page_title: Clapham Junction railway station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Clapham Junction railway station / History
context_page_description: Clapham Junction railway station is a major railway station and transport hub near St John's Hill in south-west Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is 2 miles 57 chains from London Victoria and 3 miles 74 chains from London Waterloo; it is on both the South Western main line and Brighton main line as well as numerous other routes and branch lines passing through or diverging from the main lines at this station. Despite its name, Clapham Junction is not located in Clapham, a district situated approximately 1 mile to the south-east.
  Routes from London's south and south-west termini, Victoria and Waterloo, funnel through the station, making it the busiest in Europe by number of trains using it: between 100 and 180 per hour except for the five hours after midnight. The station is also the busiest UK station for interchanges between services, and the only railway station in Great Britain with more interchanges than entries or exits.
context_section_description: On 21 May 1838 the London and Southampton Railway became the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR), and opened its line from Nine Elms as far as Woking.
  The second line, initially from Nine Elms to Richmond, opened on 27 July 1846. Nine Elms was replaced in 1848 as the terminus by Waterloo Bridge station, now Waterloo. The line to Victoria opened by 1860. Clapham Junction opened on 2 March 1863, a joint venture of the L&SWR, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) and the West London Extension Railway (WLER) as an interchange station for their lines.
  The railway companies, to attract a middle- and upper-class clientele, seized the unindustrial parish calculating that being upon the slopes of Clapham's plateau would only re-inforce this distinction, leading to a long-lasting misunderstanding that the station is in Clapham.
caption: Details of roof support columns
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