When WW2 is in the office she looks out over this station and so decided it was time to add this one to the sidetracked collection.
The present station is one of four that have served Leatherhead over the years (although two were only ever intended to be temporary). Both the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR) and the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) had plans to build a railway line into Leatherhead, and an agreement was reached that one would build the line on condition that the other was granted equal running rights over it. However, each company built their own station, a few hundred yards apart: the LBSCR on their line to Dorking and Horsham, and the LSWR on their line to Guildford. The lines through the two stations met a short distance to the north, and the joint line continued towards Epsom.
Following the Grouping of 1923, the LBSCR and LSWR both became part of the Southern Railway, and having two stations was deemed unnecessary. So in 1927 the line from Guildford was diverted to join the former LBSCR line to the south of their station.
The LBSCR station is the one that survives, although the Stationmaster's House (an integral part of the main building) is boarded up along with the building on Platform 2. The only remains of the LSWR station are part of the steps up from road level to platform level.
In the 1930s, it was planned to extend the new line to Chessington to Leatherhead. However, World War II caused this to be put on hold, and a subsequent protection order on Ashtead Common meant that this was never built.
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