Station concourse of Victoria Station, one of London’s two major railway hubs, City of Westminster, London, England
Some background information:
Victoria station, also known as London Victoria, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in Victoria, in the City of Westminster, London. The station complex is located south of Victoria Street, east of Buckingham Palace Road and west of Vauxhall Bridge Road. Several different railways lead into the station line by way of Grosvenor Bridge from the south west, south and south east. Victoria station has been a Grade II listed building since 1970.
With over 81 million passenger entries and exits every year, Victoria is the second-busiest station in London (and Great Britain) after Waterloo station. Combined with the Underground Station and interchanges in the national rail station, London Victoria handles about 170 million passengers per year. To help passengers choose the correct service, the floor of the main concourse at Victoria is marked with different coloured lines. Passengers can then follow the line marked with the specific colour for that service to arrive at their intended departure point. Victoria station has altogether 19 platforms and is connected with three underground lines: Victoria, Circle and District line. It also serves the Gatwick Express, a rail shuttle service between the station and Gatwick, London’s second largest international airport.
After three new railway lines in the southern parts of London had been established in the 1850s, the people in power realised, that a new terminal station had to be built north of the River Thames, to connect London’s City of Westminster much better. This station was originally referred to as the "Grosvenor Terminus" but later renamed Victoria as it was sited at the end of Victoria Street. It was intended to be operated by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, but three other railway companies were also seeking a terminus in Westminster: the Great Western Railway, the London & North Western Railway, and the East Kent Railway. On 23rd July 1859 these four companies together formed the Victoria Station and Pimlico Railway company.
The London Brighton and South Coast Railway side of Victoria station opened on 1st October 1860. It was designed by Robert Jacomb Hood and consisted of six platforms and ten tracks, with an entrance on Victoria Street. The roof was built on a set of wrought iron girders, with an additional safety row that would allow the main girders to withstand a train strike. On the northwest corner of the station was the 300-bedroom Grosvenor Hotel. It was designed by J.T. Knowles, and run independently of the station itself. The East Kent Railway (meanwhile renamed London Chatham and Dover Railway) and the Great Western Railway opened their own station on 25th August 1862, occupying a less imposing wooden-fronted building with an entrance on Wilton Road. That’s why at that time the station consisted of two parts, separated from each other.
In 1898 the London Brighton and South Coast Railway decided to demolish its station and replace it with an enlarged red-brick Renaissance-style building, designed by Charles Langbridge Morgan. Eight years later the other part of the station had also been rebuilt. It opened on 16th June 1906. Back then, both parts still had an own entrance and an own stationmaster, while a wall made the separation even clearer.
However, the two stations at Victoria came largely under single ownership in 1923 with the formation of the Southern Railway as part of the Big Four grouping. The following year steps were taken to integrate the two stations. The platforms were renumbered in a single sequence, openings were made in the wall separating them to allow passengers to pass from one to the other without going into the street, and alterations were made to the tracks to allow for interchangeable working. The work was completed in 1925, and all platforms were renumbered in a contiguous sequence. Though, the greatest change to the station during the 1920s and 1930s was the introduction of third rail electrification for all suburban and many main line services.
Night train services stopped running from Victoria on 4 September 1939 after World War II was declared, and other services were terminated following the German invasion of France in May 1940. Though the station was bombed several times in 1940 and 1941, there was not enough damage to prevent operations. A plane crashed into the eastern side of the station on 15th September 1940 and a V1 flying bomb caused partial damage on 27th June 1944.
British Railways took over the station on 1st January 1948. During the 1950s and early 1960s British Railways completed its Kent Coast Electrification schemes, which meant that most of the remaining services from the station were electrified. The station was redeveloped internally in the 1980s, with the addition of shops within the concourse, and above the western platforms as the "Victoria Plaza" shopping centre and 20,000 square metres (220,000 square feet) of office space. In 1984, the non-stop Gatwick Express service was started, aiming for a 30-minute journey time.
British Rail operated an International Travel Centre within the main station, separate from the domestic travel centre. At the time, Victoria was still a major departure point for international travel, but this ceased with the introduction of Eurostar (the high-speed railway service through the Channel Tunnel) in 1994, which did not serve Victoria. Hence, the International Travel Centre closed. Nevertheless, Victoria Station has still continued to be one of London’s and Great Britain’s two major railway hubs.
