History
The station was opened by the London and South Western Railway in December 1846, originally being named Malden. It has been renamed several times: in May 1859 it became New Malden and Coombe; on 1 March 1862 Coombe and Malden; in November 1912 Malden for Coombe; in 1955 Malden; and finally, on 16 September 1957, it took the present name of New Malden.
When Queen Victoria visited distinguished residents in the Coombe Hill area, the royal train stopped at Norbiton, the only station in the area where the platform is at ground level. New Malden has many steps.
The deaths of members of station staff in an air raid during WWII is commemorated on a plaque on a wall in the ticket office and another is allocated on the high street opposite waitrose.
Platforms 2 and 3 on the "fast" lines are no longer used, and their gravelly surface together with protruding cable ducting poses a trip hazard and renders them unlikely to be used by passengers even should a disruption prevent use of the "slow" lines at platforms 1 and 4.
Until June 1967 platform 2 was used regularly in the morning rush hours. The 7:11am from Guildford via Cobham crossed from the slow line to the fast line just after Surbiton and stopped at New Malden at 7:48am. It then called at Wimbledon and Clapham Junction. It was one of the few trains to stop at Clapham Junction platform 8 in those days. A Hampton Court to Waterloo fast train also stopped at platform 2 at approximately 8:45am. It crossed from the slow line to the fast line just as it came into New Malden.
New platform signage was installed in 2009, adhering to the new national standard using the 'Brunel' typeface in white on a navy background.
New Malden was one of the stations selected by South West Trains to have automatic ticket gates which were installed in the main ticket hall in September 2009. The gates with Oyster Card readers allow use of the Oyster "Pay as you go" system.
A proposed permanent closure of the secondary entrance to Dukes Avenue and Station Avenue, leaving only the entrance to Coombe Road was amended, after local opposition, to officially opening the Dukes Avenue and Station Avenue entrance for morning and evening peak hours with ticket inspectors, but to be closed at all other times including weekends. In practice the ticket barriers are very often left open and unstaffed and as such the southern entrance is more than often open, outside of the 'closed' times.
Read more about this topic: New Malden Railway Station
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