London Bridge

One of the oldest railway stations in the world and the fourth busiest rail terminal in London, the London Bridge Station is a stop on both the National Rail and London Underground railway lines.  The station is a large two level facility that is located to the southeast of London Bridge and it is one of the 18 main line railway stations that are managed by the Network Rail.  The London Bridge Station serves over 42 million people each year.  

Because the station is located south of the River Thames, the underground Jubilee Line and Bank branch of the Northern Line have no direct connection to the Circle Line.  There is one other station that is this way and that is the Waterloo Station. With Deptford, the London Bridge Station is the oldest in the current metropolitan area of London.  It opened up in 1836 and the current station is actually comprised of two separate facilities with both through and terminal platforms.  

The station was opened on December 14, 1836 on Tooley Street by the London and Greenwich Railway.  In 1839 the London and Croydon Railway joined the station and a joint station was opened in 1844 only to be demolished six years later.  Through a series of building and demolishing by the many different lines that passed through or terminated at the London Bridge Station over the next century, it wasn’t until 1925 that the station was unified by the Southern Railway.  The station that currently stands at London Bridge was opened on September 15 1978 by the British Rail.  There are currently 16 platforms in service at the station with platform 6 being listed as the busiest, as all of the trains heading to Charing Cross and beyond are routed through it.  The station is looking at yet another revamping as part of the Thameslink Programme but the work will not be completed until 2015.  

The London Bridge Underground Station is actually located on the Northern Line between Borough and Bank and on the Jubilee Line between Southwark and Bermondsey.  It is actually the sixth busiest station on the entire London Underground network.  The original entrance to the tube was at Three Castles House on the corner of London Bridge Street and Station approach.  It was moved to Borough High Street and Tooley Street with the Northern Line platforms and was rebuilt in the late 1990s to accommodate the opening of the Jubilee Line.  The Jubilee Line opened on October 7, 1999.  While excavation for the underground station was being done Roman remains, pottery fragments and pieces of Roman mosaics were found.  They were painstakingly removed and the station now has them on display in the station proper for visitors to enjoy.  

Since the station’s inception there have been at least four accidents on the railway and tube line.  While only three people have been killed and 38 injured due to these accidents – the most recent of which occurred in 1999 – they serve to show others how busy the London Bridge Station and interchange really is.