Wapping railway station

Wapping is a station on the Windrush line of the London Overground, located on the northern bank of the River Thames in Wapping within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The station is between Shadwell and Rotherhithe stations, and is in London fare zone 2.

After temporary closures for remodelling, the station reopened for preview services on 27 April 2010 for services to New Cross and New Cross Gate, and from 23 May 2010 trains to and from New Cross Gate were extended to West Croydon and Crystal Palace.

The station occupies the north end of the former Thames foot tunnel built by Marc Isambard Brunel between 1825 and 1843, and subsequently adapted for railway traffic. Access to the station is by lift or a flight of stairs built into one of the original access shafts of the Thames Tunnel.

The station was originally opened as the northern terminus of the East London Railway on 7 December 1869 as Wapping and Shadwell, and the station was renamed Wapping on 10 April 1876, when the line was extended northwards to Liverpool Street, via a new station at Shadwell. The earliest trains were provided by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, whose system connected with the line at New Cross Gate.

Underground trains of the Metropolitan and the District Railways first served the station on 1 October 1884, but the station was last served by District trains on 31 July 1905.

In 1980 a London Underground plan to extend the Jubilee line to Woolwich Arsenal and Beckton was approved by Parliament. This included a station at Wapping between new stations at St Katharine Docks and Surrey Docks North, but was never built. The extension constructed in the 1990s followed a different route to the south of the River Thames.

The station was extensively remodelled between 1995 and 1998, when the entire East London line — including Wapping station — was closed due to repair work on the tunnels under the Thames. Vitreous enamel panels by Nick Hardcastle, showing the station and the area in former and modern times, were installed on the platforms.

The East London line of the Underground closed on 22 December 2007, and reopened on 27 April 2010 when it became part of the new London Overground system. During this time the station was heavily refurbished.