Clapham Junction Railway Station

The food here is wonderful and the open air is perfect. But the only reason that you can get such fresh air and there is so much food to choose from is that the design is just a sprawling open field of rail tracks. This means that transfers under 5 minutes are a mad dash to figure out obscure code saying where to go and when. Without google maps, I would wish this place upon no traveler.
The transitions range from semi-​complex to horrid, with 5 minute jaunts down empty hallways more of a norm than an exception. Seriously, this could be designed so much better.
So though it’s easy when you’re used to it and you can plan the transitions a bit, but travel via rail in the UK should be much simpler this day and age.

So, I feel conflicted with this station.
Sure, it’s huge and you can get anywhere by heading to one of the 26 or so platforms. There are coffee shops, bagel shops, pretzel places and more dotted all the way down so it’s a nice and easy place to grab food. And the platforms are all clearly signposted and outside so you can grab some ‘fresh’ air, unlike the Underground.
BUT. If you’re going out of the London zones, this station is more of a hindrance then a help.
We came in from Peckham Rye and were heading to Kempton Park… so we had to walk from platform 2 all the way to the other side of the station and out of the ticket barriers to get a ticket that was valid for that part of the journey. It’s a good 5 — 10 minute walk and delay, which is annoying. Really annoying. It’s not like trains are frequent enough that there will be another one along in a minute. The one we were aiming for was once an hour. That could have REALLY messed us up.
I did manage to grab a delicious bagel on the way back to the platform… but that’s probably more a plus for the bagel place. Meh. It’s okay.

Clapham Junction railway station is a major railway station and transport hub near St John’s Hill in the south-​west of Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. Although it is in Battersea, the area around the station is commonly identified as Clapham Junction.
Routes from London’s south and south-​west termini, London Waterloo and London Victoria, funnel through the station making it one of the busiest in Europe by number of trains using it, 100 – 180 per hour save for the five hours after midnight. The station is also the busiest UK station for interchanges between services

This is my local station, and it is VERY well connected. Unfortunately, this also means that it gets hectically busy, sometimes overwhelmingly so! But the staff are good, the place is kept nice and clean, and sometimes there are interesting buskers that are entertaining rather than annoying.
There is a range of foodie-​type shops dotted around on and between platforms, including Marks & Spencer, Joy, Costa and a new dessert bar that is sublime!
Trains and the overground both run from this station.
There are two exits — one to Grant Road and one to St John’s Hill (the main Clapham Junction high street)

Your staff suck. Especially the little one on the back entrance with attitude wearing a headscarf

Railways. Railway stations. It’s pretty much all I live for. Come to my house and you will see model railways, endless books on trains and framed photos of me meeting the world’s most influential train drivers.
So, coming to Clapham Junction is like a mecca for us train nerds.
Just to know that all of the trains that have the go into both Waterloo & Victoria have to pass through Clapham Junction sends my mind reeling with excitement. Approximately 2000 trains per day coming through here? I can barely get the numbers down in my train spotting book with the pace that they come through here. It’s truly incredible. And biggest excitement of all?
It’s the biggest train station in England. Right there. The behold the might of Clapham Junction!

When possible, I use National Rail to get around London instead of the bus or the tube. This often involves a change at Clapham Junction. The main plus for this station is that it is so well connected and you can get to a lot of places both inside and outside of London from here. The biggest problem with the station is that the digital boards showing trains and platforms aren’t that informative. It would be really nice if you could quickly see which platform you need to go to when you have a tight connection.

Europe’s busiest train station seems to have less entrance and exit gates than your average suburban tube station. So when you think Rush Hour, think Crush Hour. People backed-​up in the tunnels and staircases waiting to exit or transfer is not efficient and frankly a bit scary. Clapham Junction really needs an update soon. Who knows how many injuries they have a month.
And another thing… to view the departures information screens at The Grant Road entrance you have to go through the gates. So you swipe in and find your train isn’t for another 25 mins and now you’re stuck in the tunnel of dread with nothing to do.

The station could do with an update, it’s looking rather grim.
There definitely aren’t enough update boards for you to work out where to go. You constantly see tourists looking around nonplussed as to where they are. Better signage is definitely needed.
Train service isn’t that great but that’s not just specific to Clapham Junction.
Though it probably should be noted that when I did used to take the train to work the morning train only arrived on time twice in 5 months. I don’t know why they just didn’t call it the 10 past rather than the 1 past :/

If you’re in Clapham and you want to go somewhere, then this is a good place to start. It has connections to pretty much everywhere conceivable and there are so many options it feels as though there must be a train that could take you any place in the world (well, you could at least get as far as an airport).
The multitude of platforms can seem a bit overwhelming at first but actually it doesn’t take long to get to grips with which trains go from where, and you’ll soon be navigating your way through the crowds with alacrity. And because the trains run so regularly, if you miss one, there’s probably another one within 5 or 10 minutes.
I prefer to use the top entrance/​exit onto St. John’s Hill. There are plenty of ticket machines there and the queue moves quickly, although it’s really busy on a Monday first thing with everyone buying their weekly passes so you need to factor in a bit of extra time then.
There’s a WH Smiths from which to get your morning paper and a new make-​up station in case you need some extra help looking presentable (I’m assuming they must have done some market research that identified a consumer demand for make-​up application with train ticket purchases).
Getting in and out of the station via the bridge is not as crowded as the tunnel as it’s wider, so it makes for slightly more ease in reaching your platform. You can also get a reasonable view of the city skyline from here and often there are people lined up against the glass taking photos. At least I assume that’s what they’re taking photos of, but I guess it’s possible they’re train spotters.
There are a number of little businesses along the bridge (newsagent, a well-​stocked card/​gift shop, flower vendors, oh — and cash machines which is handy), as well as coffee vendors (Café Nero predominantly, but pretty much everyone along there professes to sell something that passes as coffee), and food outlets (pretzels, pasties (the kind David Cameron apparently likes), subs and gourmet hot-​dogs etc).
What else could you need to set you up for the day or sate you after a night out?! From what I can tell, the gourmet hot dog stand appears to stay open longer than any of the other food options, but I’ve never been tempted to try it. I suspect we may have different interpretations of «gourmet».

I travel through several major train stations in London regularly and this one is the worst by far. All the others are big open spaces, even almost creating a pleasant setting, with cafes around where you can sit and wait for your train while looking at big screens to get updates on the incoming/​outgoing trains, etc. Basically, they are what you expect from a busy train station in the UK capital. But Clapham Junction is the exact opposite, it is narrow, dirty, crowded, confusing, a real pain to travel through. I use it when I have to, otherwise I avoid it.

For the love of everything that is good and holy, please open the Grant Road entrance again!
Clapham Junction boasts being the UK’s busiest station. I believe it. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve accidentally punched someone in the balls in close proximity with my naturally swinging arm.

Clapham Junction railway station is near St John’s Hill in the south-​west of Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. Although it is in Battersea, the area around the station is commonly identified as Clapham Junction.
Many routes from London’s two busiest termini, London Waterloo and Victoria, funnel through the station making it one of the busiest in Europe by number of trains using it, more than one hundred an hour outside peak periods.
Each day about 2,000 trains, most stopping, pass through the station, more than through any other station in Europe.[citation needed] At peak times 180 trains per hour pass through of which 117 stop. It is not the busiest station by number of
I can get to waterloo in 10 min, vauxhall in 8, i can get to surrey in 20 min. I can get to victoria in about 20.
— Busiest train station in England.
— There’s a sainsbury inside, an M&S, A florist, a dry cleaner and 2 coffe/​booze/​sandwich stops along the way to the tracks.
This excerpt taken from Wiki Page
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passengers, most of whom (about 430,000 on a weekday, of which 135,000 are at rush hours) pass through. Interchanges make some forty per cent of the activity and on that basis too it is the busiest station in the UK.[5]
As of 2011, the station has three separate entrances, all of which have staffed ticket offices (though only the south east entrance is open 24 hours a day). The south east entrance, which is the most heavily used of the three, leads from St. John’s Hill, via a small indoor shopping centre, into a subway some 15 ft (4.6 m) wide which connects to the eastern ends of all platforms.
The northern entrance, which has restricted opening hours, leads from Grant Road to the same subway. The subway is crowded during rush hours, ticket barriers at the ends are pinch points.
The south west entrance (also known as the Brighton Yard entrance, as the Victorian station buildings still bear signage for the London Brighton and South Coast Railway) is of a more traditional appearance, with a Victorian station building set at the back of a large forecourt. This entrance leads to a very wide covered footbridge, which joins the western ends of all platforms. This entrance includes cycle parking and a taxi rank. It was opened in May 2011, as part of a wider programme of access improvements which included installing lifts to the platforms.[6]
The station has full public and disabled toilet facilities at the south west entrance. There are refreshment kiosks in the underpass, on the overpass, and on some platforms; and a small shopping centre (including a small branch of Sainsbury’s supermarket) in the St. John’s Hill entrance.
British Transport Police maintain a neighbourhood policing presence at Clapham Junction.[7]

Huge station, and you certainly notice this when you get off on platform 3, and have to make it to platform 14 within 30 seconds to catch your next train!
Seems to be plenty of information around regarding which platform to go to and when the next train is going, so although it’s massive, it’s not too hard to find your way around.
Plenty of shops to grab a bite to eat or a coffee if you need to wait for a train. As stations go, this one is pretty much OK!

Can’t live with it, can’t kill it
I hate Clapham Junction, and yet, it is the best/​fastest way for me to get to Victoria station from Woking (in Surrey).
The stairs all over the place are a killer, and to be avoided unless you have someone to carry your suitcase.
The only way I use the station is by knowing which platforms the trains for Woking leave from (9 and 11), and pray that those platforms are functioning when I am travelling.
Signalisation for platform numbers is decent, but figuring out which platform the next train to somewhere is, is impossible. I find that most of the time I stakeout 1 – 2 platforms that go to that destination and read out their blinking displays. The main screens of next fastest train on the overpass are usually broken, and rarely update themselves. So much so that I have often called my boyfriend in a state of panic saying there’s no more trains to woking!!! when there were 2 more, but the display wasn’t telling me
If you’re travelling from London to the outside, I’d recommend being in front of your first train, (so you end up closer to the overpass stairs) and running to catch the next one, as most of the time they don’t leave you enough time to change services and you end up stranded in the middle of a very cold and draughty nowhere for a good 40min. It’s absolute hell on winter nights (assuming hell has frozen over)

Grim. Sorry, but it’s grim. The station is comically old fashioned, ugly, cold, draughty, and the stairs are a serious pain in the backside when you have luggage. It’s always staggeringly busy, crowded, and is confusing to get around. I’ve used it a fair bit to go to Sussex to see the grandparents and I’ve never really enjoyed it. Compared to places like Waterloo and St Pancras it’s a painful throwback to the bad old days, and frankly the sooner they renovate it the better, despite the immense disruption that would be caused.

Clapham Junction is loved and hated, thats for sure. I travel through it monthly, at least, and there are just a few points to make.
For a start, it always amazes me that the long, long bridge over the platforms is double glazed. Why is that? Sixteen platforms or so, so thirty two sets of steps down from it, with no doors on. and all these windows are double glazed. I suppose its a security measure, to stop people throwing things or breaking glass, but still. it makes me think every time I see it.
I travelled through last year with my mother, who’s in her eighties. She refuses to travel through it again, she wants to use East Croydon, which has ramps. Of course, there are lifts, but the time they take, and the levels of waiting and crowding, are not pleasant for an elderly lady, too fit for a wheelchair but not quite up to the mob of a London train station.

First, let’s get the statistics out of the way. Clapham Junction proudly announces that it is the busiest station in Britain, although it is probably the busiest — in terms of the number trains, at least — in Europe, with around 120 trains an hour off-​peak, and around 2,000 per day.
It’s used by 12.5 million passengers a year, with an additional 9.5 million changing trains here, making it the UK’s busiest interchange, though of course many more pass through on their way to Waterloo and Victoria. (Though that’s still peanuts compared to Tokyo Shinjuku station, with over 3 million passengers per DAY).
It is also — by surface area — the largest station in the UK according to the Guinness Book of Records, although this includes quite large areas of track — there are both extensive sidings and a train depot in the angle of the junction. It’s actually two stations joined by a subway and a long bridge — platforms 2 to 6 servicing the lines to Richmond (and the service to Willesden Junction) and the rest servicing the lines to Balham out of Victoria and Wimbledon out of Waterloo.
All trains from Waterloo pass through here, although not all stop. All the Brighton and South Coast trains, and local services via Balham from Victoria also pass through, all but the Gatwick express stopping. In addition, the services from Watford and Willesden Junctions on the West London line use platforms 2, 16 and 17.
Although the first line through the area, from Nine Elms in Vauxhall to Southampton, opened in 1838, the station itself was opened as a junction until 1863, when it was built to link the services from Victoria and Waterloo. Expanded over the years, there are now two entrances, both from the subway: one at the north end onto Grant Road, and the small bus station, and the main one through a small shopping centre onto St John’s Hill. Both were rebuilt as part of the station redevelopment in the 1980s and have ticket offices. There used to be another entrance from the footbridge onto St John’s Hill, but this has been closed.
Architecturally, most of the interest is on the platforms: the wooden buildings from 1863 with their delicate cast-​iron decorative canopies decoration on platforms 2 – 8 on the original 1846 line to Richmond and the fast lines to Wimbledon are the most interesting, and the yellow stock-​brick offices on platforms 9 & 10 are well preserved. The best buildings are the old London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Parcel Offices on St John’s Hill, in an imposing Edwardian Baroque style, dating from 1910. Needless to say, the new entrance buildings above the shopping centre are hideous — in fact, the station entrance almost seems an afterthought.
As a modern station, it has lots of places to get a sandwich or coffee and lots of trains (and people) to watch, but as somewhere I use regularly, I find it less pleasant as a station. The subway is far too narrow for the use it gets, dank and sometimes the roof leaks. The toilets off the subway are small, smelly and seedy. The footbridge, although wider and pleasanter, involves a longer walk to to platforms 2 – 6 and lots of steps, and both entrances onto platform 17 are hopelessly narrow. And litter on the tracks seems to be a perennial problem at this station.
In fact, steps are what Clapham Junction is all about: between 28 and 40 to every platform, making it hopelessly inaccessible for wheelchair users, those with pushchairs, prams and heavy luggage. There are no passengers lifts or escalators.
Wandsworth Borough Council has published a ten-​point plan to improve facilities at the station, including better services, a link to the underground, reopening the St John’s Hill entrance and installing lifts to the platforms.
Two recent saving graces have been the installation of electronic ticket machines by South West Trains (which seem to work), and the new information system, which at least tells you whether trains are on time or not — important for me as I make the run from platform 12 to platform 2 to make my 4 minute connection. before that, there was simply a poster indicating ‘Platforms 2 or 17′ for my local station, West Brompton, which was about as unhelpful as you could get.
Time for another major makeover, I think.

Ah yes, Clapham Junction. Many a time have I lugged my ridiculously heavy bike up the stairs to one of the platforms to go cycling in the countryside. As detailed in the previous review, train connections from Clapham Junction go in many directions, plenty of opportunities to escape London in a flash.
Although it’s busy, it’s really quite neat and well arranged, not even I can manage to get lost here — finding the platforms are easy as pie! And you won’t be at a loss if you want a coffee or a snack — try the Cornish pasty place by the entrance with all the shops, it’s great.

This is Europe’s buisest railway station with a train almost every 2 minutes. Locations vary from destinations like Exeter, Manchester, Cardiff to the more local Wimbledon or Vauxhall. Actually located in Battersea, it was named Clapham Junction as Battersea was not an attractive area in the 1860s when the station was conceived as a junction stop of trains out of London Waterloo and London Victoria. There are plenty of shops and places for coffee, almost one on every platform and two entraces, one with a shopping centre and the other is deviod of anything really.
Can I reccommend using the walkway above the platforms as you can see if you next train comes in and the views accross London are one fo the favourite parts to my day as you can see from the pictures uploaded.
So here is the full run down…
Platform 1 — Closed, but might be used for London underground in future
Platform 2 — London Overground services to Willesden Junction, Kensington Olympia and West Brompton
Platform 3 — 6 are for London Waterloo to Windsor, Richmond, Reading, Twickenham, Ascot and Hounslow
Platform 7 – 8 are for long distance services to and from London Waterloo to Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth, New Forest and Weymouth
Platforms 9 – 10 for London Waterloo and Vauxhall
Platform 11 for suburban services to Gulidford, Epsom and Woking all stopping at Wimbledon
Platform 12 for London Victoria
Platform 13 for Sussex, Brighton and East Croydon
Platform 14 for London Victoria
Platform 15 for Sutton, South London destinations like Balham, Streatham and Epsom Downs
Platform 16 and 17 — for trains to Watford Junction, Rugby, Northampton and Gatwick Airport