Charing Cross railway station

Charing Cross railway station (also known as London Charing Cross) is a central London railway terminus between the Strand and Hungerford Bridge in the City of Westminster. It is the terminus of the South Eastern main line to Dover via Ashford. All trains are operated by Southeastern, which provides the majority of commuter and regional services to south-east London and Kent. It is connected to Charing Cross Underground station and is near to Embankment Underground station and Embankment Pier.

The station was originally opened by the South Eastern Railway in 1864. It takes its name from its proximity to the road junction Charing Cross, the notional "centre of London" from which distances from the city are measured. During the 19th century the station became the main London terminus for continental traffic via boat trains, and served several prestigious international services. It was badly damaged by an engineering accident in 1905 and extensively rebuilt. It became an important meeting point for military and government traffic during World War I. By this time, Charing Cross station was seen as out of date by some politicians and proposals were made to replace Hungerford Bridge with a road bridge or road/rail combination, with the station moving to the south bank of the River Thames in the case of a road-only replacement. The station was bombed several times during World War II, and was rebuilt afterwards, re-opening in 1951. In the late 1980s, the station complex was redesigned by Terry Farrell and rebuilt to accommodate a modern office block, now known as Embankment Place.

Location
Charing Cross Station is located at the western end of The Strand in the City of Westminster, east of Trafalgar Square and northeast of Whitehall. It is close to the Embankment Pier, providing river services along the River Thames. The railway leads directly out onto Hungerford Bridge and across the river towards the London Borough of Lambeth.

The station code is CHX. It is one of nineteen stations in the United Kingdom that are managed by Network Rail and is the 14th busiest station in the country. A number of key bus routes run in the area, and are designated "Trafalgar Square for Charing Cross".

Services
The station has six platforms. All trains call at Waterloo East and London Bridge

As of May 2018 the typical off-peak service in trains per hour (tph) is


 * 2tph to Dartford via Bexleyheath
 * 2tph to Dartford via Sidcup
 * 2tph to Gravesend via Sidcup (semi-fast)
 * 2tph to Dartford via Lewisham and Woolwich Arsenal
 * 2tph to Hayes
 * 2tph to Sevenoaks via Grove Park
 * 2tph to Hastings (1 semi-fast and 1 stopping)
 * 2tph to Tunbridge Wells
 * 1tph to Dover Priory
 * 1tph to Ramsgate via Canterbury West

Former services
Until 2009 there were also Southern services which ran via New Cross Gate to Caterham or Tattenham corner.

London Underground


The first underground railway to serve Charing Cross was the District Railway (now the District line), which opened on 30 May 1870.} The Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (now the Bakerloo line) constructed a line underneath the west side of the station in the late 19th century, which opened on 10 March 1906.

The SER wanted to build a connection from Charing Cross to the railway terminals further north almost as soon as work was complete on the station. Soon after opening, the North Western and Charing Cross Railway Act was passed, a joint act between the SER and the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) that proposed a shallow subway line to Euston. The scheme collapsed after a lack of capital in 1866. The scheme was revived with the London Central Railway, that proposed to link Charing Cross to Euston and St Pancras, but again was abandoned in 1874. It reappeared in 1885 but arguments arose between the SER and LNWR as to how much capital would be raised by each company. The link was finally built by the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (now part of the Northern line) as a deep tube in 1906, taking advantage of the station being under development following the previous year's collapse. It opened on 22 June 1907.

The station is now served by two London Underground stations, both within walking distance of the mainline terminal and sited at each end: Charing Cross, and Embankment.Both stations have an Oyster Out of Station Interchange, which allows passengers to change lines while still being charged as a single journey.

Originally Embankment tube station was called Charing Cross, while the present Charing Cross tube station was Trafalgar Square (Bakerloo line) and Strand (Northern line) stations. The two stations combined under the new name when connected by the development of the Jubilee line and an extensive new subway system, and resolved generations of confusion by renaming the tube station to match the mainline station it connected to. The works opened on 1 May 1979. The Jubilee line platforms were closed on 20 November 1999, following the extension of the Jubilee line where it was diverted to Westminster and onwards south of the River Thames.