Woking

The first station to open at Woking was a temporary one, at Woking Heath and named Woking Common, which opened for traffic on 21 May 1838 with five trains a day to London. The fares were 5s.0d. first class and 3s.0d. second and some 10,000 people travelled on the line in its first week of operation. From 24 September 1838 Woking became a through station when the line was opened from there to Shapely Heath (and on to Basingstoke in 1839 and Southampton in 1840).

View of Woking station, looking in the down direction. A 4 Cig is in platform 4.

photograph by David Glasspool

Woking station was built where the line crossed the Guildford to Chertsey road, necessitating the diversion of this road a little way to the west, and the old road from Old Woking to Horsell and Chobbham. A footpath that runs under the station to this day marks the route that this second road took. Being the station for Guildford until 1845, Woking Common was an important station with its entrance on the south side, facing towards Guildford.

View of platform 4, looking towards Waterloo.

photograph by Cliff Hutton

During the 1850s the branch to Guildford was extended to Portsmouth making Woking an important railway junction, and at some time the name was shortened from "Woking Common" to plain and simple "Woking".

This view shows the train maintenance depot, at the west end of Woking station.

photograph by David Glasspool

The lines heading out of Woking Station, looking towards the west.

photograph by David Glasspool

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This page was last updated 23 July 2007