Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway

Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway

Lordship Lane Station, an intermediate station on the Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway, by Camille Pissarro.
Overview
Type Commuter rail
Status Closed
Locale Greater London
Termini Nunhead
Crystal Palace High Level
Operation
Opened 1865
Closed 1954
Operator(s) British Railways Southern Region
Technical
No. of tracks 2
Track gauge 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway
Legend
 Catford Loop Line to Victoria
 Nunhead
Greenwich Park branch
closed 1917–1929 (freight)
closed 1917–1935 (passengers)
Catford Loop Line to Chatham Main Line
 Honor Oak
 Lordship Lane
 Crescent Wood tunnel
 Upper Sydenham
Chatham Main Line (LCDR)
 Paxton tunnel

Crystal Palace High Level

Crystal Palace Low Level
 Crystal Palace Line (LBSCR)

The Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway was built by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway from Nunhead to Crystal Palace High Level to serve the Crystal Palace after the building was moved to the area that became known as Crystal Palace from its original site in Hyde Park.

History

A 1908 Railway Clearing House map of lines around the Brighton Main Line in South London, showing surrounding lines, including the Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway.

The branch line had a chequered history, linked to the Crystal Palace's own precarious financial position, with two periods of closure. Wartime economies led to the line closing from 1917 to 1919. After this first closure, trains from Holborn Viaduct railway station in the City were not reinstated. However, the branch was electrified, as part of a Southern Railway scheme, on 12 July 1925. After electrification all trains operated to Blackfriars and Holborn Viaduct.

Following the destruction of the Crystal Palace by fire in 1936, the line lost most of its original function of carrying visitors to events in the Palace. Manpower shortages led to a second closure from 1944 to 1946. When services were reintroduced they were very lightly used, and the line finally closed on 20 September 1954. The track was lifted in 1956.

Lordship Lane station has found ongoing fame as the subject of one of Camille Pissarro's finest small-scale pictures.

Although much of the route of the railway has now been lost to residential development, it can be traced in places. Architectural features remain such as the ornamental portal of the Paxton Tunnel just north of the terminus. Part of the route adjacent to the Horniman Museum and Gardens is now a 'Railway Nature Trail', maintained for the museum by the Trust for Urban Ecology. The section between the footbridge and northern entrance to the Crescent Wood tunnel is managed by the London Wildlife Trust as the Sydenham Hill Wood nature reserve.

In the early 1990s, a local amenity group, Friends of the Great North Wood, produced a walking leaflet entitled From the Nun's Head to the Screaming Alice describing a route that closely follows the line. ('Screaming Alice' was Cockney rhyming slang for Crystal Palace.) The walk continues from the site of Crystal Palace High Level past the Crystal Palace Museum to the remaining Crystal Palace railway station (formerly Crystal Palace Low Level).

Stations

The line served the following stations:

Crystal Palace High Level was in competition with Crystal Palace Low Level station for passenger traffic to the Crystal Palace.

External links

Further reading

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, January 08, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.