Victoria Station, London, United Kingdom, trainstation

London Victoria is a major London Underground, National Rail and coach station in the City of Westminster. It is the second busiest railway terminus in London after Waterloo[citation needed]. It is in Travelcard Zone 1. It is named after the British monarch Queen Victoria. Its origins lie with the Great Exhibition of 1851. The West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway was incorporated on 4 August 1853 to serve the new site of the exhibition, which had been transferred to Sydenham from Hyde Park. There were plans for a large terminal, but at first a temporary station was constructed in Battersea, at the southern end of the new Chelsea Bridge. The station, despite its location called the Pimlico Terminal, opened on 27 March 1858. However, it was soon recognised that a terminal was needed on the north side of the River Thames, and on 23 July 1858 the Victoria Station Pimlico Railway was incorporated, with the object of extending the railway across the river to a more convenient location nearer the West End. The railway was owned by four railway companies: the Great Western (GWR); London North Western (LNWR); the London, Brighton and South Coast (LBSCR); and the London, Chatham and Dover Railways (LCDR). The station opened on 1 October 1860 (the temporary terminus in Battersea having closed the day before).[3] It was formed in two parts: the western side, occupied by the Brighton company, with six platforms, ten tracks and a hotel (the 300-bedroom Grosvenor); while the Chatham company occupied a less imposing wooden-fronted building. The latter’s station had nine tracks and was shared by broad-gauge trains of the GWR, which arrived from Southall via the West London Extension Joint Railway through Chelsea. The approach tracks and station were built on the route and basin of the Grosvenor Canal. The GWR remained part owner of the station until 1932, although its trains had long since ceased to use it. Each side of the station had its own entrance and a separate ...

Channel: www.CheckMyCity.com Video Length: 40s Date Found: Sun, Mar 07 2010 11:21 PM Category: Travel Date Produced: Sun, Mar 07 2010 11:11 PM View Count: 0