Elephant and Castle railway station

By John Beasley Elephant and Castle railway station is seen here looking north in 1913. The main lines are on the right and the “Metropolitan Extension” lines on the left. The London and South-Western Railway (LSWR) trains used the latter after the quadrupling had been completed in 1866 as it had lent the impoverished London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company, which built the station, large amounts of money to complete the line. The company’s first line to the Metropolis ran from Bromley (South) to Herne Hill, where it divided for the West End and the City. The line between Herne Hill and the Elephant and Castle came into use on 6 October 1862 and the route south to Beckenham followed on 1 July 1863. Extension north to a station on the south bank of the Thames, named Blackfriars, was opened on 1 June 1864. Trains did not cross the Thames until 21 December 1864 when a temporary terminus at Ludgate Hill (Earl Street) was opened. Electrification of passenger services took place in 1925, two years after the formation of the Southern Railway. Extensive damage was caused by bombing on 11 May 1941 so new canopies had to be erected after the war. In the same year, a signal box that was destroyed early in the Second World War was replaced with a new one. Since 1988 some Thameslink trains have run through the Elephant and Castle from Bedford southwards to stations on the Brighton and Sevenoaks lines. Elephant and Castle station is included in the well-illustrated book, London Suburban Railways: Holborn Viaduct to Lewisham, by Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith (Middleton Press), which includes a picture of a steam train in the station in 1957.