Woking railway station is a major stop in Woking, England, on the South West Main Line used by many commuters. It is 24 miles 27 chains (39.2 km) down the line from London Waterloo. The station is managed by South Western Railway, who operate all trains serving it.

Woking
The station's southern entrance is an art deco rounded-edge building in a mixture of concrete and stock brick courses
General information
Location	Woking England
Coordinates	51°19′05″N 0°33′25″W
Grid reference	TQ006587
Managed by	South Western Railway
Platforms	6
Other information
Station code	WOK
Classification	DfT category B
History
Original company	London and Southampton Railway
Pre-grouping	London and South Western Railway
Post-grouping	Southern Railway
Key dates
21 May 1838 (1838-05-21)	Station opened as Woking Common
c. 1843	Renamed Woking
Passengers
2016/17	7.998 million
2017/18	7.642 million
Interchange	1.381 million
2018/19	7.729 million
Interchange	1.424 million
2019/20	7.352 million
Interchange	1.232 million
2020/21	1.517 million
Interchange	0.264 million
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

History

The London and Southampton Railway (L&SR) was authorised on 25 July 1834.[1] It was built and opened in stages, and the first section, that between the London terminus at Nine Elms and Woking Common was opened on 21 May 1838.[2] Woking Common became a through station with the opening of the next section of the line, as far as Winchfield, on 24 September that year.[3] On 4 June 1839, the L&SR was renamed the London and South Western Railway (LSWR),[4] and Woking Common station assumed its current name of Woking around 1843.[5]

Woking became a junction with the opening of the Guildford Junction Railway (GJR) on 5 May 1845;[6] it had been authorised less than a year earlier, on 10 May 1844.[7] The GJR was always operated by the LSWR, and was absorbed by that company on 4 August 1845.[8]

The signal box, built by the Southern Railway, is a Grade II listed building.[9]

Accidents and incidents

Three trains were involved in a collision just east of the station on 23 December 1955. A Portsmouth line electric train came to a stand at signals near the Maybury Hill Road bridge. The following steam-hauled Waterloo-Basingstoke train overran the Maybury distant signal and collided with the rear of the electric train, demolishing the guards compartment and deflecting the rear bogie so that it was foul of the up-line. An up Bournemouth steam-hauled train had just left the station and came into sidelong collision with the bogie and came to a stand. Out of around 1000 passengers and crew on the three trains only 21 were injured, including the guard of the electric train, and there were no fatalities. The Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation report concluded the crash was due to human error on the part of the driver of the Basingstoke train.[10][11] The Basingstoke train locomotive, SR N15X class 32327 Trevithick, was damaged beyond economic repair and scrapped at Eastleigh Works.[12]

Services

Passenger

Many South Western Railway services call at Woking, including:

• the Alton Line calling at stations to Alton
• the Portsmouth Direct Line to Guildford and stations to Portsmouth
• the South West Main Line to Winchester, Southampton, Bournemouth, Poole and Weymouth
• the West of England Main Line to Andover, Salisbury and Exeter
• The station is a terminus of the Waterloo to Woking stopping service

Fast trains from Woking take approximately 26 minutes to reach London Waterloo (some stop at Clapham Junction). Trains from the Alton Line take roughly 35 minutes, and the stopping service 50 minutes, to Waterloo.

An hourly RailAir bus service runs between the bus station on the north side of the station and Heathrow Airport, a journey of about 50 minutes.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Clapham Junction or London Waterloo		South Western Railway Portsmouth Direct Line		Guildford
		South Western Railway Portsmouth Direct Line (Stopping service)		Worplesdon
		South Western Railway South West Main Line		Farnborough (Main) or Basingstoke or Winchester
		South Western Railway West of England Main Line		Basingstoke
West Byfleet		South Western Railway Alton Line		Brookwood
		South Western Railway Waterloo to Woking (Stopping service)		Terminus
Weybridge		South Western Railway Waterloo to Basingstoke (Stopping service)		Brookwood
	Historical railways
Staines		Anglia Railways London Crosslink		Farnborough (Main)

Platform layout

v t e Woking station
Legend
Note: cafés on south and central platforms   Townside ticket hall 1 South West Main Line stopping service to/from London Main Line westbound 5 Platform 6 (little-used) Downside ticket hall etc.

Woking Station has six platforms, two of which are bay platforms.

• Platform 1 – Semi-fast London-bound services.
• Platform 2 – Fast London-bound services. Part of a single island with 3 and 4 below.
• Platform 3 – East-facing bay for stopping service to and from London Waterloo. At the end of platforms 2 and 4.
• Platform 4 – Trains to Exeter St Davids, Portsmouth Harbour (via Basingstoke), Salisbury and Weymouth.
• Platform 5 – Portsmouth Direct Line services, Alton line and Basingstoke stopping services.
• Platform 6 – West-facing bay platform, used by the first train of the day to Portsmouth Harbour via Eastleigh, and often used to stable trains in the event of a train failure.^{[citation needed]}

Freight

Woking still retains two sets of sidings, each to the west of the station. The down side yard, between the station and Woking junction, is now a Network Rail permanent way maintenance depot[13] and aggregates stone depot operated by Day Aggregates.[14] The up side sidings are used to stable specialist track maintenance machines and out of service passenger trains.^{[citation needed]}

In popular culture

• The station was destroyed in H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds.[15]
• Woking Station can be seen at the beginning of the 1995 music video for 'You Do Something To Me' by Paul Weller.[16]
• In the television adaptation of the Philip K. Dick story "The Commuter" for the series Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, railway worker Ed Jacobson (played by Timothy Spall) works at Woking station, and discovers a non-existent destination on the Alton line.[17]
• Sean Henry's sculpture, Seated Man, waits patiently for his train on Platform 1.

References

Bibliography

• Awdry, Christopher (1990). Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies. London: Guild Publishing. CN 8983.
• Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-85260-508-1. R508.
• Wells, H.G. (1975) [1898]. The War of the Worlds. London: Pan Books. ISBN 0-330-24332-2.
• Williams, R.A. (1968). The London & South Western Railway, volume 1: The Formative Years. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-4188-X.

External links

• Woking Borough Council, 'Woking's railway'

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Woking railway station.

• Train times and station information for Woking railway station from National Rail