Kent Rail

London Victoria

SE&CR Follows Suit

The LC&DR had formed a Common Managing Committee with the SER in 1899, becoming known jointly as the South Eastern & Chatham Railway (SE&CR). The opening of the first section of the rebuilt ‘’Brighton’’ station at Victoria in 1906 prompted the SE&CR to make improvements to its own terminus, which it continued to lease jointly with the GWR. Unlike the LB&SCR’s scheme, which had involved razing all existing structures, bar the Grosvenor Hotel, to the ground, the SE&CR’s programme largely saw the retention of the 1862 terminus, but included tasteful additions to the northern façade. In comparison to the ‘’Brighton’’ station, signalling was not drastically altered, and points and semaphores continued to be controlled from a recessed frame within the station’s eastern elevation. Dubbed the ‘’hole-in-the-wall’’, this basic signal cabin had originally come into use with the first wave of improvements enacted at both termini over the period 1865 to 1867. Its complement of levers was subsequently extended as part of the 1907 to 1908 works, and both it and the ‘’Chatham’’ yard signal box, overlooking Grosvenor Carriage sidings, survived the SE&CR improvement works. The ‘’Chatham’’ yard also received a 54-foot 10-inch locomotive turntable at the time of the SE&CR scheme.

Work began in 1907 with the demolition of the clapboard structures fronting the station to the north. Overseeing the entire project was Mr Percy C. Tempest, engineer of the SE&CR Managing Committee, and architect M. W. J. Ancell. Mr Tempest’s architectural assistant, Mr A. W. Blomfield, was responsible for producing the new station frontage, which would face onto the main forecourt and extend around the corner to Wilton Road. Messrs Higgs and Hill were hired as building contractors, and the construction task was not without its problems. The fact that the station stood on a site formerly occupied by a canal basin made it difficult for contractors to lay solid foundations. This problem was solved by forming a large raft of reinforced concrete, 6-feet thick and measuring 200-feet in length by 65-feet in width, and placing this upon the site destined for the new building. The latter transpired to be four-storeys-high, and had a 170-foot long frontage facing onto the station forecourt, and a 200-foot-long block fronting Wilton Street. It was fundamentally Georgian in style, combining some French influences, and on its northern façade was faced with Portland Stone. The southern elevation, facing the platform concourse, had a red brick finish, of which the window openings were lined with Portland Stone. The new structure, graced with a centrally-positioned arch for cab access, housed many rooms, most of which were for public use:
 


Both restaurants were occupied by Messrs. Joseph Lyons & Co, who had been the contracted caterers for the LC&DR for a number of years. One of the aims of the improvement programme was to increase the circulating space at the head of the platforms. This had previously been obstructed by pillars supporting the low roof which spanned the gap between the timber frontage buildings and the trainshed. The gap in-between the trainshed and the new masonry structure was subsequently filled by a ridge-and-furrow patterned roof, carried upon girders that rested on the walls of the new building and on the roof pillars standing on the platforms themselves. 4-feet of space was gained by reducing the width of the frontage building, compared to the area taken up by the timber affairs, and the lengths of platform Nos. 6 and 7 were cut back by 15-feet. The twin-span Fowler trainshed was renovated, and the original brick-built offices on the eastern side of the station were retained along Wilton Road, these containing a Royal Suite, booking hall, waiting rooms, and a baggage office. Much of the new station had been completed by July 1908, parts being opened piecemeal. On 16th November of the same year, both the LB&SCR and SE&CR officially sanctioned the introduction of ‘’Electrobuses’’ into their station forecourts, a privilege denied to all other forms of mechanically-driven omnibuses.

After the 1865 to 1867 widening works of the LB&SCR and LC&DR Companies, the ‘’Chatham’’ station comprised nine platform faces serving nine tracks, two of these being mixed gauge to accommodate GWR services. The GWR completely abandoned Broad Gauge on their entire network in 1892, and the SE&CR’s rebuilding of Victoria provided a total of ten platform faces under Fowler’s twin-span roof, all serving standard gauge lines.

The Brighton’s ‘’Elevated Electric’’

In 1891, official figures showed that the South London Line was carrying six million passengers per annum, with trains running at about six minute intervals on weekdays. At the turn of the century, LB&SCR traffic became increasingly threatened by the electrification of tramways within the London suburbs. The company’s response culminated in Parliament authorising, in 1903, the electrification of any part of the LB&SCR network. On the advice of Philip Dawson, Consulting Engineer to the LB&SCR, it was decided to pursue an overhead electric wire system which, it was argued, avoided complicating the permanent way with conductor rails. The South London Line was selected as the test bed for the new system. In December 1905, it was announced that the ‘’British Thomson-Houston Company’’, in association with the Berlin-based ‘’Allgemeine Elektricitäts Gesellschaft’’, had been awarded the contract to electrify the nine-mile route. The Thomson-Houston Company owned the patents for the proposed ‘’Winter-Eichberg’’ single-phase system proposed. Manufacture of components was to start in Germany first; this was because the Allgemeine Elektricitäts Gesellschaft company had already made motors identical to those proposed for use on the South London Line electrification, thus equipment could be acquired quickly. Manufacture of British components eventually commenced in Rugby, and electrification work began in 1906.

Seven of the roads at Victoria (LB&SCR) were electrified: platforms Nos. 1 to 5, and the middle lines in-between platform Nos. 3 and 4, and in-between Nos. 5 and 6. Electrification of the route took twice as long as expected, and it was later claimed this was due to the fact that the LB&SCR’s advisors had failed to grasp the difficulty of installing a brand new infrastructure system on a line which, at the same time, still had to handle substantial suburban traffic. By October 1909, the electrified section of line in-between Victoria and Peckham Rye had been formally approved by the Board of Trade, but the remaining stretch beyond, to London Bridge, had not. Initially, there was speculation that the overhead wire gantries obscured signals, hence the Board of Trade’s foot dragging, but this transpired not to be the case. There had, however, been mechanical interference between the signals and overhead wires at London Bridge, a problem which was later rectified by the building contractor Messrs R. W. Blackwell & Co Limited of Westminster. Electric services between Victoria and London Bridge formally commenced on 1st December 1909, running on 6,600 Volts A.C. overhead wires. Steam-hauled services were retained on the South London route during the early hours on weekdays, running between 4:30 AM and 7:30 AM. Before electrification, the impressive per-annum traffic level of six million passengers in 1891 had increased by a further two million at the turn of the century, only to drop down to four million in 1908, as a result of tramway competition. This fall was later reversed after the new services began, with 7½ million passengers being recorded on the route during the first full year of electric working. The early morning steam services were totally abolished from the route on 1st June 1912.

After the promising start on the South London Line, the LB&SCR swiftly proceeded with further electrification. The next candidates for the scheme were those routes to Crystal Palace, from Victoria and London Bridge. Overhead catenary was installed over the route via Streatham Hill for Victoria services, whilst for London Bridge trains, the wires were extended down from Peckham Rye. The electric system extended as far south as Norwood Junction and Selhurst, where berthing sidings and a depot existed to maintain the fleet of electric multiple units. The Victoria via Streatham Hill route was the first to be commissioned for electric trains, the these services running to Crystal Palace from 12th May 1911. This coincided with the opening of the ‘’Festival of Empire’’ at the Crystal Palace by King George V. Electric services from London Bridge, via Peckham Rye and Tulse Hill, did not start until the following year as a result of a lack of power supply for this section. The first such trains from this terminus ran on 1st March 1912, exactly three months earlier than scheduled, due to a coal miners’ strike.

World War I and Continental Services

The outbreak of war in August 1914 signalled a busy time for Victoria. Whilst standard passenger services were to decline, the volume of traffic handled at the terminus was to increase substantially. The station became the main London hub for the dispatch of troops to the continent, and at the other end of the line, Dover, the railway docks came under military control. The semi-complete Dover Marine terminus was hastily brought into use to handle ambulance trains – at this time, the station comprised a wrought-iron trainshed, but lacked walls and platforms, and building work was not completed until 1919. Suspension of continental services between all SE&CR London Termini and Dover was immediate. Continental traffic continued to Folkestone, which at this time retained boat crossings to the French ports of Boulogne and Dieppe. From 15th November 1914, all such rail services were concentrated at Victoria – as a consequence, Cannon Street and Charing Cross stations lost all their continental traffic. This scenario became permanent for Cannon Street, but Charing Cross regained boat services for a brief period during 1919, until all such traffic was transferred to Victoria as of 8th January 1920.

Inter-company passenger services were also to disappear from Victoria during the war years, never to be seen again. Regular GWR trains from the SE&CR station ceased on 21st March 1915, but the former still remained a joint lessee of the terminus far into the Southern Railway era. GNR and Midland Railway services had stopped long before this, in October 1907 and June 1908 respectively. The LB&SCR station retained LNWR passenger trains a little longer, these being removed from the timetable in September 1917.

Civilian boat traffic between Victoria and Folkestone ceased on 13th April 1916, on the withdrawal of the Dieppe crossing; Boulogne had been abolished as a destination in November of the previous year. Hitherto, the Dieppe service had been dealt with at Newhaven, but transfer to Folkestone had occurred immediately on the outbreak of war. For over four years, the SE&CR’s Victoria became a terminus bustling with troops, 24-hours a day, seven days a week: some soldiers were returning on leave, whilst many others were heading off to Dover, bound for the continent. At the time it was reported that Regimental officers and troops were bundled into badly lit carriage compartments of ten seat capacity, arranged in the form of five seats either side. By contrast, First Class coaching stock, complete with dining cars, was provided for red-tabbed officers, complete with seat reservations.

Victoria did not escape attack during World War I, but compared with the much more powerful air raids of the subsequent 1939 to 1945 conflict, the damage was minor. On 28th November 1916, a German ‘’Air Transport Company’’ aircraft dropped ten 20 lb bombs on the terminus and nearby ‘’Brompton Road’’, in a failed attempt to strike Admiralty buildings to thwart Britain’s war campaign. The crew of the aircraft were captured in France on the return leg, when engine trouble forced the pilot to ditch the plane.

 

12th February 1987

 

This view of Class 73 No. 73130 clearly shows one of the flights of stairs which provided the

Central Section platforms with a direct pedestrian link to Ecclestone Bridge. The Gatwick

Express carriages can be seen disappearing into the darkness beyond the bridge span; the

northern halves of the platforms had been built over by this time.

© David Glasspool Collection

 

21st October 1990

 

''Celebrity'' 4 SUB No. 4732 is seen stabled at platform 7, Eastern Section, forming a shuttle service to the

Streatham Hill Depot Open day. Suspended above the unit is the then recently completed car park, adjacent

to the main shopping centre which now covers the Central Section platforms. © John Horton

 

1st November 1991

 

No. 73235 is seen ''under the raft'', at a time when the Gatwick Express had a dedicated pool of locomotives.

This locomotive survived privatisation and became a ''Thunderbird'' for operator ''South West Trains''.

© David Glasspool Collection

 

1992

 

A 12 CEP formed of unit Nos. 1513, 1610, and 1620, is seen standing on the signal protecting the approach to

Victoria. This is the stock for the 17:13 Victoria to Ramsgate via Chartham, which has come empty from Stewarts

Lane. On the far left is the spur to Grosvenor Carriage Shed. © John Horton

 

 

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