Opening Junction Diagram showing railways in the vicinity of Kensington Olympia (lower centre, indicated as "Addison Road") A station called
Kensington was opened by the
West London Railway as its southern terminus on 27 May 1844, located just south of
Hammersmith Road. The line was not popular and it was closed on 1 December that year due to the losses made. A scant and erratic goods service continued. The line was re-opened to passengers on 2 June 1862 as part of the
West London Extension Railway with a new station, also called Kensington, to the north of Hammersmith Road, providing services to and .
Decline In 1940, Addison Road and the link to the Metropolitan line at Latimer Road closed along with the other West London Line stations after the line was bombed, and it was not considered cost-effective to rebuild by the
London Passenger Transport Board. Due to its ability to access all lines radiating from London, its close location to
SHAEF headquarters and its relative quietness compared to the main London termini, it was the preferred embarkation point for
US Army General
Dwight D. Eisenhower when he visited troops in Wales preparing for the June 1944
Normandy landings. On 19 December 1946, the station was renamed
Kensington (Olympia) and became the northern terminus of a peak-hour shuttle service to
Clapham Junction, serving workers at the Post Office Savings Bank (later
National Savings Bank) in nearby Blythe Road. From 1955 to 1986, apart from Motorail services, this was the only British Rail service regularly stopping at the station. It was known as the "Kenny Belle" and was unadvertised, reportedly because the Post Office Savings Bank was under the
Official Secrets Act. There was also a District line shuttle to
Earl's Court, as the station had been left without a dedicated Underground connection. The service originally only ran when there was an exhibition at the centre, but a permanent platform opened on 3 March 1958. The station was sometimes used as a terminus during reconstruction and upgrading of mainline London terminal stations.
Cold War Kensington (Olympia) was included in 1960s
Cold War plans to ensure continuity of government in the event of hostilities. Secret plans entailed use of the station, in the prelude to a nuclear war, to evacuate several thousand civil servants to the
Central Government War Headquarters underground bunker (codenamed "Burlington") in
Wiltshire. Civil servants tasked with staffing the facility would have been directed to join trains at this station, chosen since the West London Line connected to the
Great Western Main Line (and hence Wiltshire) at North Pole Junction, to the north. These trains would have connected with buses at
Warminster for further transfer to the bunker near
Corsham.
Motorail In 1966 Kensington (Olympia) became the main London terminus for British Rail
Motorail trains, which carried passengers and vehicles across Britain. In the
London Midland Region timetable for 1970–71, services are shown to
Perth,
Stirling,
Carlisle,
St Austell,
Totnes,
Newton Abbot and
Fishguard (connecting with the ferry for
Rosslare). This facility closed in 1981 with operations transferred to
Paddington,
Euston and
King's Cross. The car park for the service is now used for exhibition vehicles, and by Europcar for car rental, and is called "Olympia Motorail Car Park P4".
Revival From 12 May 1986 services at the station were greatly enhanced. The London Underground shuttle service started to run to a regular daily schedule, and inter-regional services from the Midlands and northern England stopped at Kensington (Olympia). Southern Region destinations included and . As part of this the footbridge was painted in InterCity colours. These trains were operated by the InterCity division of British Rail and later, after
privatisation, by
Virgin CrossCountry and
CrossCountry. Destinations included , , , and . The services were withdrawn in October 2008, by which time only two daily Brighton–Manchester journeys were operated. The station was part of the
London Station Group, accepting "London Terminals" tickets, until it was delisted in May 1994. The same year, a full passenger service between
Willesden Junction and Clapham Junction was reinstated after a gap of 54 years. There were two bay platforms on the south-eastern side, mainly used by services to/from Clapham Junction. These platforms were removed in 1983 and the track was lifted; the space was used for an additional car park for the exhibition centre. One of the former platforms is now Olympia Garden, a community garden with 89 vegetable plots. Before the
Channel Tunnel Rail Link was proposed in 1996, Kensington (Olympia) was planned to be expanded to accommodate a car terminal for international services including
Regional Eurostar. The line would have run via the West London and
South Eastern Main Lines to before entering the tunnel. Before
Eurostar transferred in November 2007 to
St Pancras International, Eurostar trains passed through the station between
Waterloo International station and
North Pole depot, and the station was a backup terminus for the services in case Waterloo International became unusable; immigration facilities were maintained there. In June 2011,
Transport for London (TfL) announced that the District line shuttle between Kensington (Olympia) and Earl's Court would close on weekdays at the end of the year. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea unsuccessfully protested against the closure, and general weekday services ceased in December 2011. Some special weekday services continue to run on the District line when there is an exhibition on. In 2012 TfL announced plans to introduce ticket gates at the station to combat fare dodgers, which would remove access to the footbridge used by local residents for years. Both the councils within whose boundaries this station falls challenged this loss of an established right of way. The gates were added in September 2013, dividing the bridge into two to maintain pedestrian access on one side without accessing the station platforms. ==Services==