London Bridge station was opened as the London station on 14 December 1836 south of the River Thames in Tooley Street, making it the first and oldest of the current London railway termini. The original station was built with a wooden trussed pitched roof, 56 ft by 212 ft (17m by 65m), shortly after opening. However, prior to its completion, the London and Greenwich Railway entered into an agreement with the proposed London and Croydon Railway for the latter to use its tracks from Corbett's Lane, Bermondsey, and to share its station. The Greenwich railway had however underestimated the cost of building the long viaduct leading to London Bridge and was not able to build a sufficiently large station for the traffic for both companies, and so in July 1836 it sold some land adjacent to its station (then still under construction) to the Croydon railway to build their own independent station. The Jubilee line station opened on 7 October 1999 as part of the Jubilee Line Extension, although trains had been running through non-stop from the previous month. To enable the Jubilee line to be constructed, months of major engineering works to relocate buried services in the surrounding streets had to be undertaken. A new ticket hall was created in the arches under the main-line station, providing improved interchange. During excavations a variety of Roman remains were found, including pottery and fragments of mosaics; some of these are now on display in the station.
The Jubilee line platforms have been fitted with platform screen doors in common with all other stations on the extension. There are two platforms on each line and two main sets of escalators to and from the Tooley Street ticket hall. All four platforms are directly accessible from the Borough High Street entrance/exit. London Bridge station is undergoing a major transformation as part of a wider project known as Masterplan to accommodate longer 12-car Thameslink programme trains and provide many other benefits. Three terminus platforms are being closed and three new through-platforms created to allow additional services to continue either to Cannon Street or Charing Cross, or to Blackfriars and onwards via the Thameslink route. A new station concourse is being built to improve circulation; this requires the demolition of brick vaults between Stainer and Weston Streets, which will themselves become part of the new concourse (and therefore cease to be thoroughfares). The space relinquished by the existing concourse will allow Network Rail to expand the adjacent bus station, and new retail facilities will be built into the existing western arcade, which will be re-opened and extended to link the Underground station and Joiner Street. Work started in 2013 and is expected to be completed in 2018. The station has wi-fi, payphones, lifts, escalators, cash machines and Euro cash machines.
Connections: National Rail. Thameslink. Northern Line. London Buses routes 17, 21, 35, 40, 43, 47, 48, 133, 141, 149, 343, 381, 521 and RV1 and night routes N21, N35, N133, N199 and N381 serve the station; some via the bus station. River buses serve London Bridge City Pier.
