Merstham railway station

Merstham
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Location
Place	Merstham
Local authority	Reigate and Banstead
Grid reference	TQ291532
Operations
Station code	MHM
Managed by	Southern
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	D
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2004/05	0.488 million
2005/06	0.511 million
2006/07	0.553 million
2007/08	0.610 million
2008/09	0.613 million
2009/10	0.606 million
2010/11	0.657 million
2011/12	0.677 million
2012/13	0.726 million
2013/14	0.725 million
2014/15	0.719 million
History
Key dates	Opened 1845 (1845)
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Merstham from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

A 1905 Railway Clearing House map of lines around Merstham railway station.

Merstham railway station is in Surrey, England. It is on the Brighton Main Line, and train services are currently provided by Southern, who manage the station.

History

Merstham was on a stretch of line between Croydon and Redhill which Parliament insisted should be shared by the London and Brighton Railway (L&BR) route to Brighton, and the South Eastern Railway (SER) route to Dover. As a result, there have been two railway stations at Merstham.

London and Brighton Railway station

The original station at was located 3/4 mile south of the current station. It was opened by the L&BR on 1 December 1841, and from 1842 it was also used by SER and was the point at which travellers between the two railways exchanged trains. The section of line between Coulsdon and Redhill was transferred to SER ownership, and the new owners decided to close Merstham station on 1 October 1843, thereby forcing passengers wishing to change trains to walk between the two stations at Redhill. This was a tactic to force the L&BR to share the new SER Reigate station at Redhill. Once the L&BR had given way and closed their existing station at Reigate Road, Redhill, the SER opened a new station at Merstham on the present site.

South Eastern Railway station

This station was opened 4 October 1844. The up side booking office (badly damaged by fire in the late 1980s and later rebuilt) and footbridge date from a 1905 rebuilding.

Despite being on the Brighton line, this station, along with Coulsdon South and Redhill, was owned by the South Eastern Railway (later South Eastern & Chatham Railway), and was not used by L&BR (later London Brighton and South Coast Railway trains. It was not until the creation of the Southern Railway in 1923 that trains from the Brighton line called at the station.

A side effect of the privatisation of the UK rail network in the last 15 years has been the re-emergence of historic names for the new Train Operating Companies (TOCs) and the 'modern' Southeastern (and its Connex SE and South Eastern predecessors) served Merstham until 2008 with a London Bridge/Merstham/Redhill/Tonbridge route service (which at different times in its life extended beyond Tonbridge) - the 'southeastern' logo that was on display at the station entrance has been removed since.

A PERTIS self-service 'Permit to Travel' ticket machine is located at the pedestrian gate to the up platform.

Services

The typical off-peak train service per hour is:

• 2tph to London Bridge (Southern)
• 2tph to Horsham (Southern)
• 2tph to Bedford (Thameslink)
• 2tph to Three Bridges (Thameslink)

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Coulsdon South		Southern Brighton Main Line		Redhill
		Thameslink Thameslink

Oyster extension

It has been announced that from January 2016, passengers will be able to use Oyster and contactless payment cards from this station.

External links

• Train times and station information for Merstham railway station from National Rail