Ten years of Mitcham Eastfields station

Mitcham Eastfields station, with London’s skyline in the distance, 6 January 2015.

It is strange that a town once skirted by the world’s first public railway line should have emerged from the industrial age rather poorly served by rail, but this was the misfortune of Mitcham in South London.  The opening of the Surrey Iron Railway in 1803 had augured well for its transport prospects, but the iron was to give way to irony: Mitcham largely missed out on the rest of the railway boom, and was to end up oddly cut off from the network for a century and a half — until, that is, the opening of Mitcham Eastfields station, ten years ago today.

It had not been total isolation: there was Mitcham station itself, some distance from the centre of town on the Wimbledon-West Croydon line, a route running east to west mostly along the old track-bed of the Surrey Iron Railway.  But the passenger service was always sporadic, and a change was always required for London and the south.  (Frequencies on the route were drastically increased by conversion to tram operation in the year 2000, but a change is still required.)

Derived from material © OpenStreetMap contributors.

When, in 1868, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway opened its new route from London Bridge to Sutton, its route skimmed the eastern edge of what was then still Mitcham village, but no station was provided.  Instead, to the south, Mitcham Junction station was built where it met the existing Wimbledon-Croydon railway.  Unusually, the new main line (which for many years really was a main line, carrying South Coast expresses — another story!) deferred to the less important branch line, simply because the latter had been there first.  The new line curved sharply to meet the east-west alignment of the old, and then, immediately beyond the station, veered southwards again.  Mitcham Junction is even further from town than the first Mitcham station, but this was to remain the total railway provision for the next 140 years, the only alternative being Tooting, lying just as far to the north.  So, all in all, it may justly be said that Mitcham lost out in the great railway lottery of south London.

2–8 Tamworth Lane (now demolished) and Eastfields level crossing in 1974.  Photographer: Eric N. Montague. 
© Merton Historical Society, reproduced by their kind permission.

According to the current local Member of Parliament, Siobhain McDonagh, improvements to this situation was first considered properly in the 1930s.  A new station at the Eastfields Road level crossing was proposed: Avenues and Closes and Gardens galore of suburban housing were then being constructed in the area, setting the seal on Mitcham’s transformation from a village into a suburb, and promising a lucrative commuter market.  Still, fine words butter no parsnips, and no progress was made.  After the war, the population increased steadily, and has risen particularly rapidly since the millennium, so as the years went on the question was pressing harder and harder.  All day the trains that could be ours were rushing through before our eyes, and all the while, plain to see on each side of the level crossing, were broad, level, unbuilt-on verges, which just the right width for a platform…

Under construction, April 2008

Then, all of a sudden, in summer 2007, it was action stations.  Network Rail (the body in charge of national railway infrastructure) declared itself able and willing to build the new station, and Merton Council granted the scheme planning permission.  Siobhain McDonagh MP also deserves credit for her part in the long campaign.  Once these decisions were made, Mitcham Eastfields was built and opened within a year.  One reason for this quick work was the method of construction: the station building is ‘modular’, prefabricated in sections elsewhere, brought on site by lorry and assembled in situ.  Another quirk of the design is that the platforms are staggered on either side of the level crossing, so that in each direction trains cross the road before stopping at the station; this allows the barriers to be lifted behind them and keeps the road traffic moving. 

All in all, the total cost of six million pounds does not really sound too much for the first new station to be built in south London since the war.  Mitcham’s third and most convenient station was opened at 4 o’clock in the afternoon on June 2, 2008, ten years ago today, and the first train called ten minutes later.  Incidentally, this tenth anniversary resonates with the 150th anniversary of the line on which it stands (opened 1st October 1868, the same date as St Pancras station).  This is a good year for railway anniversaries!.

(Filmed by YouTube user ‘mm267a’)

The councillors from the Labour Party were very quick off the mark…  They beat most people to it and were at the station in time to meet the first train.  For latecomers there were free bags handed out, with flasks and plates emblazoned with the slogan ‘Mitcham Eastfields: Get on board and GO!’ which I presume didn’t mean ‘permanently’!

Forty minutes old on opening day, 2nd June 2008

Well, for ten years we have been coming as well as going, and have had the benefit of being able to reach Clapham Junction in twelve minutes, London Victoria in twenty and London Blackfriars in just under half an hour.  Other exciting (or at least useful) destinations include Sutton, Epsom and St. Pancras International, as well as London Bridge in the rush hour.  Many local people now depend on the station and annual passenger numbers are around a million and a half.  Its structure may be rather unassuming, but perhaps that rather suits this part of London that doesn’t give itself airs, and it also shows particularly well what difference a railway station, such a simple thing, can make to a place.   It is good to have a station we can call our own.

The station opened and our bypassed town

was open too.  Our town became a place,

and they belonged to us, the trains that race

and rattle south or north, that scurry down

to Surrey and to Sussex, chalk and clay

and mellow valleys, or that sprint across

to London’s alternating grime and gloss.

Change once for France and Belgium, some trains say;

Change once to reach the South Coast and the sea;

yet know the line can always bring you back

to this familiar platformed stretch of track,

which joins us to all places.  We are free

to flee, return or stay, since now we share

the thrill of rails that lead to anywhere.

(composed December, 2009)

Southward panorama: Rialto Road to the right and the Laburnum Road flats in the background. (2 March 2015)