Nunhead railway station is a railway station in the Nunhead

Nunhead

Nunhead is a place in the London Borough of Southwark in London, England. It is an inner-city suburb located southeast of Charing Cross. It is the location of the Nunhead Cemetery. Nunhead has traditionally been a working-class area and, with the adjacent neighbourhoods, is currently going...

 area of the London Borough of Southwark

London Borough of Southwark

The London Borough of Southwark is a London borough in south east London, England. It is directly south of the River Thames and the City of London, and forms part of Inner London.-History:...

. The station and all trains serving it are operated by Southeastern

Southeastern (train operating company)

London & South Eastern Railway Limited, trading as Southeastern is a train operating company in south-east England. On 1 April 2006 it became the franchisee for the new Integrated Kent Franchise , replacing the publicly owned South Eastern Trains on the former South East Franchise...

. It is in Travelcard Zone 2

Travelcard Zone 2

Fare zone 2 is an inner zone of Transport for London's zonal fare system used for calculating the price of tickets for travel on the London Underground, London Overground, Docklands Light Railway and, since 2007, on National Rail services.-Background:...

.

Services

The typical off-peak service is:

• 2 trains per hour (tph) to Kentish Town via Peckham Rye (Monday to Saturday)
• 2 tph to London Victoria via Peckham Rye

• 2 tph to Sevenoaks
  Sevenoaks railway station
  Sevenoaks railway station serves the town of Sevenoaks in Kent. Train services are provided by Southeastern.Trains from the station run northbound to London Bridge, Cannon Street , Waterloo East and London Charing Cross via Orpington, to London Blackfriars via Swanley and Catford, and southbound to...
  
   via Bromley South
• 2 tph to Dartford
  Dartford railway station
  Dartford railway station serves the town of Dartford in Kent, England. All train services from the station are operated by Southeastern, which also manages the station...
  
   via Bexleyheath (Monday to Saturday)

History

The Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway line from Canterbury Road Junction, near Brixton

Brixton railway station

Brixton Railway Station is a commuter railway station in the centre of Brixton, inSouth London, UK. It is on the Chatham Main Line which runs from London Victoria to Orpington. Trains are operated by Southeastern. The typical service is one train every 15 minutes in both directions.Brixton Railway...

 to Crystal Palace (High Level)

Crystal Palace railway station

Crystal Palace railway station is in the London Borough of Bromley in south London. It is located in the Anerley area between the town centres of Crystal Palace and Penge...

 opened by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway

London, Chatham and Dover Railway

The London, Chatham and Dover Railway was a railway company in south-eastern England from 1859 until the 1923 grouping which united it with other companies to form the Southern Railway. Its lines ran through London and northern and eastern Kent to form a significant part of the Greater London...

 (LCDR) on 1 August 1865; the line was built to take passengers to the Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...

 exhibition site. Train services on the line ceased from 1917–1919 and from 1944-1946 for wartime economies. The line closed to all traffic on 20 September 1954.

The Catford Loop line

Catford Loop Line

The Catford Loop Line is a railway line in southeast London. It carries a suburban stopping service from central London to Sevenoaks, and is also a relief route for the Chatham Main Line which conveys passenger trains from London Victoria to the Kent coast...

 was opened on 1 July 1892. It gave a second route out of London for the LCDR, and Nunhead became a three way junction. The Nunhead to Greenwich Park line was opened 1871 as far Blackheath Hill with the final stretch to Greenwich park opening in 1888. The branch was closed on 1 January 1917 for wartime economies.

In 1925, the lines in the area were electrified

Railway electrification in Great Britain

Railway electrification in Great Britain started towards of the 19th century. A great range of voltages have been used in the intervening period using both overhead lines and third rails, however the most common standard for mainline services is now 25 kV AC using overhead lines and the...

, and a new station at Nunhead was built on the London side of the original site. In 1929 the Greenwich Park branch was reopened as far as the site of Lewisham Road

Lewisham Road railway station

Lewisham Road railway station was a railway station in Lewisham, London built by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway on the Greenwich Park branch. It was opened in 1871. It was very close to the South Eastern Railway's St Johns railway station, which still remains open...

 where a new connecting line was built to Lewisham to enable cross-London freight services to be re-routed to Hither Green. The line was electrified in 1935 when peak hour passenger trains began to use the link. There is now frequent service of passenger trains using the line.

Further reading

• Crystal Palace (High Level) and Catford Loop by V Mitchell & K Smith, Middleton Press, 1991
• The Railway through Sydenham Hill Wood, From the Nun's Head to the Screaming Alice by Mathew Frith, The Friends of the Great North Wood and London Wildlife Trust leaflet 1995
• London's Local Railways by A A Jackson, David & Charles, 1978
• The Crystal Palace (High Level) Branch by W Smith, British Railway Journal 28, 1989

External links

• Photographs of original station