Motspur Park railway station


Motspur Park railway station is a suburban station in the London Borough of Merton in south London. The station is served by South Western Railway, and is in Travelcard Zone 4. It is down the line from.
Southbound destinations are Chessington South, Dorking and Guildford.
The station stands atop a railway embankment off a service road behind the parade of shops on West Barnes Lane. The shops and surrounding streets on both sides of the line are known as Motspur Park. There is also footpath access from Claremont Avenue on the western side.
The station is a single island platform reached by footbridge from either side of the track. The station retains its original Southern Railway buildings in the centre of the platform.

History

The railway itself was constructed through the locality in 1859 but the Motspur Park station was not added until 1925.
On 6 November 1947, there was a train crash at Motspur Park junction, south of the station which killed four and injured 12 people. In foggy conditions, a train was incorrectly authorized by a fogsignalman to pass a danger signal, and collided with another train that was crossing the line in front of it.
A small newspaper kiosk once stood on the West Barnes Lane side of the approach road, Station Road, opposite the Earl Beatty public house, but this was demolished in the 1970s and has been replaced by a prefabricated travel agency office that later became a minicab office.
A signal box once stood at the western trackside approximately from the southern end of the platform but this was also demolished when the level crossing changed to CCTV type controlled from Wimbledon Area Signalling Centre. The earlier manually operated gates were operated by a wheel turned by the signalman from within the box.
map shows the lines around Motspur Park railway station, but not the actual station, which was only opened in 1925.

Services

The typical off-peak service from the station is six trains per hour northbound to London Waterloo, two trains per hour to Guildford, two trains per hour to Dorking and two trains per hour to Chessington South.
During peak hours some trains to and from Dorking do not stop.
Although both platforms have been extended to allow the use of ten-car trains, this was not introduced until December 2017.
Under Transport for London's plans for Crossrail 2, Motspur Park was originally chosen as a hub station to serve Malden Manor, Tolworth and Chessington North on the Chessington Branch Line as well as Worcester Park, Stoneleigh and Ewell West on the Mole Valley Line. Crossrail trains were not planned to stop at those stations so as to provide fast suburban links to a wide variety of railway stations including Victoria and Kings Cross St Pancras. In October 2015, TfL announced a set of local consultations would take place and their amended proposal provides that Crossrail 2 trains will now stop at all stations on the routes to the south and west of Wimbledon.

Connections

serves the station.