Parliamentary approval for a line from
Wimbledon to
Sutton was obtained by the
Wimbledon and Sutton Railway (W&SR) in 1910 but work was delayed by the
First World War. From the W&SR's inception, the
District Railway (DR) was a shareholder of the company and had rights to run trains over the line when it was built. In the 1920s, the
Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL, precursor of
London Underground) planned, through its ownership of the DR, to use part of the route for an extension of the
City and South London Railway (C&SLR, now the
Northern line) to Sutton. The
Southern Railway (SR) objected, and an agreement was reached that enabled the C&SLR to extend as far as
Morden in exchange for the UERL giving up its rights over the W&SR route. The SR subsequently built the line, one of the last to be built in the London area. West Sutton station replaced the UERL's planned
Cheam station on Cheam Road to the south. The station opened on 5 January 1930 when full services on the line were extended from
South Merton. ==Services==