The Caterham line is a railway branch line running from Caterham in Surrey to Purley in South London. It operates as a commuter service to London.
The line was opened by local promoters as the Caterham Railway in 1856 primarily to convey firestone from quarries south of Caterham. There was intense rivalry and suspicion between the two main line railway companies at Purley, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR) and the South Eastern Railway (SER), and this led to both of them obstructing successful operation of the Caterham Railway. In any case the local population was sparse and agricultural in character, and the Caterham Railway was loss-making.
It was acquired by the SER in 1859, but it was not until the latter years of the nineteenth century that residential development made the commercial situation of the line more buoyant. The line was doubled and a programme of station and infrastructure improvements was completed by 1900. The line was electrified in 1928.
After many years allied to the Central Division of the Southern Region of British Railways, the line is now operated by the Southern train operating company; a half-hourly service to London Bridge is operated.
Infrastructure and services
The Caterham line is a railway line in Surrey and Greater London, England. It runs for from its terminus at to an at-grade junction with the Brighton Main Line at Purley station, down the line from London Charing Cross. There are intermediate stations at , and . The Tattenham Corner line branches from the Caterham line south of Purley station. The maximum speed permitted on the branch is . The line is electrified using the 750 V DC third-rail system and is double tracked throughout. Signalling is controlled from Three Bridges and Track Circuit Block is in operation. There are two level crossings on the line – one to the north and one to the south of Whyteleafe South station. The steepest gradient on the line, between Whyteleafe South and Caterham, is 1 in 90. The southern terminus is above ordnance datum.
The stations on the branch are managed by Southern, which operates all services. Purley has six operational platforms, of which three are connected to the Caterham line; the other four stations have two platforms each. The buffer stops at Caterham are down the line from London Charing Cross, when measured via .
The off-peak service pattern is two trains per hour in each direction between Caterham and London Bridge. At Purley, trains join with or split from a train travelling to or from . Most trains serve all stations between and Caterham, but run non-stop between London Bridge and East Croydon.
{|class="wikitable sortable collapsible collapsed"
|+ class="nowrap"|Stations on the Caterham line
|-
!scope="col"|Station
!scope="col"|Distance from Charing Cross<br> via Norwood Junction
!scope="col"|Number of<br> platforms
!scope="col"|Opening date
!scope="col" class="unsortable"|Original name
!scope="col" class="unsortable"|Ref.
|- style="background:#F8F8FF"
|||||6 (3 for branch)||||Godstone Road||
|-
|||||2||||Coulsdon||
|-
|||||2||||||
|-
|||||2||||Warlingham||
|-
|||||2|||| ||
|}
History
Proposal and authorisation
A railway line to Caterham was proposed by local residents in the early 1850s. The primary aim was to transport stone from the quarries in the North Downs, around to the south of the town, and providing a passenger service was a secondary concern. The first surviving record of the proposal is a letter written to the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) in October 1853, in which the promoters of the line note that the South Eastern Railway (SER) had not objected to the scheme.
Five years earlier, in July 1848, the SER and LB&SCR had agreed to divide south east England, to separate their operations and to prevent unnecessary conflict. As the Caterham Railway (CR) would be built to the east of the Brighton Main Line, it was in the territory of the SER, but the proposed line required the use of the LB&SCR Godstone Road station (now Purley). An added complication was that this station had been closed by the LB&SCR on 30 September 1847. The local railway historian, Spence, notes "the acrimonious and internecine warfare" between the SER and LB&SCR at this time and states that the two larger companies "spared no efforts to bring the history of their unfortunate victim [the ] to a premature conclusion."
Neither the LB&SCR nor the SER objected to the proposal, but they provided no support in presenting the plans to Parliament. The was granted an authorisation in the Caterham Railway Act 1854 (17 & 18 Vict. c. lxviii) to construct its line on 16 June 1854. A condition of the act was that the was not to cross the Brighton Main Line or to otherwise interfere with the operations and property of the LB&SCR.
Construction and opening
thumb|right|Former stationmaster's house at Kenley
Construction of the Caterham line began with a formal ceremony on 5 March 1855. The line was built by the contractors, Furness and Fernandez, who were promised £19,000 for their work. The stations were designed by Richard Whittall in the cottage orné style with steep gables, patterned-tile roofs and a half-timbered upper storey, resembling the station buildings at and . The Caterham line was declared "ready for traffic" on 21 September 1855, but disputes with the other railway companies prevented it from opening for almost twelve months.
By March 1855, SER shareholders were becoming increasingly concerned that the would attract passengers from the Oxted and Westerham areas, who might otherwise have used and stations. There were suggestions that Alexander Beattie had a conflict of interest between his roles as an SER board member and chairman. The LB&SCR had also become hostile to the new line, repeatedly changing its requirements for the junction with the Brighton Main Line, refusing to reopen Godstone Road station and even asking the to build a new bridge over the Godstone Road, which was not required by the act of Parliament.
The SER offered to work the Caterham line in May 1856, in exchange for 110% of the cost of operation. The rejected these terms and the following month requested a lease of traction and rolling stock, so that it could operate the line itself. The SER refused and the approached the LB&SCR, securing daily use of "an engine and two or three carriages" in July 1856. At the start of the following month, the Railway Times noted that the delay in opening had been due to "political" reasons and expressed concerned over the high proposed fares.
Regular services on the single-track Caterham line began on 5 August 1856,
Purchase by the SER and proposed extensions
thumb|right|upright|[[Railway Clearing House diagram showing the Caterham line (top right)]]
The difficult relationships between the , LB&SCR and SER continued after the Caterham line had opened. The trains operated by the two larger companies were inconveniently timed to allow connections to be made at Caterham Junction. In November 1856, the brought an unsuccessful case at the Court of Common Pleas to force improvements in the timetable, ticketing arrangements and passenger accommodation at the junction station.
In the first eleven months of its operation, the lost £846. The line nearly closed on 7 May 1857, because a payment to LB&SCR had not been made, but the sum was cleared before bankruptcy proceedings could begin. However, the following year, George Furness, one of the partners of the firm that had built the line, sued for non-payment of debt. He was awarded possession of the railway that July. He offered to sell the line to the SER for £16,000, but the company refused, saying that it would pay a maximum price of £12,000.
In October 1858, the SER agreed to buy the line, but faced opposition from the LB&SCR in preparing the enabling bill for Parliament. The latter wanted to ban the SER from stopping at Caterham Junction, but a compromise was reached to allow SER passengers to change between mainline and branchline trains, but not to enter or leave the station. The acquisition of the by the SER was authorised by the (22 & 23 Vict. c. xxxv) on 21 July 1859. The SER paid around £14,000 for the line – significantly less than its original construction cost of £30,000.