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When did fast trains on the South Western mainland stop at Clapham Junction & platform numbering?

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infobleep

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In thw few timetable books I own from the 40s, 50s and early 60a, some of the fast trains on the South West main line stopped at Surbtion, if I remeber correctly but definitely none were showing as stopping at Clapham Junction.

At what point did fast trains stop more at Clapham Junction?

Obviously given platforms 7 and 8 are very old, they must have stopped there at some point in the long distant past before not doing so. Is that right?

Another thing. In an old Southern Railway permanent speed restrictions booklet from 1st October 1945, for West London Line scissor crossings they refer to platforms 11 and 12. However in the 20th July 1950, British Railways Supplement number 2 leaflet, they are now numbered 16 and 17.

Did a renumbering take place at Clapham Junction in c1950 or was it something else?
 
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My recollection is that it was in the mid/late 1980s (maybe around 1986/7?) that some trains started stopping on the fast lines, although this may just have been the Guildford/Alton/etc. ones that also stopped at Surbiton -- longer-distance fast trains stopping at Clapham Junction and not Surbiton may have begun a bit later (I do though have a memory -- I can't remember the year but it was no later than 1989 -- of boarding a train on Platform 9, and then hurriedly getting off it again a few seconds later when I realised that it wasn't stopping at Surbiton). Maybe someone here has copies of the relevant timetables.

I think (although this is decades before my time!) that before the Wimbledon flyover was built (1930s?) the lines at Clapham Junction were paired by direction, so 7/8 would have been the Up Slow platforms, with the fast lines on 9 and 10.

A quick look at a reprint of the summer 1914 LSWR timetable indicates that plenty of medium-distance trains and some long-distance semifasts/stoppers stopped at Clapham Junction (I don't know which line they would have run on), but not the expresses. In the July 1938 Bradshaw reprint, Clapham Junction only appears in the tables for the suburban services, although that doesn't rule out the possibility of stops by other trains hidden in footnotes or on other pages.

I don't know the answer to your question about platform numbers.
 

JonathanH

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By 1989, the off-peak fast line departures from Waterloo were:

xx05 Southampton slow - Clapham Junction, Surbiton, Woking and all stations to Southampton
xx15 Salisbury / Exeter in alternate hours - Clapham Junction (Salisbury services only), Woking, Basingstoke etc
xx20 Portsmouth Harbour - Clapham Junction, Woking, Guildford, Farncombe, Godalming, Haslemere, Liphook, Liss, Petersfield, Havant, Fratton, Portsmouth & Southsea, Portsmouth Harbour
xx25 Farnham - Surbiton, Walton-on-Thames, Weybridge and all stations to Farnham
xx32 Weymouth - Southampton Parkway, Southampton, Brockenhurst, Bournemouth, Poole, Wareham and all stations to Weymouth
xx35 Basingstoke slow - Clapham Junction, Surbiton, Woking and all stations to Basingstoke
xx45 Poole - Clapham Junction, Woking, Basingstoke, Winchester, Eastleigh, Southampton Parkway, Southampton, Totton, Brockenhurst, New Milton, Christchurch and all stations to Poole
xx50 Portsmouth fast - Guildford, Haslemere, Petersfield, Havant, Portsmouth & Southsea, Portsmouth Harbour
xx55 Alton - Clapham Junction, Woking and all stations to Alton

There was also a slow line service at xx15 from Waterloo to Portsmouth calling Clapham Junction, Wimbledon, Surbiton and all stations to Portsmouth & Southsea. This terminated at Farnham on the opposite side of the hour.

Clearly the peak timetable was different with no calls on the fast line platforms at Clapham Junction.
 

randyrippley

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Only times I can remember stopping at Clapham Jct on WofE loco hauled service would have been on the up returning paper train empties, left Yeovil around 06:40. Other than that I never knew a stop there, behind 42/33/50
They were all non-stop Woking-Waterloo
Having said that, I always caught a Yeovil or Exeter service - the Salisbury shorts may have been different
 

infobleep

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Thanks for the replies. I don't have any timetables from the 80s.

By 1989, the off-peak fast line departures from Waterloo were:

There was also a slow line service at xx15 from Waterloo to Portsmouth calling Clapham Junction, Wimbledon, Surbiton and all stations to Portsmouth & Southsea. This terminated at Farnham on the opposite side of the hour.

Clearly the peak timetable was different with no calls on the fast line platforms at Clapham Junction.
Which route did the x15 take? Guildford or Basingstoke?
 

ls2270

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Thanks for the replies. I don't have any timetables from the 80s.


Which route did the x15 take? Guildford or Basingstoke?
Was via Guildford. Don’t forget Eastleigh to Portcreek Jn wasn’t electrified until 1990.
 

Snow1964

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The platforms usage was different prior to the 1936 flyover between Wimbledon and Earlsfield. The 4 lines were paired by direction not usage. After the flyover was built Earlsfield lost its old up slow platform (the track is now up fast)

Clapham Junction platform 7 (loop) was off the up slow, this had a milk dock the other side (where churns from West country were unloaded). Not sure when this was electrified, a 1962 photo in a book has platform 7 without third rail.

Platform 8 was up slow, now the rarely used up fast platform (there is a big drop from trains). The next island 9 and 10 were the up and down fast (now down fast and up slow)

The LSWR station used to be approached by a ramp from the road bridge, a large building where platforms 8 and 9 now are, this was all demolished and extra platforms (now 7,8,9) built with a replacement station building on columns, above the new island platforms. It also had an elevated walkway to main footbridge (it caught fire about 40 years ago and was demolished, although some of the steel supports survived a few years)

The island platform 7&8 at Vauxhall also didn’t exist, but was squeezed in to accommodate the 1936 rearrangement (which is why it is narrower, but the busiest).

There have been periods when some mainline trains called at Wimbledon instead, and before the main lines became so congested with long distance commuter trains, there were some peak hour trains which ran fast from Norbiton or New Malden.

It was the mid 1980s when some semi-fast services started calling, and some timetables used to show a Gatwick arrival time as a connection because it was done to help people (with luggage) to transfer to the airport (before some Gatwick trains started skipping Clapham Junction)
 
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30907

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Another thing. In an old Southern Railway permanent speed restrictions booklet from 1st October 1945, for West London Line scissor crossings they refer to platforms 11 and 12. However in the 20th July 1950, British Railways Supplement number 2 leaflet, they are now numbered 16 and 17.
Did a renumbering take place at Clapham Junction in c1950 or was it something else?

The crossing in question was definitely on the Kensington side of presnet platforms 16/17. Pure speculation:
supposing the ex LSWR island platforms were numbered (as in Central Europe) "per island" not "per track", you would have had
1 Kensington (later 1,2)
2 Up Windsor (3,4)
3 Down Windsor (5,6)
4 Up Main Loop and Local (7,8)
5 Up and Down Main Through (9,10)
6 Down Main Local (11)
7-10 ex LBSC (12-15), 11-12 WLL (16-17).
5 on this scheme would have been prone to confuse passengers, but as it was less used (Up and Down), I suppose it is possible.
I can't see any other way of matching the numbers - apart from a totally random error.

I would then suppose that after the rearrangement mentioned by 181 the platforms were renumbered as in brackets, essentially as today. That should have happened in 1937(?), but it is possible infobleep's booklet was an uncorrected reprint immediately post war - or that the work got deferred.

This is, I repeat, pure (but I hope intelligent) guesswork - I can't quickly find anything online, and my 1934 Appendix doesn't cover speed restrictions.
 

Peter Mugridge

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Only times I can remember stopping at Clapham Jct on WofE loco hauled service would have been on the up returning paper train empties, left Yeovil around 06:40. Other than that I never knew a stop there, behind 42/33/50
They were all non-stop Woking-Waterloo
Having said that, I always caught a Yeovil or Exeter service - the Salisbury shorts may have been different

During the late 1980s / early 1990s I would often start my Saturday days out from Stoneleigh on a train around 08.30 and this would arrive at Clapham Junction a few minutes ahead of an up express hauled by a 50 which called there; more often than not I would change there to ride behind the 50 for the last few miles into Waterloo.

I have no idea if the train had started from Salisbury or Exeter, though, but my memory is that the Salisbury workings did all call at Clapham Junction, and equally I do remember that about half the trains called and half didn't, so I suspect you are right that it was the Exeter ones which didn't as the Salisbury ones did.
 

nw1

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Was via Guildford. Don’t forget Eastleigh to Portcreek Jn wasn’t electrified until 1990.

Late reply but might be a good place to add this information here:

The Portsmouth via Eastleigh was indeed introduced in May 1990. It had a departure time of xx10 from Waterloo. In the first year it didn't stop at Clapham Junction, while it did in the 1991 timetable. A possible reason for this perhaps is that it was reliably operated with Greyhound CIGs in 1991, but a mixture of regular CIGs and VEPs in 1990, if I remember right - and the faster speed of the Greyhounds could have allowed the Clapham stop to be inserted without time penalty.

I think the rest of the 1989 pattern above was maintained, which might have caused the xx10 to catch up the xx05 before Surbiton if Clapham had a significant time penalty - unless the xx05 was moved forward a little to say xx02 or xx03. Can't remember now I have to admit.
 
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