a shareholder of the company and had rights to run trains over the line when built. In the 1920s, the London Electric Railway (LER, precursor of London Underground) planned, through its ownership of the MDR, to use part of the route for an extension of the City and South London Railway (C&SLR, now the Northern line) to Sutton. The SR objected and an agreement was reached that enabled the C&SLR to extend as far as Morden in exchange for the LER giving up its rights over the W&SR route. The SR subsequently built the line, one of the last to be built in the London area. The line opened on 5 January 1930 when full services on the line were extended from South Merton.

Services

All services at Sutton are operated by Govia Thameslink Railway, under the Southern and Thameslink brands.

The typical off-peak service from the station is:

• 10tph (trains per hour) to London Victoria
• 2tph to St Albans via Mitcham Junction
• 3tph to Epsom
• 1tph to Epsom Downs
• 2tph to Luton via Wimbledon
• 2tph to Dorking, of which one continues to Horsham - One of these services does not stop at Ewell East. Often this is the Horsham service or the Fast Service from Victoria.

On a Sunday the service from this station is:

• 8tph (trains per hour) to London Victoria
• 2tph to Luton
• 2tph to Blackfriars
• 2tph to Epsom
• 2tph to Dorking

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Carshalton or Clapham Junction		Southern Sutton & Mole Valley Lines		Cheam
Carshalton Beeches				Belmont Mondays-Saturdays only: Terminates at Sutton on Sundays
Carshalton Beeches		Southern London Victoria to Sutton via Crystal Palace or Norbury		Terminus
Carshalton		Thameslink Wimbledon Loop		West Sutton
		Southern Sutton Loop Line Peak hours only

Connections

London Buses routes 80, 164, 280, 470, S1, S3 and S4, night route N44 and non-TFL route 420 serve the station.

External links

• Train times and station information for Sutton railway station (London) from National Rail