Charing Cross railway station

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This article is about the station in London. For the station in Glasgow, see Charing Cross (Glasgow) railway station.

London Charing Cross

The front entrance of Charing Cross railway station in a 19th century print. The Charing Cross itself can be seen in front of the Charing Cross Hotel, which is now the Thistle Charing Cross.

Trains leaving London Charing Cross go straight over the Thames.

Charing Cross railway station is a central London railway terminus. It is unusual among London's railway termini in that its services connect it to two of the others, namely Waterloo and London Bridge. It is one of seventeen UK stations managed by Network Rail, while trains serving it are operated by Southeastern and Southern.

The station takes its name from the Charing Cross district of London where it is situated, which itself is named after the twelfth Eleanor cross. The front of the station faces onto The Strand, while at the other end is the northern end of Hungerford Bridge, which all trains serving the station must cross.

Contents

1 History
2 Services
3 Connections
4 External links

History

The original station building was built on the site of the Hungerford Market by the South Eastern Railway and opened on 11 January 1864. The station was designed by Sir John Hawkshaw, with a single span wrought iron roof arching over the six platforms on its relatively cramped site. A year later the Charing Cross Hotel, designed by Edward Middleton Barry, opened on 15 May 1865 and gave the station an ornate frontage in the French Renaissance style. At the same time, the replica Eleanor Cross was erected, based on the original 13th Century Whitehall Cross which had been demolished in 1647.

More recently, in 1990, most of the rear of the station was covered by Embankment Place, a post-modern office and shopping complex designed by Terry Farrell and Partners.

Services

There are 35 trains per hour (tph) leaving London Charing Cross off peak during the week. These are made up of:

7tph to Orpington (operated by Southeastern)
2tph to Gravesend (operated bu Southeastern)
1tph to Gillingham (operated by Southeastern)
2tph to Dartford (operated by Southeastern)
2tph to Hayes (operated by Southeastern)
5tph to Sevenoaks (operated by Southeastern)
2tph to Ashford International (operated by Southeastern)

*2tph splits at Ashford International, the trains (all operated by Southeastern) then operate to:
**2tph to Ramsgate (operated by Southeastern)
**1tph to Dover Priory (operated by Southeastern)
**1tph to Margate (operated by Southeastern)

4tph to Tonbridge (operated by Southeastern)
2tph to Hastings (operated by Southeastern)
2tph to Purley (operated by Southern)
2tph to Tattenham Corner (operated by Southern)

Connections

London Charing Cross is served by two London Underground stations, one at each end: these are Charing Cross and Embankment.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[Special]

[Station information] on Charing Cross railway station from Network Rail
[Train times] for Charing Cross railway station from National Rail
[Map] and [aerial photo] of Charing Cross railway station from Multimap.com
Other [map and aerial photo sources]

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 0.5em auto; text-align: center;" |- ! Preceding station ! colspan="3" | National Rail ! Following station

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