Vauxhall tube station

Vauxhall station stands where South Lambeth Road crosses the Nine Elms to Waterloo Viaduct, just east of Vauxhall Bridge over the River Thames. It is a busy interchange for National Rail, London Underground and London Buses, with eight platforms on the viaduct and a separate bus station at ground level. The mainline station is the first stop on the South West Main Line from London Waterloo, 2.2 kilometres to the south-west. The Underground station lies on the Victoria line between Stockwell and Pimlico, and a pier for river services sits close by. The station opened as Vauxhall Bridge station in 1848 and was rebuilt after a fire in 1856 before taking its present name in 1863. In the early 20th century it handled milk trains from the West Country, which unloaded at a dedicated platform for a creamery across the road. The Victoria line tube station opened in 1971 with an escalator shaft frozen with brine during construction, and platforms decorated with motifs from 19th-century Vauxhall Gardens. Visitors find a busy concourse beneath the viaduct with four island platforms and two escalators to the Victoria line. The bus station has a stainless-steel canopy and a photovoltaic roof that supplies much of its electricity. A pedestrian tunnel runs under the road to the former creamery site, and the station’s lifts provide step-free access to the Underground.