Jago, you are not old. I can prove I'm old - when trying to enter my date of birth on a website, it takes me twenty minutes to scroll down to the appropriate year... 😭
I once received a "please check this and confirm that our information is accurate" census form from the city where I lived at the time that had my year of birth listed as 1773 instead of 1973. I was tempted to check "yup, all correct" and then apply for the senior citizen discount to my municipal taxes...
Having lived in Hersham for 10 years of my misspent childhood, and regularly taken the train to London, Berrylands always fascinated me. The reason? To start with, as Jago points out, no train I was ever on stopped there! But also, because it looks uncannily like Hersham - same temporary looking wooden platform, extended by concrete, same unimportant feel, but, most of all, same sewage works! Although ours didn't smell for some reason. But I spent ten years looking out of train windows, as we sped through a station that looked uncannily like my own stop, but which no trains ever appeared to stop at. And, almost certainly, the one London region station I NEVER expected to see covered on this channel!
Issues though I have with it, it's a lot better than what it used to be, which was "dark, dingy station on the same footprint, but with six thousand tonnes more concrete in the roof to make sure no natural light can ever penetrate its bowels" (no really, when they remodelled it about ten years ago they literally removed _six thousand tonnes_ of concrete from the roof to actually let some light in)
Berrylands is my local station, in fact my house is briefly shown in the video. It may be ugly (certainly not wheelchair or pushchair friendly) but it is our lifeline. Two trains an hour (30 minuts direct) into Central London is not to be sniffed at. We would love lifts, and more services, honestly, but the station is very much appreciated in the suburb. As for the smell, it's largely a thing of the past. The one place you are most likely to get it from is the station, becuase it is next to, and above, the water treatment plant. The plant serves fresh water to Kingston, Surbiton and beyond, and we all need that, don't we? Berrylands itself is a green paradise with two rivers, two nature reserves and a huge park. Let's appreciate the gem that is Berrylands and its ugly, but very useful, station. Thanks Jago!
Thank you Jago. I lived in Berrylands for 12 years, commuting daily from Berrylands station. For the most part the stink wasnt that bad, and the railway service good until the franchise changed to Southwestern Trains, and it literally went go blazes overnight. You missed my old flat in the video, but it was lovely to see my old road, and more importantly the green spaces along the Hogsmill. For what it's worth, those are well worth exploring
@@neil9890 Great comments, will they mystify most people under 50? It was indeed the lines out of Waterloo, I remember Norbiton being mentioned as one location.
"You've probably never heard of Berrylands, so thank you for clicking on this video." Joke's on you, Jago, I'm a Yank, I don't know the Bakerloo Line from the District Line
an episode of 1970s tv comedy programme, George and mildred was filmed in berrylands, when george broke his leg sat in his wheel chair ,sat outside the newsagents on Chiltern drive, the newsagents is now Berry nails,
the key to stations like that is timing use to days when the wind isn’t blowing the fumes towards the station…learned that while enduring low tide and sewage while awaiting buses in my former hometown
Very many years ago I used to live in south-west London and used the rail services around there. My late wife and I met on our first day at a civil service office in the area. In those early years we worked in places like Hinchley Wood/Thames Ditton, Chessington, Central London, New Malden and Basingstoke, and lived at locations in Wimbledon, Raynes Park, Tolworth and Woking. Of course we visited other places such as Kingston, Richmond, Guildford and Hampton Court to shop, look round or meet friends. For this reason I was interested to see this video on Berrylands which in some years we passed though every day, even if the trains didn’t stop - though possibly in those days it may not only have been the Hampton Court trains which stopped there. So, very good to see it all again in this and other videos - and more so since nowadays I go back to the general area to see my daughter in Teddington (nearest stations Fulwell and Teddington). But (sorry, more of my life story) I was born and brought up in Birmingham and now live in Leamington Spa, and you mentioned New Street station, moreover in a disparaging manner. How come? It is true that the platforms are crowded, dangerously narrow, dingy and very noisy. But that’s because naturally everyone wants to go to Birmingham and there’s no room for expansion so there’s little to be done about it. However, the bit on top (called Grand Central for some reason) is bustling, light and airy and, best of all, has the wonderful mechanical bull. It’s far better than the dismal shopping centre that it replaced. That itself replaced an earlier station which I only remember in its post-war dirty and run-down persona. Anyway, thanks again for the video and I hope Crossrail 2 happens.
I think disparaging comments about Birmingham New Street are fully justified - the new design makes changing trains much more difficult than the old station.
@@andrewhotston983 it is true that if I change trains there I seem to have go through two sets of ticket gates when zero would be better unless I am lucky enough to emerge on that bridge which runs above all the platforms. But otherwise the top bits look really good. There’s the Bull too and one of those great cake cafés. Also a Foyles.
@@NickMarsh-ke6kq Yep - I chose the wrong steps last Friday and was confronted by a glass wall as I tried to go from platform 9 to platform 1. I think the bridge connecting the platforms must be at the western end - I will try that theory tomorrow.
I used to ride through Berrylands from September 1948 to December 1954 on the way to school at Surbiton Then there were three trains an hour in each direction, all stations from Waterloo to Hampton Court, head code 'H'if I rmember correctly. The teatment beds were all open and boy, did it stink in the summer.
Berrylands sounds like something out of a fairy tale, where lovely juicy thirst quenching, life giving fruits burst forth from the land, ripe to be picked as is your whim. Not somewhere where a major sewage plant is located. Bit like Iceland/Greenland.
That station building sends shivers down my spine. Having spent two out of four years in junior school and four out of five years in secondary school holed up in those CLASP boxes - freeezing cold and draughty and worse in the winter, with inadequate, fume-belching heaters and leaking roofs - I can vouch for how horrible they are.
2:02 ah the Prescott Hill Climb, spent a couple of great days there when I was at uni down the road in Cheltenham. When the vintage cars are going up the climb and with the steam trains of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire railway running up the valley it felt like being in a different time! I assume you also visited the railway?
I was pleasantly surprised to see the Prescott Speed Hill Climb clip. It's my favourite UK motor sport venue and I recommend it to all petrolheads. Forget over-priced and over-crowded Goodwood! And with the G.W. heritage railway nearby how much nearer perfection can you get?
@@MrDavil43 Yeah they had the Senna JPS Lotus there when I went. Not just to see it taking on the hill, but I was able to have a close look at it in the garage with the cover off. And there was hardly anyone around!
"Things (regarding the smell) are no where near as bad as they uses to be". I cycle past this every week day, living in Surbiton and working in New Malden. The smell is horrid. I changed my route due to it being so bad it would literally (and I mean literally) make me sick. I'm not particularly strong stomached, but at the same time, I honestly cannot even imagine how bad it was, if it's still as terrible as it is. Love the video though. Its really nice to watch something so specifically local that gives me further knowledge on the history of somewhere like this. Growing up around South (central) London, working in the city at times and now being further out in South West of London, i get so much from most of your videos and they are a joy to watch. Keep doing what you're doing.
The pong is minor compaired to in the past - I started to pass the station in the early 90's on the way to London it is likely to be the only point on the rail network where at the hight of summer people would get up and close all the windows on an old slam door train.
My memory of living at the uni halls of residence at the end of Burney Avenue in Surbiton decades back was that we were under 500m from Berrylands station, but because there was no access (except for climbing over the cemetary walls) with the walk via Lower Marsh lane being rather circuitous, we used Suburbiton station nearly 3 times the distance and up a hill. A quick look at the online OS map reveals not much has changed over the years. The pong? After a while you got used to it.
Me too - 1992-3 ! The free KingstonUni shuttle bus went to Surbiton station so was a no brainer really, though I did use Berrylands once when I took the train in June 1994 to Wimbledon at stupid O'Clock in the morning to get in the queue for the tennis. The pong was mostly the sewage treatment works rather than the Station itself.
Very dull fact about Berrylands. When my dad took a train into London on the portsmouth line with his Senior Citizens travelcard incorporated into the ticket, the ticket office would always break the journey at... Berrylands. for some reason. Maybe it's the first station inside the TFL area? Great video thanks
I'm so old I used the student halls at Clayhill when it was for the polytechnic. Railway to the south, graveyard to the north, treatment works to the east - what a location. One January morning I went outside and it was misty...you could *taste* it...
Least favourite station, based on an embarrassing mistake on my part back in the days of British Rail. I worked for them, and had a staff pass, which was about to come in really handy on this particular day. It was Newton Abbot. I realised, after boarding my train at Plymouth, that I had left my keys on top of my grandmother's fridge. It was a Sunday, and I had to wait ages to return to Plymouth and wait ages more for a Tamar Valley line train to Bere Alston, where my Gran lived. Unhappy at my own mistake, I eventually caught the returning train from Gunnislake at Bere Alston, returned back to Plymouth to catch the next train to Reading, then onwards to Wokingham, where my car was parked. Long day. I have an irrational dislike of Newton Abbot station to this day.
I have to say I have very fond memories of Berrylands. As a north London boy it’s not an area I should know, but playing Saturday football once a season our team would travel over by train to play at the Kings college football ground, and then after enjoy a few pints at Woodies pub.
Used to commute from Surbiton to New Malden and if you were feeling a bit tired, the inrush of sewage smell when the doors opened at Berrylands was better than any caffeine hit.
Living in Surbiton very close to Berrylands (and the old Berrylands dairy as my Victorian house was originally built to be a dairyman's cottage) the pong has gone. It used to be a serious problem and put us off buying a house close to the sewage works, however the smell has largely gone. Perhaps if one stands next to the sewage works, it might still smell a little and the station is very close, but I regularly use the shops in Berrylands and the smell that had previously been a feature has gone.
I live next to what I'd describe as the "sister station" to Berrylands: Hersham. It looks like what Berrylands used to before the CLASP rebuild. It used to have a ticket office, waiting room and toilets each side at platform level those are all now shuttered up. The wooden back wall was removed and they put metal railings in its place, so now the wind howls through it in winter. They built a new ticket office at road level in the 1990s, upgrading the lighting and put asphalt squares down on top of the wooden platforms, but it's still essentially the original wooden station. Less smelly than Berrylands, but potentially even more boring. Also desperately in need of accessibility improvements. Unfortunately we'll miss out on Crossrail 2, but we may become zone 6 in the near future.
@@SubTroppoit, literally put Hersham on the map! Anyone who lived there before Sham 69 will tell you of the constant irritation of being confused with bloody Horsham! No one had ever heard of Hersham, so people ALWAYS assumed you meant Horsham. It got REALLY tedious. Even the spellchecker is doing it to me now - every time I type Hersham, it 'corrects' it to bloody Horsham!! But nowadays if I mention that I once lived in Hersham, they immediately say "ah, Sham 69 - Hersham Boys!".
Yes I’d mention Hersham too in the same vain as Berrrylands, it’s beyond Surbiton and Esher , which itself has seen better days although it is next to Sandown Park Racecourse. Actually Esher might be worth a visit/video. The one thing Berrylands has that the others don’t is some shops outside .
I like Horsham; I worked nearby and even lived for a few months just outside. Nice country lanes around for cycling. Never been to Hersham and now I live in Australia it is very unlikely that I ever will.
I used to love the smell of Berrylands on a hot summer's day when the sewage works weren't kicking up a stink. All you could smell was the sweet smell of what I presume was Bitumen they used to coat the platform in
I new people at school who were so ashamed of getting off the train in Berrylands that they would tell anyone who asked they lived in Surbiton and would bus or walk back to their house.
I travel through Berrylands every week (but don't stop there). I haven't noticed a smell for years, but in the 1950s and ’60s you could smell Berrylands approaching a mile off. It really did stink, and the arms of the water-purifying units swinging round were a sight to behold. I seem to remember another similar sewage works near Byfleet & New Haw, but I don't remember it being quite so smelly.
I live approximately 200 miles north of Berrylands, but I visited it a few years ago after seeing it in a John Rogers video and thought it was great. I liked the parade of shops. I know I should seek help.
The water company at the time of opening it was very proud of the sewage works, which were the most hi-tech in the world or something. Local residents (or some of them anyway, including one of my great-grandads) were given special tours to show it off. Also, really pleased by the mention of Surbiton Lagoon in the comments below. It's a local by-law that any discussion of Berrylands must include a reference to the much-missed lido.
I used to pass Berrylands as a toddler with my parents when we travelled to London - and they had instilled the Smellylands mantra in me by about the age of 2! The smell is still possibly one of my most vivid memories from that time
I passed through on my visit to Hampton Court a month ago (the first in a series of visits to my Old Person's Freedom Pass Train Limits) but didn't notice the smell, nor indeed, the station. A fun station to visit (sarcasm) is Knockholt. There's very little there and it's two and a half miles away from Knockholt village, which is in two parts, a five minute very infrequent bus ride apart.
I used it in the mid to late 80s as LSE’s sports ground was nearby. Watching the SW Main line’s rush hour service (about a train every 2.5 mins) running at full speed with signals turning green as the trains approached was always fun; as was listening to the Class 50 hauled Exeter trains.
Jago, another fabulous video. Thank you. Your video made me remember an oddity I've noticed while in the area around the Kingston bypass and Chessington, but not around Surbiton or Berrylands... Take a look at the front elevation of the houses which front onto the A3 along the run between new Malden junction and the Hook junction, and you'll see many MANY examples of houses which have multiple sets of air vent thingies, generally two side by side at floor level, and then two more at ceiling level. Most rooms in these houses seem to have these 4 vent structures. I've never yet worked out what these are for. I can only think they're some remnant of a gas fired radiator installation or something, but nobody has ever been able to tell me if I'm right. If you're interested, let me know and I'll get you some pictures.
As someone who lives in New Malden I wish they would increase the frequency of stopping trains, I very rarely get of at Berrylands but those 2 trains an hour are also the only 2 trains going from New Malden to Surbiton.
And that was one of the main reasons why I bought my first home in "the Apostles". Four services merge at Raynes Park, and some of those are 4TPH in the rush hour so maybe 12-14TPH at Raynes Park, or maybe more, meaning that I never bothered to learn the timetable for Raynes Park as more often than not there was a train waiting in the station when I arrived the morning, and often one held at the signals outside the station, waiting for a platform.
@@pulaski1 I'm usually going into London where we get 6TPH so exactly as you say, I never check the timetable. We get 4TPH going to Kingston which is my next most frequent journey. Going to Surbiton is only ~10% of my train journeys
Write to your MP and tell them to lobby for the government to fund Crossrail 2. Not only will you get a better service, you will also be able to take trains through London, without having to get off in London.
The Thames Down link is a walking route that goes from Kingston to Box Hill, which I did a few weeks back. It goes right through Berrylands, and can confirm it's a bit whiffy!
Ah, my home station (when I was a lad). Spent much time in the 1960s on those platforms waiting for the slow train to/from Hampton Court. To be fair it did pong a bit but I always viewed the sewage works themselves as part of Kingston which rather unfairly chose to inflict their smelliness on us Berrylandsians instead of themselves. Looking over at the works from the Waterloo bound platform there was a narrow gauge railway than ran through the site although back in the '60s it was very rusty and I never saw anything running on it so I guess it had been out of use for some time even back then. No trace of it remains today and that part of the site is no longer in use for water treatment.
According to Joe Brown’s London Railway Atlas (5th edition), the North Surrey Sewage Board Railways comprised three 2-foot gauge internal railways to serve sewage works at Malden and Berrylands (opened 1939), and Hogsmill (opened 1953). Malden and Hogsmill works railways were connected and all three sites amalgamated in 1961. The railways continued in operation until at least 1965.
So video suggestions. Loughborough Junction is grotty and has history. Disused platforms, lots of bridges. You can't really change trains here, despite the name. South Merton/Morden South. Two stations that are nearly the same name and nearly the same place. They are pretty much nothing. The dull end of the Sutton loop. One of them used to get milk trains, the land for that is now a mosque next to the station.
Strangely enough, I used the station back in 1969 when I had a summer job in a shop there. It was a long time ago. Weirdly enough, many years later i subsequently learned that my wife's grandfather previously had a greengrocers shop near the station.
At least Berrylands got a station, and got it quickly - the Southern were enterprising in developing commuter traffic. BR were good at building extra stations in the 1980s but under Railtrack/Network Rail the cost quadrupled (actual figures for the Far North Line, the tiny platform at Beauly cost an eyewatering amount). Now it takes many years and hundreds of millions of pounds to restore a service even along an existing freight line.
"You've probably never heard of Berrylands, so thank you for clicking on this video." Honestly if I haven't heard of a station I am *more* likely to click on the video lol. I have heard of Berrylands actually, but mainly as I like poring over the Tube map (the one with NR services on it of course.) Great video!
You think trains stop infrequently at Berrylands? It's a veritable King's Cross-esque hive of activity compared to Buckenham and Berney Arms in Norfolk.
Had a school friend in the 70s who used to take the train to and from Berrylands everyday. I had no idea where Berrylands and we used to make fun of the name, like the silly kids we were, because it sounded so unserious. I did end up passing through Berrylands many years later when my mother was living in Surbiton and was finally able to place it on my mental map.
You get a great view of Hogsmill Nature Reserve from the London-bound platform. Take some binoculars and do some bird watching while you wait for your train.
Ha, I had to use Berrylands once about 15 years ago. must have been out of the height of summer as don't recall a bad smell. I do recall that I had to walk what seemed like forever to get to where I needed to go. One boring road looking very much like the next. Perhaps your video with cause some excitement to the residents, lord knows they need it.
Whenever engineering works reduce weekend services, SWR tells Berrylands passengers to 'use nearby stations' (there aren't any), whereas Thames Ditton and Hampton Court get bustitutions. In other words, Berrylands is treated as a disposable wayside halt like Longcross on days with no commuters about. Btw HC Jones's small detached houses on the road to Surbiton are now, as estate agents say, 'sought after'. Each is different in design but share a quirky cottagey look.
How close is the 'offending source' to the quite visually pleasant Berrylands station as presented in this blog? Use Google maps to see what's right on the other side to that most pleasant looking underpass @5:50 / 9:07. Ah! Now I get it! (Visually if not smell). Yikes...
I lived above one of the shops across from Berrylands station in the late 1950s and commuted to school in London. At that time it did not smell and it did not have that ugly extension. The commute however was awful and always crowded.
Kingston has great shopping. Surbiton has fast trains in and out of London, but south from there, it's very dull. Miles of thirties bay-windowed semis, from Berrylands, through Malden Manor, Worcester Park, Motspur Park, out to Chessington and Ewell.
Used to visit Cerebrum Lighting in Berrylands many moons ago. Never via rail though so can't comment on the station. It was often a tad windy, that I can vouch for...
I used to live near Surbiton, and commuted from there into Waterloo, and a few years later I lived near Raynes Park, and commuted from there. ..... But I have never needed to use Berrylands station; it doesn't sound like I missed much. 😕
@@pulaski1 yes, they do, infact 2 trains 2 days apart caught fire and had to evacuate passengers, yep, you quesed it, at Berry lands! Also was the same fault on same type of train, but not bad fire thought, outside of the train, it's very rare when they do. If the sstation had a canopy roof, then thats were its a real threat to the stsation!
@@breakitbreakit9765 Between 1989 and 2001 I commuted most days into Waterloo, from various stations, the furthest out being Surbiton, and mostly from Raynes Park (5 years), Wandsworth (or Clapham Jctn, if a bus came) (3 years), or Wimbledon (2 years), and I don't recall a train ever catching fire. 🤔
I live in New Malden and cycle through here to get to Kingston. I can confirm it often does stink; the smell is known as the "Malden pong" because it affects the western end of New Malden as well (not the 'village' though but the bits near the Hogsmill and sometimes along the Kingston Road) and sometimes I've smelt it as far away as Kingston. Nowhere near as bad as Isleworth though; I work near there and the stench earlier this week was overpowering. Of course it's the poor end of Isleworth, near Bridge Road (not the villagey bit) that was hit.
The worst station for me must be Bolton on Dearne. I ended up there in 1973 after inadvertently getting on the wrong train at Sheffield. The Dearnways bus was the only way back as there would have been a wait of several hours for the next train. The bus was infrequent and took a circuitous route.
It's also weirdly similar to Catford station, one of my locals. 2tph, small waiting shelters, exact same building design. It also had no lifts up until a few years ago and so would require a walk to street level to cross platforms just like Berrylands.
It is pretty obscure unless you live in the streets south of it. I lived near Fairfield in Kingston, not that far away, and it was still a remote station reached by a narrow lane (past the sewage works). But as you say there is a fair bit of greenery around there - Kingston doesn't have a lot by outer London standards (the big parks are in Richmond-upon-Thames ) but what there is, is spread about.
Looking at it I have no idea why it wasn't closed by Beeching? Small Station, close to other stations (less than 2 miles to the stations either side), The buildings were wooden at the time and dishevelled, On a mainline so disrupted service patterns as well.
Well, Getting in and out of Berrylands has always been 'tricky'. It is effetely boxed in by a River/nature reserve, a Railway and a Bypass. There would have been a riot! He would also have been up against local resident 'Mad' Jack Churchill. Yes, the man, the meme, the legend himself who led a commando unit into battle in WW2 with a Scottish Broadsword and killed a German vehicle commander with a longbow. I had it on good authority when he threw his bag into his garden on the fast train to Surbiton so he didn't have to carry it up and over that hill, he sometimes missed.
Berrylands railway station does need a massive upgrade including a new station entrance and step-free access. The station looks really old compare to the other stations across Southwest London and other stations across London.
Berrylands station is on the London Loop, a 140mile walking route that runs from Erith to Purfleet along London's Green Belt. It has been cleverly designed to pass by or close to a number of Stations in the Zone 6 fare zone so the route can be broken down into several easily managed day walks. As it passes so many stations it might make an interesting video or set of video's just a thought.
Never used this station but recently had the use of a very quaint station called Furze Platt. Sinle track and platform on a line from Maidenhead to Marlow - track nearly overgrown by weeds at each end.
If you want a place with a load of garden centres, head to Crews Hill! However there is a lovely transport museum nearby that is open on Tuesdays and Sundays called Whitewebbs, which is also the name of a nearby park
Thanks for this survey of a station in the London suburbs. It's not very far out actually, he sort of distnce which, if it was served by a tube line, would get at 6-9 trains an hour in each direction. I can't see why the 'main-line' rail managers think that a half-hourly service is going to get all the custom possible from the area - even the K2 bus going past Berrylands station is every ten minutes! If the problem is that Waterloo can't accommodate any extra trains, and Crossrail-2 is too grand and expensive for politicians to risk financing it, perhaps we need a simpler, cheaper solution. How about connecting the SWML suburban services, which fan out from Wimbledon, to the Lea Valley (W.Anglia) routes, currently operated as part of the Overground. Connecting new underground stations at Waterloo and Liverpool St would be fairly direct tunnels, maybe just digging out the Waterloo & City to full size. An intermediate station under Blackfriars would connect to Thameslink, plus one using the W&C footprint at 'City'. The six SW suburban lines could be paired up to match the three Lea Valley routes: the old Southern was better at quick joins/splits en-route than the modern Southern, but if they can do it in two minutes in Berlin, surely it can be done in London ...
Weybridge station in winter taking the stopper to Woking (WWWW). Its cold, damp, gloomy and you get buffeted by the hurricane gale of the fast services. Special mention too for Woking - stopper arrives at platform 3 which is a sort of Harry Potter paltform for being squeezed in as an afterthought but 200m adrift of the main station so connections are inconvenient.
In the early 1970s I had a boss called Frank who travelled by train every day from Berrylands to Vauxhall and had the appropriate season ticket. So I can confidently say that the first time I heard of this station was in 1973. Your video - 51 years later is the second. Is this is record?
To be strictly accurate, the article at 1:26 doesn't come out and say the dairy farming was amazing; just that it was the most amazing thing about Berrylands... which, in the opinion of the author (or the author's AI), may represent a fairly low bar. Maybe it's trying to be one of those "condemn with faint praise" things.
Actually, if you go really early in the morning or really late at night, you do get some Guildford trains which terminate/come from Wimbledon stopping there.
Well, my reason for disliking Berrylands is that when I worked on that patch, if we were accessing the track there, it was a hell of a slog carrying all of the gear up the stairs. One interesting thing (well, perspective required on use of that word, it could have come from the same AI that found it "amazing") just Surbiton side on the up roads there is a fairly high speed turn out which if memory serves goes up slow to up fast and I think is probably about as long a set of switches that you'll find on Wessex... As I said, the use of "interesting" needs to be taken in perspective.
Correct, it's something like a 70mph turn out, and is designed to enable a train leaving Surbiton platform 1 to transfer to the fast while causing minimal delay to stuff coming up the main fast behind it whilst also allowing another train to enter platform 1 at Surbiton if the first departing train is held at a red before crossing over. I've seen videos from the 80s of Surbiton station, and in that era the crossover to the fast was just after leaving Surbiton (as well as platform 4 not having the Hampton option and going back onto the down slow for a few yards). I'm intrigued when the layout was altered to its current state - think it was all done by 2001 when I started commuting from Surbiton.
@rau1seixas My gang started covering up as far as Berrylands in mid to late 90s and it was already there then. I was Woking P/Way and we took over Surbiton patch from Wimbledon depot but can't remember the exact year but deffo before 2000.
I can remember the Kingston By-pass when it had a concrete road surface and no speed limit, very noisy if one lived alongside it, nicknamed the Kingston Flypast. I love those 30's bay window semi-detached houses particularly if still have the curved glass metal framed Crittal windows. Hopeless at keeping heat in but secondary glazing partly cured that, the company make double glazed units today for conservation areas or listed status buildings.
@@iaintaylor9040 Absolute traffic chaos on Sandown Park or Hurst Park race days with a couple of TD Officers attempting to keep the traffic moving with just communication by hand signals between them.
I lived in New Malden in the 80s, and I only knew one person who lived in Berrylands. The station looks more substantial than I remember. Maybe those steps are new?
Those offices at Berrylands look like Portakabins, a temporary accommodation block. Hogsmill, as a name, up there with the water treatment works , just off the M60 near the Trafford Centre, Greater Manchester, appropriately called, at one time, Dumplington. Strange but true. BTW, are there no shelters on hte platforms? Best take a brolly when visiting.
Smellylands: Brings back memories of sometimes having no alternative but to take the "stopper" to and from Surbiton. I never did get off to investigate as the major conclusion was all too apparent. Now that I live on the other side of the world I occasionally pass by a sewage works an I think of [Continued page 94]
Only been to Berrylands a few times, and then only because was with family members walking the Hogsmill path to/from Ewell and they wanted to skip over the boring section in Kingston. Didn't notice the smell though, but can't say I didn't notice the smell in Iselworth walking the Duke of Northumberland path, which goes past the Mogden sewerage works. But because this isn't near Isleworth station, nor any of the other stations around that part of London, it's something you may not have experienced if just passing through on the train. And it's not an experience I would recommend.
We use to that that line to go to collage. It's stank was rank. Me and my friends would hold our breath from 2 minutes i to 2 minutes away. I can still smell the awful smell. I will never be clean.
I don't know about worst....but if you would like to know a station (not in London) that's nearly kills you, then it would be Winsford! It's in Cheshire, and like Berrylands only has two trains that stop. But it's on a major commute between Liverpool and Crewe (a major hub station) so there is a lot of traffic that doesn't slow down. In a quirk of geography and horticulture, the track is low in the ground and has dense trees and foliage that forms a tunnel. Take heed when the locals start to wrap themselves around lampposts and bolted down seats! Go and enjoy! 😂
Is Berrylands Kingston-upon-Thames as it always comes up when I key in train times Waterloo to K-u-T. Brian White's Jazz Band used to have a residency at Berrylands Tavern.
I haven't been to Berrylands for about 50 years, I used to live in New Malden. I've drunk in the boozer but never used the station. My mother was evacuated there during the war.
Jago, I would nominate Pokesdown station, also on the South West route near Bournemouth. Every time I pass through it seems incredibly dreary and run down. Well worth a visit 😂
Brigg, on the former Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire mainline between Sheffield and Cleethorpes. Town is lovely but railway service just 1 round trip Monday to Friday, station area bought by local council off Railtrack in 1996 but is undeveloped and looks like a bomb site.
Wow, that station building looks like the *temporary* classroom I spent my junior school years in.
Mine too, but like Berrylands my primary school still hast those buildings
Jago, you are not old. I can prove I'm old - when trying to enter my date of birth on a website, it takes me twenty minutes to scroll down to the appropriate year... 😭
At least it doesn't roll across a century and think you're a baby.
@@caw25sha I dunno - a work colleague told me I can speed up the process by typing "18"... 😒
Same here its like spinning the wheel of fortune 😱🤭
Agreed it takes forever 😅😮
I once received a "please check this and confirm that our information is accurate" census form from the city where I lived at the time that had my year of birth listed as 1773 instead of 1973. I was tempted to check "yup, all correct" and then apply for the senior citizen discount to my municipal taxes...
Having lived in Hersham for 10 years of my misspent childhood, and regularly taken the train to London, Berrylands always fascinated me.
The reason? To start with, as Jago points out, no train I was ever on stopped there! But also, because it looks uncannily like Hersham - same temporary looking wooden platform, extended by concrete, same unimportant feel, but, most of all, same sewage works!
Although ours didn't smell for some reason.
But I spent ten years looking out of train windows, as we sped through a station that looked uncannily like my own stop, but which no trains ever appeared to stop at.
And, almost certainly, the one London region station I NEVER expected to see covered on this channel!
They were going to shut the sewage works down but the local politicians poo pooed that idea.
I see what you did there.
Please flush.
😆
Brown food, brown drink 😆
0:29
Birmingham New Street is just a shopping mall with a railway station somewhere inside.
It is a massive improvement on the tiny station that used to be there!
But with airport style departure lounges to wait for your train in.
Issues though I have with it, it's a lot better than what it used to be, which was "dark, dingy station on the same footprint, but with six thousand tonnes more concrete in the roof to make sure no natural light can ever penetrate its bowels"
(no really, when they remodelled it about ten years ago they literally removed _six thousand tonnes_ of concrete from the roof to actually let some light in)
I have a sneaking suspicion that
there are still train loads of passengers
circulating the station shopping centre
looking forlornly for the exit!
I mean, that describes a lot of large rail stations... Grand Central Terminal was basically built that way over 100 years ago.
Berrylands is my local station, in fact my house is briefly shown in the video. It may be ugly (certainly not wheelchair or pushchair friendly) but it is our lifeline. Two trains an hour (30 minuts direct) into Central London is not to be sniffed at. We would love lifts, and more services, honestly, but the station is very much appreciated in the suburb. As for the smell, it's largely a thing of the past. The one place you are most likely to get it from is the station, becuase it is next to, and above, the water treatment plant. The plant serves fresh water to Kingston, Surbiton and beyond, and we all need that, don't we? Berrylands itself is a green paradise with two rivers, two nature reserves and a huge park. Let's appreciate the gem that is Berrylands and its ugly, but very useful, station. Thanks Jago!
Thank you Jago. I lived in Berrylands for 12 years, commuting daily from Berrylands station. For the most part the stink wasnt that bad, and the railway service good until the franchise changed to Southwestern Trains, and it literally went go blazes overnight. You missed my old flat in the video, but it was lovely to see my old road, and more importantly the green spaces along the Hogsmill. For what it's worth, those are well worth exploring
"11 minutes late. Excess smell at Berrylands!"
I didn't get where I am today by making comments on TH-cam.
@@neil9890 Great comments, will they mystify most people under 50? It was indeed the lines out of Waterloo, I remember Norbiton being mentioned as one location.
@@iankemp1131 Berrylands was in twice - overheated axle and obstacles on the line. Never mind someone stealing the lines at Surbiton.
@@rau1seixas Thank you! Does that mean you have a compilation somewhere of all the various reasons and locations?
@@iankemp1131 Well, I have a DVD box set, a book on the series and a good memory...
"You've probably never heard of Berrylands, so thank you for clicking on this video."
Joke's on you, Jago, I'm a Yank, I don't know the Bakerloo Line from the District Line
Another stinking good video. You are the circle to our drains.
an episode of 1970s tv comedy programme, George and mildred was filmed in berrylands, when george broke his leg sat in his wheel chair ,sat outside the newsagents on Chiltern drive, the newsagents is now Berry nails,
I think there was an advert for the Halifax Building Society staged exactly here…George Cole, if memory serves.
Good job you can hear and see on TV, but not smell.
the key to stations like that is timing use to days when the wind isn’t blowing the fumes towards the station…learned that while enduring low tide and sewage while awaiting buses in my former hometown
Very many years ago I used to live in south-west London and used the rail services around there. My late wife and I met on our first day at a civil service office in the area. In those early years we worked in places like Hinchley Wood/Thames Ditton, Chessington, Central London, New Malden and Basingstoke, and lived at locations in Wimbledon, Raynes Park, Tolworth and Woking. Of course we visited other places such as Kingston, Richmond, Guildford and Hampton Court to shop, look round or meet friends. For this reason I was interested to see this video on Berrylands which in some years we passed though every day, even if the trains didn’t stop - though possibly in those days it may not only have been the Hampton Court trains which stopped there. So, very good to see it all again in this and other videos - and more so since nowadays I go back to the general area to see my daughter in Teddington (nearest stations Fulwell and Teddington). But (sorry, more of my life story) I was born and brought up in Birmingham and now live in Leamington Spa, and you mentioned New Street station, moreover in a disparaging manner. How come? It is true that the platforms are crowded, dangerously narrow, dingy and very noisy. But that’s because naturally everyone wants to go to Birmingham and there’s no room for expansion so there’s little to be done about it. However, the bit on top (called Grand Central for some reason) is bustling, light and airy and, best of all, has the wonderful mechanical bull. It’s far better than the dismal shopping centre that it replaced. That itself replaced an earlier station which I only remember in its post-war dirty and run-down persona. Anyway, thanks again for the video and I hope Crossrail 2 happens.
I think disparaging comments about Birmingham New Street are fully justified - the new design makes changing trains much more difficult than the old station.
@@andrewhotston983 it is true that if I change trains there I seem to have go through two sets of ticket gates when zero would be better unless I am lucky enough to emerge on that bridge which runs above all the platforms. But otherwise the top bits look really good. There’s the Bull too and one of those great cake cafés. Also a Foyles.
@@NickMarsh-ke6kq Yep - I chose the wrong steps last Friday and was confronted by a glass wall as I tried to go from platform 9 to platform 1. I think the bridge connecting the platforms must be at the western end - I will try that theory tomorrow.
I miss the 'dismal shopping centre' because you used to be able to get wicked Patties and Goat curry there.
I used to ride through Berrylands from September 1948 to December 1954 on the way to school at Surbiton Then there were three trains an hour in each direction, all stations from Waterloo to Hampton Court, head code 'H'if I rmember correctly. The teatment beds were all open and boy, did it stink in the summer.
Berrylands sounds like something out of a fairy tale, where lovely juicy thirst quenching, life giving fruits burst forth from the land, ripe to be picked as is your whim. Not somewhere where a major sewage plant is located. Bit like Iceland/Greenland.
That station building sends shivers down my spine. Having spent two out of four years in junior school and four out of five years in secondary school holed up in those CLASP boxes - freeezing cold and draughty and worse in the winter, with inadequate, fume-belching heaters and leaking roofs - I can vouch for how horrible they are.
2:02 ah the Prescott Hill Climb, spent a couple of great days there when I was at uni down the road in Cheltenham. When the vintage cars are going up the climb and with the steam trains of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire railway running up the valley it felt like being in a different time!
I assume you also visited the railway?
I was pleasantly surprised to see the Prescott Speed Hill Climb clip. It's my favourite UK motor sport venue and I recommend it to all petrolheads. Forget over-priced and over-crowded Goodwood! And with the G.W. heritage railway nearby how much nearer perfection can you get?
@@MrDavil43 Yeah they had the Senna JPS Lotus there when I went. Not just to see it taking on the hill, but I was able to have a close look at it in the garage with the cover off. And there was hardly anyone around!
"Things (regarding the smell) are no where near as bad as they uses to be".
I cycle past this every week day, living in Surbiton and working in New Malden. The smell is horrid. I changed my route due to it being so bad it would literally (and I mean literally) make me sick. I'm not particularly strong stomached, but at the same time, I honestly cannot even imagine how bad it was, if it's still as terrible as it is.
Love the video though. Its really nice to watch something so specifically local that gives me further knowledge on the history of somewhere like this. Growing up around South (central) London, working in the city at times and now being further out in South West of London, i get so much from most of your videos and they are a joy to watch. Keep doing what you're doing.
The pong is minor compaired to in the past - I started to pass the station in the early 90's on the way to London it is likely to be the only point on the rail network where at the hight of summer people would get up and close all the windows on an old slam door train.
I don't find the smell of sewage all that bad. Silage is much worse to my nose.
My memory of living at the uni halls of residence at the end of Burney Avenue in Surbiton decades back was that we were under 500m from Berrylands station, but because there was no access (except for climbing over the cemetary walls) with the walk via Lower Marsh lane being rather circuitous, we used Suburbiton station nearly 3 times the distance and up a hill. A quick look at the online OS map reveals not much has changed over the years. The pong? After a while you got used to it.
Ahh yes, Clayhill, a.k.a. Clayhell! Surrounded by a railway, a cemetery, and local residents.
In fairness Surbiton was a much better service all round.
@@andymerrett Anything but the stopper!
Ah, Clayhill. Few of my friends lived there, I seem to remember the trains rumbling past over the smell 🤔
Me too - 1992-3 ! The free KingstonUni shuttle bus went to Surbiton station so was a no brainer really, though I did use Berrylands once when I took the train in June 1994 to Wimbledon at stupid O'Clock in the morning to get in the queue for the tennis. The pong was mostly the sewage treatment works rather than the Station itself.
Very dull fact about Berrylands. When my dad took a train into London on the portsmouth line with his Senior Citizens travelcard incorporated into the ticket, the ticket office would always break the journey at... Berrylands. for some reason. Maybe it's the first station inside the TFL area? Great video thanks
I'm so old I used the student halls at Clayhill when it was for the polytechnic. Railway to the south, graveyard to the north, treatment works to the east - what a location. One January morning I went outside and it was misty...you could *taste* it...
Least favourite station, based on an embarrassing mistake on my part back in the days of British Rail. I worked for them, and had a staff pass, which was about to come in really handy on this particular day. It was Newton Abbot. I realised, after boarding my train at Plymouth, that I had left my keys on top of my grandmother's fridge. It was a Sunday, and I had to wait ages to return to Plymouth and wait ages more for a Tamar Valley line train to Bere Alston, where my Gran lived. Unhappy at my own mistake, I eventually caught the returning train from Gunnislake at Bere Alston, returned back to Plymouth to catch the next train to Reading, then onwards to Wokingham, where my car was parked. Long day. I have an irrational dislike of Newton Abbot station to this day.
I have to say I have very fond memories of Berrylands. As a north London boy it’s not an area I should know, but playing Saturday football once a season our team would travel over by train to play at the Kings college football ground, and then after enjoy a few pints at Woodies pub.
There is a good reson to cross the line. Cancelled trains into London usually means you have to go to Surbiton to get one from there. Always a joy
Used to commute from Surbiton to New Malden and if you were feeling a bit tired, the inrush of sewage smell when the doors opened at Berrylands was better than any caffeine hit.
Living in Surbiton very close to Berrylands (and the old Berrylands dairy as my Victorian house was originally built to be a dairyman's cottage) the pong has gone. It used to be a serious problem and put us off buying a house close to the sewage works, however the smell has largely gone. Perhaps if one stands next to the sewage works, it might still smell a little and the station is very close, but I regularly use the shops in Berrylands and the smell that had previously been a feature has gone.
I live next to what I'd describe as the "sister station" to Berrylands: Hersham. It looks like what Berrylands used to before the CLASP rebuild. It used to have a ticket office, waiting room and toilets each side at platform level those are all now shuttered up. The wooden back wall was removed and they put metal railings in its place, so now the wind howls through it in winter. They built a new ticket office at road level in the 1990s, upgrading the lighting and put asphalt squares down on top of the wooden platforms, but it's still essentially the original wooden station. Less smelly than Berrylands, but potentially even more boring. Also desperately in need of accessibility improvements. Unfortunately we'll miss out on Crossrail 2, but we may become zone 6 in the near future.
What is the local opinion on Sham 69's 'Hersham Boys'?
@@SubTroppoit, literally put Hersham on the map! Anyone who lived there before Sham 69 will tell you of the constant irritation of being confused with bloody Horsham! No one had ever heard of Hersham, so people ALWAYS assumed you meant Horsham. It got REALLY tedious.
Even the spellchecker is doing it to me now - every time I type Hersham, it 'corrects' it to bloody Horsham!!
But nowadays if I mention that I once lived in Hersham, they immediately say "ah, Sham 69 - Hersham Boys!".
Yes I’d mention Hersham too in the same vain as Berrrylands, it’s beyond Surbiton and Esher , which itself has seen better days although it is next to Sandown Park Racecourse. Actually Esher might be worth a visit/video.
The one thing Berrylands has that the others don’t is some shops outside .
I like Horsham; I worked nearby and even lived for a few months just outside. Nice country lanes around for cycling. Never been to Hersham and now I live in Australia it is very unlikely that I ever will.
@@SubTroppo Having met Mister Pursey on a few occasions through a family friend, he's an acquired taste.
I used to love the smell of Berrylands on a hot summer's day when the sewage works weren't kicking up a stink. All you could smell was the sweet smell of what I presume was Bitumen they used to coat the platform in
I used to work for a dairy company in Berrylands. I have fond memories of that place and of the station. I always loved the name.
it needs more berries!
Smell! My last home in the UK was in Ipswich. Certain times of the year we had the smell of the sugar beat factory.
I don't know why, but the "Also to Guildford" Tag @ around 1:10 is just too funny for some reason
I new people at school who were so ashamed of getting off the train in Berrylands that they would tell anyone who asked they lived in Surbiton and would bus or walk back to their house.
I wait at this godawful station every morning. I detest it. It feels like it'll collapse if someone walks too hard.
So, CLASP builds are a grown-up form of Bayko Building set, and yes I had one many many years ago.
Thank you, I had one as a kid and had no idea of the name.
I travel through Berrylands every week (but don't stop there). I haven't noticed a smell for years, but in the 1950s and ’60s you could smell Berrylands approaching a mile off. It really did stink, and the arms of the water-purifying units swinging round were a sight to behold. I seem to remember another similar sewage works near Byfleet & New Haw, but I don't remember it being quite so smelly.
I live approximately 200 miles north of Berrylands, but I visited it a few years ago after seeing it in a John Rogers video and thought it was great. I liked the parade of shops. I know I should seek help.
I think you may already be _beyond_ help. 🤔
The water company at the time of opening it was very proud of the sewage works, which were the most hi-tech in the world or something. Local residents (or some of them anyway, including one of my great-grandads) were given special tours to show it off.
Also, really pleased by the mention of Surbiton Lagoon in the comments below. It's a local by-law that any discussion of Berrylands must include a reference to the much-missed lido.
The Sewage Works used to have its own internal 2ft gauge railway system, which might be a fun subject to make a model of.
I used to pass Berrylands as a toddler with my parents when we travelled to London - and they had instilled the Smellylands mantra in me by about the age of 2! The smell is still possibly one of my most vivid memories from that time
I passed through on my visit to Hampton Court a month ago (the first in a series of visits to my Old Person's Freedom Pass Train Limits) but didn't notice the smell, nor indeed, the station.
A fun station to visit (sarcasm) is Knockholt. There's very little there and it's two and a half miles away from Knockholt village, which is in two parts, a five minute very infrequent bus ride apart.
I used it in the mid to late 80s as LSE’s sports ground was nearby. Watching the SW Main line’s rush hour service (about a train every 2.5 mins) running at full speed with signals turning green as the trains approached was always fun; as was listening to the Class 50 hauled Exeter trains.
Jago, another fabulous video. Thank you.
Your video made me remember an oddity I've noticed while in the area around the Kingston bypass and Chessington, but not around Surbiton or Berrylands...
Take a look at the front elevation of the houses which front onto the A3 along the run between new Malden junction and the Hook junction, and you'll see many MANY examples of houses which have multiple sets of air vent thingies, generally two side by side at floor level, and then two more at ceiling level. Most rooms in these houses seem to have these 4 vent structures.
I've never yet worked out what these are for.
I can only think they're some remnant of a gas fired radiator installation or something, but nobody has ever been able to tell me if I'm right.
If you're interested, let me know and I'll get you some pictures.
As someone who lives in New Malden I wish they would increase the frequency of stopping trains, I very rarely get of at Berrylands but those 2 trains an hour are also the only 2 trains going from New Malden to Surbiton.
And that was one of the main reasons why I bought my first home in "the Apostles". Four services merge at Raynes Park, and some of those are 4TPH in the rush hour so maybe 12-14TPH at Raynes Park, or maybe more, meaning that I never bothered to learn the timetable for Raynes Park as more often than not there was a train waiting in the station when I arrived the morning, and often one held at the signals outside the station, waiting for a platform.
@@pulaski1 I'm usually going into London where we get 6TPH so exactly as you say, I never check the timetable. We get 4TPH going to Kingston which is my next most frequent journey. Going to Surbiton is only ~10% of my train journeys
Write to your MP and tell them to lobby for the government to fund Crossrail 2. Not only will you get a better service, you will also be able to take trains through London, without having to get off in London.
@@DavidShepheard I think they've got more important things they need to invest in right now.
The Thames Down link is a walking route that goes from Kingston to Box Hill, which I did a few weeks back. It goes right through Berrylands, and can confirm it's a bit whiffy!
Ah, my home station (when I was a lad). Spent much time in the 1960s on those platforms waiting for the slow train to/from Hampton Court. To be fair it did pong a bit but I always viewed the sewage works themselves as part of Kingston which rather unfairly chose to inflict their smelliness on us Berrylandsians instead of themselves. Looking over at the works from the Waterloo bound platform there was a narrow gauge railway than ran through the site although back in the '60s it was very rusty and I never saw anything running on it so I guess it had been out of use for some time even back then. No trace of it remains today and that part of the site is no longer in use for water treatment.
According to Joe Brown’s London Railway Atlas (5th edition), the North Surrey Sewage Board Railways comprised three 2-foot gauge internal railways to serve sewage works at Malden and Berrylands (opened 1939), and Hogsmill (opened 1953). Malden and Hogsmill works railways were connected and all three sites amalgamated in 1961. The railways continued in operation until at least 1965.
So video suggestions. Loughborough Junction is grotty and has history. Disused platforms, lots of bridges. You can't really change trains here, despite the name.
South Merton/Morden South. Two stations that are nearly the same name and nearly the same place. They are pretty much nothing. The dull end of the Sutton loop. One of them used to get milk trains, the land for that is now a mosque next to the station.
Also loughborough junction has a disused tippex (snopake) factory facing the platform.
Strangely enough, I used the station back in 1969 when I had a summer job in a shop there.
It was a long time ago.
Weirdly enough, many years later i subsequently learned that my wife's grandfather previously had a greengrocers shop near the station.
At least Berrylands got a station, and got it quickly - the Southern were enterprising in developing commuter traffic. BR were good at building extra stations in the 1980s but under Railtrack/Network Rail the cost quadrupled (actual figures for the Far North Line, the tiny platform at Beauly cost an eyewatering amount). Now it takes many years and hundreds of millions of pounds to restore a service even along an existing freight line.
"You've probably never heard of Berrylands, so thank you for clicking on this video."
Honestly if I haven't heard of a station I am *more* likely to click on the video lol. I have heard of Berrylands actually, but mainly as I like poring over the Tube map (the one with NR services on it of course.)
Great video!
You think trains stop infrequently at Berrylands? It's a veritable King's Cross-esque hive of activity compared to Buckenham and Berney Arms in Norfolk.
Had a school friend in the 70s who used to take the train to and from Berrylands everyday. I had no idea where Berrylands and we used to make fun of the name, like the silly kids we were, because it sounded so unserious. I did end up passing through Berrylands many years later when my mother was living in Surbiton and was finally able to place it on my mental map.
You get a great view of Hogsmill Nature Reserve from the London-bound platform. Take some binoculars and do some bird watching while you wait for your train.
Ha, I had to use Berrylands once about 15 years ago. must have been out of the height of summer as don't recall a bad smell. I do recall that I had to walk what seemed like forever to get to where I needed to go. One boring road looking very much like the next. Perhaps your video with cause some excitement to the residents, lord knows they need it.
Whenever engineering works reduce weekend services, SWR tells Berrylands passengers to 'use nearby stations' (there aren't any), whereas Thames Ditton and Hampton Court get bustitutions. In other words, Berrylands is treated as a disposable wayside halt like Longcross on days with no commuters about.
Btw HC Jones's small detached houses on the road to Surbiton are now, as estate agents say, 'sought after'. Each is different in design but share a quirky cottagey look.
How close is the 'offending source' to the quite visually pleasant Berrylands station as presented in this blog? Use Google maps to see what's right on the other side to that most pleasant looking underpass @5:50 / 9:07.
Ah! Now I get it! (Visually if not smell). Yikes...
I lived above one of the shops across from Berrylands station in the late 1950s and commuted to school in London. At that time it did not smell and it did not have that ugly extension. The commute however was awful and always crowded.
The proposed Crossrail 2 map still shows the now closed facility at Angel Road, which was replaced by Meridian Water some while ago now!!
I thought that was curious, too. I’ll be addressing it in an upcoming video.
Kingston has great shopping. Surbiton has fast trains in and out of London, but south from there, it's very dull. Miles of thirties bay-windowed semis, from Berrylands, through Malden Manor, Worcester Park, Motspur Park, out to Chessington and Ewell.
I know what goes on in one of those semis in Worcester Park .
@@highpath4776 Tell me I grew up there and never heard a thing.
Quite a few semis are now HMOs / Student Accomodation / Permanent Air BnBs
Kingston _used_ to be good for shopping. It's a bit of a dump now.
@@_dude.. It survives better than some places. Miss Beggars Banquet records and so on
Used to visit Cerebrum Lighting in Berrylands many moons ago. Never via rail though so can't comment on the station. It was often a tad windy, that I can vouch for...
I used to live near Surbiton, and commuted from there into Waterloo, and a few years later I lived near Raynes Park, and commuted from there. ..... But I have never needed to use Berrylands station; it doesn't sound like I missed much. 😕
If a train is on fire, it's not allowed to stop at Berrylands; the platforms are still made of wood.
Do many electric trains catch fire? 🤔
@@pulaski1 yes, they do, infact 2 trains 2 days apart caught fire and had to evacuate passengers, yep, you quesed it, at Berry lands! Also was the same fault on same type of train, but not bad fire thought, outside of the train, it's very rare when they do. If the sstation had a canopy roof, then thats were its a real threat to the stsation!
@@breakitbreakit9765 Between 1989 and 2001 I commuted most days into Waterloo, from various stations, the furthest out being Surbiton, and mostly from Raynes Park (5 years), Wandsworth (or Clapham Jctn, if a bus came) (3 years), or Wimbledon (2 years), and I don't recall a train ever catching fire. 🤔
I live in New Malden and cycle through here to get to Kingston. I can confirm it often does stink; the smell is known as the "Malden pong" because it affects the western end of New Malden as well (not the 'village' though but the bits near the Hogsmill and sometimes along the Kingston Road) and sometimes I've smelt it as far away as Kingston. Nowhere near as bad as Isleworth though; I work near there and the stench earlier this week was overpowering. Of course it's the poor end of Isleworth, near Bridge Road (not the villagey bit) that was hit.
The worst station for me must be Bolton on Dearne. I ended up there in 1973 after inadvertently getting on the wrong train at Sheffield. The Dearnways bus was the only way back as there would have been a wait of several hours for the next train. The bus was infrequent and took a circuitous route.
I reckon they used that building system to build Kidbrooke in South London on the Bexleyheath Line.
They do look very similar.
It's also weirdly similar to Catford station, one of my locals. 2tph, small waiting shelters, exact same building design. It also had no lifts up until a few years ago and so would require a walk to street level to cross platforms just like Berrylands.
I remember the old wooden Berrylands. Never on a train that actually stopped there though so I didn't notice the smell.
It is pretty obscure unless you live in the streets south of it. I lived near Fairfield in Kingston, not that far away, and it was still a remote station reached by a narrow lane (past the sewage works). But as you say there is a fair bit of greenery around there - Kingston doesn't have a lot by outer London standards (the big parks are in Richmond-upon-Thames ) but what there is, is spread about.
Looking at it I have no idea why it wasn't closed by Beeching?
Small Station, close to other stations (less than 2 miles to the stations either side), The buildings were wooden at the time and dishevelled, On a mainline so disrupted service patterns as well.
My guess is either local opposition, or the station is so minimal it made it cheap as hell to run so Beeching left it alone.
beeching was about closing lines not necesarrilly stations
Because the London commuter lines were generally well used and profitable.
@@PGATProductionsExactly!
Well, Getting in and out of Berrylands has always been 'tricky'. It is effetely boxed in by a River/nature reserve, a Railway and a Bypass. There would have been a riot! He would also have been up against local resident 'Mad' Jack Churchill. Yes, the man, the meme, the legend himself who led a commando unit into battle in WW2 with a Scottish Broadsword and killed a German vehicle commander with a longbow. I had it on good authority when he threw his bag into his garden on the fast train to Surbiton so he didn't have to carry it up and over that hill, he sometimes missed.
I commute to New Street, and quite like it. Then again, I say commute, but it's only one return trip per week.
New Street is vastly improved compared to what it used to be.
Berrylands railway station does need a massive upgrade including a new station entrance and step-free access. The station looks really old compare to the other stations across Southwest London and other stations across London.
Jago’s narratives are soothing to the ear, keep up the good work, bud!
Berrylands station is on the London Loop, a 140mile walking route that runs from Erith to Purfleet along London's Green Belt. It has been cleverly designed to pass by or close to a number of Stations in the Zone 6 fare zone so the route can be broken down into several easily managed day walks. As it passes so many stations it might make an interesting video or set of video's just a thought.
Berrylands is Z5 FYI
I used to go through it to get to Surbiton in the 80's. Liked the view across from the train.
Never used this station but recently had the use of a very quaint station called Furze Platt. Sinle track and platform on a line from Maidenhead to Marlow - track nearly overgrown by weeds at each end.
If you want a place with a load of garden centres, head to Crews Hill! However there is a lovely transport museum nearby that is open on Tuesdays and Sundays called Whitewebbs, which is also the name of a nearby park
Thanks for this survey of a station in the London suburbs. It's not very far out actually, he sort of distnce which, if it was served by a tube line, would get at 6-9 trains an hour in each direction. I can't see why the 'main-line' rail managers think that a half-hourly service is going to get all the custom possible from the area - even the K2 bus going past Berrylands station is every ten minutes! If the problem is that Waterloo can't accommodate any extra trains, and Crossrail-2 is too grand and expensive for politicians to risk financing it, perhaps we need a simpler, cheaper solution. How about connecting the SWML suburban services, which fan out from Wimbledon, to the Lea Valley (W.Anglia) routes, currently operated as part of the Overground. Connecting new underground stations at Waterloo and Liverpool St would be fairly direct tunnels, maybe just digging out the Waterloo & City to full size. An intermediate station under Blackfriars would connect to Thameslink, plus one using the W&C footprint at 'City'. The six SW suburban lines could be paired up to match the three Lea Valley routes: the old Southern was better at quick joins/splits en-route than the modern Southern, but if they can do it in two minutes in Berlin, surely it can be done in London ...
Weybridge station in winter taking the stopper to Woking (WWWW). Its cold, damp, gloomy and you get buffeted by the hurricane gale of the fast services. Special mention too for Woking - stopper arrives at platform 3 which is a sort of Harry Potter paltform for being squeezed in as an afterthought but 200m adrift of the main station so connections are inconvenient.
In the early 1970s I had a boss called Frank who travelled by train every day from Berrylands to Vauxhall and had the appropriate season ticket. So I can confidently say that the first time I heard of this station was in 1973. Your video - 51 years later is the second. Is this is record?
To be strictly accurate, the article at 1:26 doesn't come out and say the dairy farming was amazing; just that it was the most amazing thing about Berrylands... which, in the opinion of the author (or the author's AI), may represent a fairly low bar. Maybe it's trying to be one of those "condemn with faint praise" things.
Actually, if you go really early in the morning or really late at night, you do get some Guildford trains which terminate/come from Wimbledon stopping there.
Well, my reason for disliking Berrylands is that when I worked on that patch, if we were accessing the track there, it was a hell of a slog carrying all of the gear up the stairs.
One interesting thing (well, perspective required on use of that word, it could have come from the same AI that found it "amazing") just Surbiton side on the up roads there is a fairly high speed turn out which if memory serves goes up slow to up fast and I think is probably about as long a set of switches that you'll find on Wessex...
As I said, the use of "interesting" needs to be taken in perspective.
Correct, it's something like a 70mph turn out, and is designed to enable a train leaving Surbiton platform 1 to transfer to the fast while causing minimal delay to stuff coming up the main fast behind it whilst also allowing another train to enter platform 1 at Surbiton if the first departing train is held at a red before crossing over. I've seen videos from the 80s of Surbiton station, and in that era the crossover to the fast was just after leaving Surbiton (as well as platform 4 not having the Hampton option and going back onto the down slow for a few yards). I'm intrigued when the layout was altered to its current state - think it was all done by 2001 when I started commuting from Surbiton.
@rau1seixas My gang started covering up as far as Berrylands in mid to late 90s and it was already there then. I was Woking P/Way and we took over Surbiton patch from Wimbledon depot but can't remember the exact year but deffo before 2000.
@@rau1seixas Presumably they used a 70 MPH turn out, so that people passing through on trains didn't complain about the smell so much. 💩
@@DavidShepheard nothing will mask the smell of Berrylands! Long dry summers are awful in KT5 and KT6
Two trains an hour in each direction? Luxury!
A masterclass in dry, understated humour - made me laugh out loud. And "dandy" is a word we should hear much more often.
I can remember the Kingston By-pass when it had a concrete road surface and no speed limit, very noisy if one lived alongside it, nicknamed the Kingston Flypast. I love those 30's bay window semi-detached houses particularly if still have the curved glass metal framed Crittal windows. Hopeless at keeping heat in but secondary glazing partly cured that, the company make double glazed units today for conservation areas or listed status buildings.
Do you remember the Scilly (Silly) Isles roundabouts near the Marquis of Granby, Esher, at the end of the by-pass?
@@iaintaylor9040 Absolute traffic chaos on Sandown Park or Hurst Park race days with a couple of TD Officers attempting to keep the traffic moving with just communication by hand signals between them.
Lydney Station is also bad in the summer with a sewage farm near by. Must have been rank in the old signal box.
I lived in New Malden in the 80s, and I only knew one person who lived in Berrylands. The station looks more substantial than I remember. Maybe those steps are new?
Those offices at Berrylands look like Portakabins, a temporary accommodation block. Hogsmill, as a name, up there with the water treatment works , just off the M60 near the Trafford Centre, Greater Manchester, appropriately called, at one time, Dumplington. Strange but true. BTW, are there no shelters on hte platforms? Best take a brolly when visiting.
I, like many of my colleagues in that job, ended up changing trains at Berrylands having run for the wrong train at Waterloo.
Hmm I seem to remember my London college had a sports ground at Berrylands! I could be mistaken, wasn't much of a sports person myself.
Smellylands: Brings back memories of sometimes having no alternative but to take the "stopper" to and from Surbiton. I never did get off to investigate as the major conclusion was all too apparent. Now that I live on the other side of the world I occasionally pass by a sewage works an I think of [Continued page 94]
OLD JOKE:
"Kiss her where it smells. Take her to...(name local spot here)"
Only been to Berrylands a few times, and then only because was with family members walking the Hogsmill path to/from Ewell and they wanted to skip over the boring section in Kingston.
Didn't notice the smell though, but can't say I didn't notice the smell in Iselworth walking the Duke of Northumberland path, which goes past the Mogden sewerage works. But because this isn't near Isleworth station, nor any of the other stations around that part of London, it's something you may not have experienced if just passing through on the train. And it's not an experience I would recommend.
Nice video, Beddington lane on a summers day. Nearly blew my hat off when I cycled through it.
We use to that that line to go to collage. It's stank was rank. Me and my friends would hold our breath from 2 minutes i to 2 minutes away. I can still smell the awful smell. I will never be clean.
I've used Birmingham new street and every time I go there I hate it as there is far too much going on as well as its far too easy to get lost
I don't know about worst....but if you would like to know a station (not in London) that's nearly kills you, then it would be Winsford!
It's in Cheshire, and like Berrylands only has two trains that stop.
But it's on a major commute between Liverpool and Crewe (a major hub station) so there is a lot of traffic that doesn't slow down.
In a quirk of geography and horticulture, the track is low in the ground and has dense trees and foliage that forms a tunnel.
Take heed when the locals start to wrap themselves around lampposts and bolted down seats!
Go and enjoy! 😂
Is Berrylands Kingston-upon-Thames as it always comes up when I key in train times Waterloo to K-u-T.
Brian White's Jazz Band used to have a residency at Berrylands Tavern.
It's in the same borough but on a different line to Kingston Station.
@@chrisamies2141 yes Kingston-upon-Railway instead
I haven't been to Berrylands for about 50 years, I used to live in New Malden. I've drunk in the boozer but never used the station. My mother was evacuated there during the war.
Polsloe Bridge in Exeter is just like this station, without any street level station, far smaller platforms (width AND length) and a worse service.
But like Berrylands it's right next to a splendid brick skew bridge.
Jago, I would nominate Pokesdown station, also on the South West route near Bournemouth. Every time I pass through it seems incredibly dreary and run down. Well worth a visit 😂
Brigg, on the former Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire mainline between Sheffield and Cleethorpes.
Town is lovely but railway service just 1 round trip Monday to Friday, station area bought by local council off Railtrack in 1996 but is undeveloped and looks like a bomb site.