Coulsdon Town railway station serves the northern part of

Coulsdon Coulsdon (, traditionally pronounced ) is a town in south London, England, within the London Borough of Croydon, in the ceremonial county of Greater London since 1965. Prior to this it was part of the historic county of Surrey. History The loc ...

, in the

London Borough of Croydon The London Borough of Croydon () is a London borough in south London, part of Outer London. It covers an area of . It is the southernmost borough of London. At its centre is the historic town of Croydon from which the borough takes its name; ...

. It is on the Tattenham Corner line from and opened on 1 January 1904. Until 22 May 2011 it was called Smitham.

History

The station was opened as ''Smitham'' on 1 January 1904, and was briefly closed (between 1 January 1917 and 1 January 1919) during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. It lies on a sharp curve, where the line swings away westwards from the

Brighton Main Line The Brighton Main Line (also known as the South Central Main Line) is a major railway line in the United Kingdom that links Brighton, on the south coast of England, with central London. In London the line has two branches, out of and station ...

. It is immediately adjacent to the closed Coulsdon North station on the main line, whose passenger traffic was diverted here when the latter closed on 3 October 1983. Some Tattenham Corner line trains terminated at Smitham before returning to London, but nowadays the usual off-peak service is two trains per hour in each direction between London Bridge and Tattenham Corner. An hourly shuttle service used to be in operation during weekday off-peak hours between Purley and Tattenham Corner, but this was withdrawn in February 2015. Services to London Victoria only run during the weekday business peaks and Mon-Fri evenings, though connections are available at East Croydon or Norwood Junction at other times. The Coulsdon relief road, opened 18 December 2006 as part of the A23, passes underneath the station and meant that some rearrangement and refurbishment of the platform access routes was required. No direct access to the London-bound platform now exists; access is via the down platform and a new footbridge or a lift. A new modular station building on the down side of the line and a standard-pattern accessible footbridge were constructed by

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

and opened in 2010. There is no

PERTIS In the ticketing system of the British rail network, a Permit to Travel provisionally allows passengers to travel on a train when they have not purchased a ticket in advance and the ticket office of the station they are travelling from is closed ...

self-service 'Permit to Travel' ticket machine. As part of the retender of Southern's franchise in 2009, the Department for Transport requested that in response to lobbying by Croydon Council the new company look into a better name for the station, as "Smitham" is no longer used as the name of the local area. Coulsdon Town was chosen after a public vote. The change took place on Sunday 22 May 2011. Evening services to the station were improved in December 2010.

Services

All services at Coulsdon Town are operated by Southern using EMUs. The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is: * 2 tph to (non-stop from ) * 2 tph to On Sundays, the service is reduced to hourly and runs between Tattenham Corner and only. Passengers for London Bridge have to change at Purley. It was initially proposed that from 2018, when the

Thameslink Programme The Thameslink Programme, originally Thameslink 2000, was a £6billion project in south-east England to upgrade and expand the Thameslink rail network to provide new and longer trains between a wider range of stations to the north and to the ...

is completed, services on this line would be operated with larger 12 car trains offering all day direct services to via . However, in September 2016, these proposals were dropped; instead, services on the Tattenham Corner line are to "remain as Southern ''South London Metro'' services with increased capacity as compared to today".Timetable consultation
: Thameslink and Great Northern

References

External links

{{TSGN and SE Stations, Caterham=y, FCC None=y, SE None=y Railway stations in the London Borough of Croydon Former South Eastern Railway (UK) stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1904 Railway stations served by Govia Thameslink Railway