Clapham Junction Station

I travel through several major train stations in London regularly and this one is the worst by far. All the others are big open spaces, even almost creating a pleasant setting, with cafes around where you can sit and wait for your train while looking at big screens to get updates on the incoming/outgoing trains, etc. Basically, they are what you expect from a busy train station in the UK capital. But Clapham Junction is the exact opposite, it is narrow, dirty, crowded, confusing, a real pain to travel through. I use it when I have to, otherwise I avoid it.

Huge station, and you certainly notice this when you get off on platform 3, and have to make it to platform 14 within 30 seconds to catch your next train!
Seems to be plenty of information around regarding which platform to go to and when the next train is going, so although it's massive, it's not too hard to find your way around.
Plenty of shops to grab a bite to eat or a coffee if you need to wait for a train. As stations go, this one is pretty much OK!

Can’t live with it, can’t kill it…

I hate Clapham Junction, and yet, it is the best/fastest way for me to get to Victoria station from Woking (in Surrey).

The stairs all over the place are a killer, and to be avoided unless you have someone to carry your suitcase.

The only way I use the station is by knowing which platforms the trains for Woking leave from (9 and 11), and pray that those platforms are functioning when I am travelling.

Signalisation for platform numbers is decent, but figuring out which platform the next train to somewhere is, is impossible. I find that most of the time I stakeout 1-2 platforms that go to that destination and read out their blinking displays. The main screens of “next fastest train” on the overpass are usually broken, and rarely update themselves. So much so that I have often called my boyfriend in a state of panic saying “there’s no more trains to woking!!!” when there were 2 more, but the display wasn’t telling me…

If you’re travelling from London to the outside, I’d recommend being in front of your first train, (so you end up closer to the overpass stairs) and running to catch the next one, as most of the time they don’t leave you enough time to change services and you end up stranded in the middle of a very cold and draughty nowhere for a good 40min. It’s absolute hell on winter nights (assuming hell has frozen over…)

Grim. Sorry, but it’s grim. The station is comically old fashioned, ugly, cold, draughty, and the stairs are a serious pain in the backside when you have luggage. It’s always staggeringly busy, crowded, and is confusing to get around. I’ve used it a fair bit to go to Sussex to see the grandparents and I’ve never really enjoyed it. Compared to places like Waterloo and St Pancras it’s a painful throwback to the bad old days, and frankly the sooner they renovate it the better, despite the immense disruption that would be caused.

Clapham Junction is loved and hated, thats for sure. I travel through it monthly, at least, and there are just a few points to make.

For a start, it always amazes me that the long, long bridge over the platforms is double glazed. Why is that? Sixteen platforms or so, so thirty two sets of steps down from it, with no doors on …. and all these windows are double glazed. I suppose its a security measure, to stop people throwing things or breaking glass, but still…. it makes me think every time I see it.

I travelled through last year with my mother, who’s in her eighties. She refuses to travel through it again, she wants to use East Croydon, which has ramps. Of course, there are lifts, but the time they take, and the levels of waiting and crowding, are not pleasant for an elderly lady, too fit for a wheelchair but not quite up to the mob of a London train station.

Clapham Junction Station is very easy to navigate through and the platforms are well kept. The area outside has a lot of good shops, especially on St Johns road including Debenhams, Waitrose and the Carphone Warehouse. A short walk to the end of Clapham Junction is the Northcote Road which is a great place to enjoy cafe culture and good value restaurants.

First, let's get the statistics out of the way. Clapham Junction proudly announces that it is the busiest station in Britain, although it is probably the busiest - in terms of the number trains, at least - in Europe, with around 120 trains an hour off-peak, and around 2,000 per day.

It's used by 12.5 million passengers a year, with an additional 9.5 million changing trains here, making it the UK's busiest interchange, though of course many more pass through on their way to Waterloo and Victoria. (Though that's still peanuts compared to Tokyo Shinjuku station, with over 3 million passengers per DAY).

It is also - by surface area - the largest station in the UK according to the Guinness Book of Records, although this includes quite large areas of track - there are both extensive sidings and a train depot in the angle of the junction. It's actually two stations joined by a subway and a long bridge - platforms 2 to 6 servicing the lines to Richmond (and the service to Willesden Junction) and the rest servicing the lines to Balham out of Victoria and Wimbledon out of Waterloo.

All trains from Waterloo pass through here, although not all stop. All the Brighton and South Coast trains, and local services via Balham from Victoria also pass through, all but the Gatwick express stopping. In addition, the services from Watford and Willesden Junctions on the West London line use platforms 2, 16 and 17.

Although the first line through the area, from Nine Elms in Vauxhall to Southampton, opened in 1838, the station itself was opened as a junction until 1863, when it was built to link the services from Victoria and Waterloo. Expanded over the years, there are now two entrances, both from the subway: one at the north end onto Grant Road, and the small bus station, and the main one through a small shopping centre onto St John's Hill. Both were rebuilt as part of the station redevelopment in the 1980s and have ticket offices. There used to be another entrance from the footbridge onto St John's Hill, but this has been closed.

Architecturally, most of the interest is on the platforms: the wooden buildings from 1863 with their delicate cast-iron decorative canopies decoration on platforms 2-8 on the original 1846 line to Richmond and the fast lines to Wimbledon are the most interesting, and the yellow stock-brick offices on platforms 9 & 10 are well preserved. The best buildings are the old London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Parcel Offices on St John's Hill, in an imposing Edwardian Baroque style, dating from 1910. Needless to say, the new entrance buildings above the shopping centre are hideous - in fact, the station entrance almost seems an afterthought.

As a modern station, it has lots of places to get a sandwich or coffee and lots of trains (and people) to watch, but as somewhere I use regularly, I find it less pleasant as a station. The subway is far too narrow for the use it gets, dank and sometimes the roof leaks. The toilets off the subway are small, smelly and seedy. The footbridge, although wider and pleasanter, involves a longer walk to to platforms 2-6 and lots of steps, and both entrances onto platform 17 are hopelessly narrow. And litter on the tracks seems to be a perennial problem at this station.

In fact, steps are what Clapham Junction is all about: between 28 and 40 to every platform, making it hopelessly inaccessible for wheelchair users, those with pushchairs, prams and heavy luggage. There are no passengers lifts or escalators.

Wandsworth Borough Council has published a ten-point plan to improve facilities at the station, including better services, a link to the underground, reopening the St John's Hill entrance and installing lifts to the platforms.

Two recent saving graces have been the installation of electronic ticket machines by South West Trains (which seem to work), and the new information system, which at least tells you whether trains are on time or not - important for me as I make the run from platform 12 to platform 2 to make my 4 minute connection. before that, there was simply a poster indicating 'Platforms 2 or 17' for my local station, West Brompton, which was about as unhelpful as you could get.

Time for another major makeover, I think.

Bleh.... Clapham Junction. 5*s? Hmmmm...... not even Grand Central Station gets five big ones in my book. OK, i agree with what some of the things the Duck and Gry say. It is clean, it is pretty efficient an the cornish pasty place is good! I've just had too many bad experiences here to give it more than 3 stars. As this is Europe's busiest station, when something goes wrong, it tends to have a domino effect. I can't tell you the number of times i've waited in the rain for the fast train to Richmond, only to be told that leaves on the track or a stray hankerchief is disrupting all SW trains for the next fortnight. Perhaps i'm exaggerating and maybe this is just a dig at british rail, but i do find trains in this country (particularly from Clapham Junction) very tedious.

When the trains are on time and the sun is shining, Clapham Junction is fantastic. I just wish this scenario presented itself more often :)

Ah yes, Clapham Junction. Many a time have I lugged my ridiculously heavy bike up the stairs to one of the platforms to go cycling in the countryside. As detailed in the previous review, train connections from Clapham Junction go in many directions, plenty of opportunities to escape London in a flash.

Although it's busy, it's really quite neat and well arranged, not even I can manage to get lost here - finding the platforms are easy as pie! And you won't be at a loss if you want a coffee or a snack - try the Cornish pasty place by the entrance with all the shops, it's great.

This is Europe's buisest railway station with a train almost every 2 minutes. Locations vary from destinations like Exeter, Manchester, Cardiff to the more local Wimbledon or Vauxhall. Actually located in Battersea, it was named Clapham Junction as Battersea was not an attractive area in the 1860s when the station was conceived as a junction stop of trains out of London Waterloo and London Victoria. There are plenty of shops and places for coffee, almost one on every platform and two entraces, one with a shopping centre and the other is deviod of anything really.

Can I reccommend using the walkway above the platforms as you can see if you next train comes in and the views accross London are one fo the favourite parts to my day as you can see from the pictures uploaded.

So here is the full run down....
Platform 1 - Closed, but might be used for London underground in future
Platform 2 - London Overground services to Willesden Junction, Kensington Olympia and West Brompton
Platform 3 - 6 are for London Waterloo to Windsor, Richmond, Reading, Twickenham, Ascot and Hounslow
Platform 7-8 are for long distance services to and from London Waterloo to Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth, New Forest and Weymouth
Platforms 9-10 for London Waterloo and Vauxhall
Platform 11 for suburban services to Gulidford, Epsom and Woking all stopping at Wimbledon
Platform 12 for London Victoria
Platform 13 for Sussex, Brighton and East Croydon
Platform 14 for London Victoria
Platform 15 for Sutton, South London destinations like Balham, Streatham and Epsom Downs
Platform 16 and 17 - for trains to Watford Junction, Rugby, Northampton and Gatwick Airport