Fast trains from Woking take approximately 26 minutes to reach London Waterloo. Trains from the Alton Line take roughly 35 minutes, and the stopping service 50 minutes, to Waterloo. An hourly National Express bus service runs between the terminus beside the station and Heathrow Airport, a journey of about 50 minutes.
History
The London and Southampton Railway was authorised on 25 July 1834. It was built and opened in stages, and the first section, that between the London terminus at and Woking Common was opened on 21 May 1838. Woking Common became a through station with the opening of the next section of the line, as far as, on 24 September that year. On 4 June 1839, the L&SR was renamed the London and South Western Railway, and Woking Common station assumed its current name of Woking around 1843. Woking became a junction with the opening of the Guildford Junction Railway on 5 May 1845; it had been authorised less than a year earlier, on 10 May 1844. The GJR was always operated by the LSWR, and was absorbed by that company on 4 August 1845. The signal box, built by the Southern Railway, is a Grade II listed building.
Platforms
Woking Station has six platforms, two of which act as termini with buffers.
Platform 1 – Semi-fast London-bound services. Adjoins the main station house and town centre to the north.
Platform 2 – Fast London-bound services. Part of a single island with 3 and 4 below.
Platform 3 – Stopping service to/from London, terminus. At the far east end of platforms 2 to 4.
Platform 5 – Portsmouth Direct Line services, Alton line and Basingstoke stopping services.
Platform 6 – a west-facing bay platform, terminus, the first train of the day to Portsmouth Harbour via Eastleigh starts from this platform, and it is often used to stable diesel locomotives in the event of a train failure.
Services
operates northbound suburban and mainline services to London Waterloo. Southbound services operates to Alton, Weymouth, Basingstoke, Haslemere, Exeter St David's, Portsmouth Harbour and Salisbury. Limited destinations served at peak times include: Bristol Temple Meads and Yeovil Pen Mill.
Woking Station can be seen at the beginning of the 1995 music video for 'You Do Something To Me' by Paul Weller.
In the television adaptation of the Philip K. Dick story "The Commuter" for the series Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, railway worker Ed Jacobson works at Woking station, and discovers a non-existent destination on the Alton line.
