Bookham railway station

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Bookham
National Rail
Bookham railway station 1.jpg
LocationGreat Bookham, District of Mole Valley
England
Grid referenceTQ127556
Managed bySouth Western Railway
Platforms2
Other information
Station codeBKA
ClassificationDfT category E
History
Opened1885
Passengers
2016/17Decrease 0.332 million
2017/18Decrease 0.321 million
2018/19Increase 0.322 million
2019/20Decrease 0.291 million
2020/21Decrease 45,452
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road
Bookham Station in 1962

Bookham railway station is in the village of Great Bookham in Surrey, England. It also serves the adjacent village of Little Bookham. It is 20 miles 45 chains (33.1 km) down the line from London Waterloo.

The station is managed by South Western Railway, which provides the majority of train services; Southern also provides some peak-period services.

History[]

Bookham railway station was opened on 2 February 1885; the line at the time was owned by the London and South Western Railway.[1][2]

Initially the London and South Western Railway wanted to build the line into the centre of Great Bookham village itself, but as often happened in those early days of rail expansion from London, the key landowners (and villagers) were strongly opposed to that idea and forced the company to adopt a much more northerly route, resulting in the station being built nearly one mile (1.6 km) from the village high street in open country.

It effectively remained in an open-field setting until the later 1950s/early 1960s when there was a massive expansion of the village, with new estates built to fill the space between the high street and station, leaving only National Trust-owned land as a "green corridor" along parts of Church Road.

The station buildings remain largely unchanged to this day, including the footbridge and platform canopies, however, the station master's house has been sold off as a private dwelling.

Immediately to the west of the station the original goods siding was removed in the 1960s and the associated goods shed (used as a coal depot by local businessman Howard Weale at that time) was finally demolished in the 1990s having lived on for a time as a builder's yard (Tredan) and then offices.

There are now scant landmarks to identify it as the original siding and goods yard. The siding area was for a period home to a blacksmith, but that land was sold for housing development, and where the shed once stood is now a purpose-built office block.

Services[]

South Western Railway operate all off-peak services at Bookham using Class 455 EMUs.

Until 2022, Class 456 trains were often attached to Class 455 units to form ten carriage trains, but these were withdrawn on 17 January with the introduction of a new timetable. [3]

The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:[4]

During the peak hours, the station is also served by a number of Southern services between Guildford and London Bridge via Sutton and West Croydon. These services run towards London in the morning peak and towards Guildford in the evening peak and are operated using Class 377 EMUs.[5]

Services are reduced to hourly in each direction on Sundays.

Preceding station National Rail National Rail Following station
Leatherhead   South Western Railway
Mole Valley Line 		  Effingham Junction
  Southern
Sutton & Mole Valley Lines
Peak Hours Only 		 

References[]

  1. ^ Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 39. ISBN 1-85260-508-1. R508.
  2. ^ 'Parishes: Great Bookham', A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 3 (1911), pp. 326–35. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=42976. Date accessed: 12 August 2007.
  3. ^ "SWR withdraws '456s' following service cuts". Rail. No. 949. 26 January 2022. pp. 10–11.
  4. ^ Table 152 National Rail timetable, May 2020
  5. ^ Table 182 National Rail timetable, May 2020

External links[]

Coordinates: 51°17′20″N 0°23′02″W / 51.289°N 0.384°W / 51.289; -0.384

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