Database: Waterloo Station

When the first built Waterloo station in 1848, it was only meant to be a stopover between and the City of London. That didn't stop Waterloo from becoming a high-traffic station, though, and as demand grew, additional platforms were built around the original building, which became known as the "Central station." Each new platform was built with its own entrance and booking office, and was either mislabelled or not labelled at all. Confusion grew further in 1869 when another train station named Waterloo Junction was built across the street.
Waterloo Station accommodated passengers both living and dead. In response to London's crowded cemeteries, established the in 1852 to create a new burial ground outside the city and ship the newly deceased from inside the city. The former task was achieved by building a 500-acre cemetery in Surrey - the largest in the world at the time - and the latter by establishing the "Necropolis Railway," a private rail line that moved all those corpses directly from Waterloo station to Surrey. Waterloo was chosen as a departure point because its location by the Thames allowed bodies to be delivered to the station from all over London.
It's like a beautiful fairytale, isn't it? Sometimes life can be magical.
Category:Database: Locations
Category:Helix database entries