History
The station was opened on 2 March 1868, when the South Eastern Railway opened its cut-off line between Chislehurst and Haysden Junction. Previously, trains between London and Tunbridge Wells had taken a circuitous route via Redhill. The line was widened and the station rebuilt in 1904, expanding to six platforms. Third rail electrification reached Orpington in 1925, and extended to Sevenoaks ten years later. Crofton Roman Villa was partly destroyed by a railway cutting in the late 1900s but was(re)discovered in 1926 when work was carried out to the area to the west of the station entrance as an entrance to a new Council building. Platforms 7 and 8 were built in the early 1990s on the site of former carriage sidings. In 2008, the station became fully accessible following the opening of a new footbridge providing lift access to all platforms.
Read more about this topic: Orpington Railway Station
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Bias, point of view, fury—are they ... so dangerous and must they be ironed out of history, the hills flattened and the contours leveled? The professors talk ... about passion and point of view in history as a Calvinist talks about sin in the bedroom.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“America is the only nation in history which, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”
—Attributed to Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)