Wimbledon and Croydon Railway

The Wimbledon and Croydon Railway was a railway between those places built to serve the heavily industrialised area of the River Wandle Valley. It followed the course of the earlier Surrey Iron Railway, and opened on 22 October 1855. It was worked by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway which bought it outright in 1858. In the latter half of the twentieth century the industrial use declined, and passenger numbers suffered also. The line closed in May 1997.

Most of the route was adopted for the trams of the Croydon network known as Tramlink.

The valley of the River Wandle was heavily industrialised in the eighteenth century—the most industrialised in the south of England—and to convey minerals and agricultural products the Surrey Iron Railway was built, opening in 1803; it was a horse-drawn plateway in which the rails were L-shaped in cross-section, guiding ordinary wagon wheels. The Surrey Iron Railway was not successful, however, and after a long period of dormancy it closed in 1846.

Wimbledon became connected by railway to London, when the London and Southampton Railway opened in 1838. The following year Croydon was connected by rail to London Bridge when the London and Croydon Railway opened to a station at the site of the present-day West Croydon station. In the following years the London and Southampton Railway was renamed the London and South Western Railway (LSWR), and the London and Croydon Railway merged with another company to from the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR).

There was pressure for a railway linking the towns and serving the industry in the area, and on 8 July 1853 the Wimbledon and Croydon Railway obtained an Act of Parliament to build an 11-mile line from Wimbledon to Epsom, joining the LSWR and the LB&SCR at the ends. The scheme was modified to form a 5¾ mile line from Wimbledon to (West) Croydon. The line opened on 22 October 1855.

At first the railway operated independently of its larger neighbours, being worked by the contractor G P Bidder of Mitcham, who constructed it. The LB&SCR leased it in 1856 and purchased it in 1866.

At first the passenger train service was six weekday and two Sunday trains each way. This gradually increased over the years, with some trains extended from Croydon to Crystal Palace Low Level in the steam era.

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