Belmont Station – 20th January 2023
These pictures show Belmont station.
Note.
- The first four pictures show the remaining double track between Sutton and Belmont stations. The double track finishes shortly before the station.
- All trains use the only platform, which is numbered One.
- The remains of the second platform.
- There is sufficient space to put in a second track and restore the second platform.
- The steel stairs up to the bridge over the railway.
- The bus station outside the station.
- The S4 bus takes everybody to and from the Royal Marsden Hospital.
- There was no signage on the station about which bus to take to the hospital.
There is a large amount of traffic outside the station, which very much seems in a hurry.
The Anonymous Widower 
Belmont is a depressing, shabby station without facilities (such as a heated waiting room!) for hospital patients or their visitors. It could be be improved, but further retrenchment is more likely, with plans to close all railway ticket offices and cuts to services to pay for union pay demands.
The decrepit state of the infrastructure is obvious. When I’ve travelled to Epsom Downs off-peak, there have been around 20 passengers on the train at Sutton and 3-6 getting off at Epsom Downs. The terminus is hidden away, unsignposted, at the back of a housing estate & doesn’t have much of a future. The longer-term plan may be to cut the branch back to Belmont.
In 2019 the mayor was pushing for a tramway (Sutton Link) to the ‘Cancer Hub’, but I’ve heard nothing about it recently. Boosting the Belmont service is a more practical alternative, though I’d be amazed if 4tph survives in the current economic climate.
Comment by Stephen Spark | January 20, 2023 |