On this day in history 11 July 1848

On this day in history
11 July 1848
Waterloo Station, London, is opened.
The London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) opened the station on 11 July 1848 as 'Waterloo Bridge Station' (from the nearby Waterloo Bridge over the Thames) when its main line was extended from Nine Elms. The station, designed by William Tite, was raised above marshy ground on a series of arches. The unfulfilled intention was for a through station with services to the City of London. In 1886, it officially became "Waterloo Station", reflecting long-standing common usage, even in some L&SWR timetables.
The station grew rapidly, but haphazardly. By 1899 Waterloo had 16 platform roads but only 10 platform numbers due to platforms in different sections of the station or on different levels sometimes duplicating the number of a platform elsewhere. A little-used railway line even crossed the main concourse on the level and passed through an archway in the station building to connect to the South Eastern Railway's smaller station, now Waterloo East, whose tracks lie almost perpendicular to those of Waterloo. Passengers were, not surprisingly, confused by the layout and by the two adjacent stations called 'Waterloo'.
By the late 1890s the L&SWR accepted that main-line access to the City was impossible. In 1898, the company opened the Waterloo & City line, a 'tube' underground railway that ran directly between Waterloo and the City built with the technology pioneered by the C&SLR 8 years earlier. This gave the company the direct commuter service it had long desired (albeit with the need to change from surface to underground lines at Waterloo). With Waterloo now destined to remain a terminus station, and with the old station becoming a source of increasingly bad will and publicity amongst the travelling public, the L&SWR decided on total rebuilding. The station, more or less as we know it today, opened in 1922.
Photo - The Waterloo Clock. Famously the clock has now “workings” being driven by a system of rods and gears from a master elsewhere.