Leatherhead railway station
Leatherhead 
|
|
|---|---|
The entrance to Leatherhead railway station
|
|
| Location | |
| Place | Leatherhead |
| Local authority | District of Mole Valley |
| Coordinates | 51°17′56″N 0°19′59″W / 51.299°N 0.333°WCoordinates: 51°17′56″N 0°19′59″W / 51.299°N 0.333°W |
| Grid reference | TQ163568 |
| Operations | |
| Station code | LHD |
| Managed by | Southern |
| Number of platforms | 2 |
| DfT category | C2 |
| Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries |
|
| Annual rail passenger usage* | |
| 2011/12 |
 2.044 million |
| 2012/13 |
2.103 million |
| 2013/14 |
2.105 million |
| 2014/15 |
2.148 million |
| 2015/16 |
2.171 million |
| History | |
| Original company | London, Brighton and South Coast Railway |
| Pre-grouping | London, Brighton and South Coast Railway |
| Post-grouping | Southern Railway |
| 1 February 1859 | first station opened by E&LR |
| 4 March 1867 | LBSCR Station opened |
| 1885 | LSWR station opened |
| 1927 | LSWR station closed |
| National Rail – UK railway stations | |
| * Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Leatherhead from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year. | |
 |
|
Leatherhead railway station is in Surrey, England. It is managed by Southern which provides certain train services and South West Trains provides services to other destinations.
The long-standing reason for Leatherhead's two train operating companies is that its station is at the junction of the Victoria or London Bridge-terminating Horsham via Dorking Line with the Waterloo-terminating via Epsom route of the New Guildford Line. Both lines are only briefly combined corollaries to the main lines to major towns however were from 1923 until 1996 in the same ownership.
The first station in Leatherhead was the terminus of the short-lived Epsom and Leatherhead Railway Company (ELR), opened on 1 February 1859, a company which was bought by the London and South Western Railway.
In 1867 the somewhat winding route from London by Epsom, Dorking, and Horsham to Portsmouth was completed by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Company (LBSCR) rendering redundant its running rights over part of the London and South Western Railway line (that is from Epsom to Leatherhead) by jointly acquiring a section of the line, but with a separate station at 'Letherhead'. Leatherhead being due south-south-west from London, both companies, the LSWR and LBSCR, built their own Leatherhead station a few hundred yards apart from each other in the same way as Epsom to the north. The two stations were very close but south of the original junction and joint section of track which as in the present day leads towards Epsom. The first LSWR station was replaced by one 880 yards (805 m) to the near south-west of the LBSCR station, on 2 February 1885 with the opening of the line to Bookham and Effingham Junction and the Guildford New Line from Surbiton via Cobham, linking Leatherhead and Guildford by rail for the first time. It is now demolished and its spur redirected in 1927 (see below).
Under the grouping of 1923, the LBSCR and LSWR became part of (the) Southern Railway and thereby the rivalry of two stations within a few hundred metres made historic. The duplication of stops in the town centre ended in 1927 when the line from Guildford was diverted to join the LBSCR line to the south of the LBSCR station, entailing a new bridge across the River Mole but releasing some land.
...
Wikipedia