Chislehurst Junction - History - Before Nationalisation

Before Nationalisation

The railways previously passed over each other without a junction, until the merger of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR) and the South Eastern Railway (SER) on 1 January 1899 meant it made operational sense to build connections between the previously disparate networks. The first connection, the "down" Bickley Loop, opened on 8 September 1902 with a length of ¾ miles (1 km). The reverse connection opened six days later. These connecting loops allowed trains to/from London Victoria to operate on the former SER line. The west and east ends of the loops became known as Bickley Junction and Orpington Junction respectively, named after the next stations on the line at the time. The corresponding connection (the Chislehurst Loops), allowing transfer of Charing Cross trains to/from the Chatham line was, opened on 19 June 1904.

From 1925 the Southern Railway — which had been formed in 1923 assuming the junction's previous owners — began to electrify the routes through the junction. The first to be installed with a third rail was the Bickley Loop, on 12 July 1925. This was followed by full electrification between Orpington Junction and Charing Cross on 28 February 1926. In connection with this wave of electrification, a three-storey red brick substation was installed, immediately to the north of the Chatham line and west of the Charing Cross line.

The next electrification did not take place until 1935, when on 6 January the Chislehurst Loops became live along with the section of the line between Bickley and Swanley. Electrification was further extended to Gillingham on 2 July 1939.

In the meantime, a new station had been opened at Petts Wood, ⅓ mile (0.5 km) south of Orpington Junction, on 9 July 1928. This eventually led to the renaming from Orpington Junction to Petts Wood Junction on 8 July 1936, in keeping with the practice of naming a junction after its closest station.

The last development of the junction under the administration of the Southern Railway came in 1941, when bomb damage to a wooden signal box required its replacement with an austere flat-roofed brick construction. The robust design of the new edifice was in reaction to the continued air raid threat.