History
The railway first reached the town in 1847 when an extension of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR) from West Croydon was opened with a terminus in Upper High Street. This station was initially named Epsom but subsequently renamed Epsom Town.
In 1859 a joint venture between the LBSCR and the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) extended the LSWR from Wimbledon to Epsom, where it joined with the LBSCR, and then ran on to Leatherhead. The lines were connected south of the LBSCR station and a new Epsom station was established on the present site. However competition between the companies remained and the new station was operated by the LSWR only, with the tracks configured so that LBSCR trains ran non-stop on the central rails.
In 1867 the line was extended further south from Leatherhead to Dorking and Horsham, whilst in 1885 a second branch from Leatherhead was built to Effingham Junction where it connected to the existing line from Surbiton to Guildford. These extensions served to provide greater connections for Epsom to much of the rest of Surrey.
After the First World War, the railway companies were rationalised and merged into the Southern Railway which set about removing duplication from the railway system. Epsom Town was closed in 1929, (though some of the building remains in an abandoned, bricked up form, located behind modern developments on Upper High Street though more visible from the line from Ewell East) and the tracks at Epsom were rearranged so that the two island platforms provided cross-platform interchange.
When the Thameslink services started in 1988 its secondary southern route ran to Epsom via Elephant & Castle to West Croydon and Sutton, continuing beyond to Guildford. However the onset of rail privatisation made it difficult to maintain a line running across two other companies' commuter routes and services to Epsom were withdrawn in 1994. One of the proposals for the Thameslink 2000 project (later renamed Thameslink 2010) is to restore services as part of a massive expansion of that network.
For many years the southern end of the platforms had a large signal box above them, dating from 1929. Although the building was widely thought to have gained listed status, it did not, and, despite extensive roof repairs, it was demolished in March 1992.
Read more about this topic: Epsom Railway Station
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