Woking railway station is a major stop in Woking, England, on the South West Main Line used by many commuters. It is 24 miles 27 chains (39.2 km) down the line from London Waterloo. The station is managed by South Western Railway, who operate all trains serving it.

Quick Facts General information, Location ...

Woking
The station's southern entrance is an Art Deco rounded-edge building in a mixture of concrete and stock brick courses.[1]
General information
Location	Woking England
Coordinates	51°19′05″N 0°33′25″W
Grid reference	TQ006587
Managed by	South Western Railway
Platforms	6
Other information
Station code	WOK
Classification	DfT category B
History
Original company	London and Southampton Railway
Pre-grouping	London and South Western Railway
Post-grouping	Southern Railway
Key dates
21 May 1838 (1838-05-21)	Station opened as Woking Common
c. 1843	Renamed Woking
Passengers
2018/19	7.729 million
Interchange	1.424 million
2019/20	7.352 million
Interchange	1.232 million
2020/21	1.517 million
Interchange	0.264 million
2021/22	4.070 million
Interchange	0.725 million
2022/23	5.322 million
Interchange	0.945 million
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Close

The London and Southampton Railway (L&SR) was authorised on 25 July 1834^{[3][note 1]} and construction began in October of that year.^[5] The line was built in stages, and the first section, between the London terminus at Nine Elms and "Woking Common", was opened to passengers on 21 May 1838.^{[6][note 2]} Woking Common station was built with two platforms linked by a footbridge and a small freight yard was also provided. When it opened, it was surrounded by open heath^[8] and was 2 km (1.2 mi) from what is now the village of Old Woking.^[9] Nevertheless, it quickly became the railhead for west Surrey and the main entrance was positioned on the south side of the tracks for the convenience of those travelling by stagecoach from Guildford. Construction of Woking town centre, to the north of the station, did not begin until the mid-1860s.^[10]

Woking Common became a through station on 24 September 1838, with the opening of the next section of the line as far as Winchfield.^[11][12] The station was given its current name of "Woking" in around 1843.^[13] The Guildford Junction Railway (GJR) opened on 5 May 1845,^[14] having been authorised less than a year earlier, on 10 May 1844.^[15] The GJR was always operated by the LSWR, and was absorbed by that company on 4 August 1845.^[16]

The track through Woking station was quadrupled in 1904 and electrified in 1937.^[17] The station was rebuilt by the Southern Railway in the Art Deco "Odeon" style in 1936–37. The signal box, which was constructed as part of the rebuilding programme, is a Grade II listed building.^[2][1][18]

Three trains were involved in a collision just east of the station on 23 December 1955. A Portsmouth line electric train came to a stand at signals near the Maybury Hill Road bridge. The following steam-hauled Waterloo-Basingstoke train overran the Maybury distant signal and collided with the rear of the electric train, demolishing the guards compartment and deflecting the rear bogie so that it was foul of the up-line. An up Bournemouth steam-hauled train had just left the station and came into sidelong collision with the bogie and came to a stand. Out of around 1000 passengers and crew on the three trains only 21 were injured, including the guard of the electric train, and there were no fatalities. The Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation report concluded the crash was due to human error on the part of the driver of the Basingstoke train.^[19][20] The Basingstoke train locomotive, SR N15X class 32327 Trevithick, was damaged beyond economic repair and scrapped at Eastleigh Works.^[21]

• The station was destroyed in H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds.^[26]
• Woking Station can be seen at the beginning of the 1995 music video for 'You Do Something To Me' by Paul Weller.^[27]
• In the television adaptation of the Philip K. Dick story "The Commuter" for the series Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, railway worker Ed Jacobson (played by Timothy Spall) works at Woking station, and discovers a non-existent destination on the Alton line.^[28]
• Seated Man, created in 2011 by the artist, Sean Henry, was installed on platform 1 in August 2017.^[25][29]