Overview

Clapham Junction is one of the UK's busiest transport hubs. It has lifts to all platforms and staff usually on hand to provide help and ramp assistance. There is an accessible toilet. There are plenty of shops and places selling food and drink, and there's a shopping concourse at the main entrance. The station is also served by London Overground, which offers a turn-up-and-go service - no need to book assistance 24 hours in advance.

Transport & Parking

Absurd to try and park nearby. But the area is rammed with buses all the time, and zillions of trains pass through the station every day. There is no tube station nearby.

Access

In theory there are lifts to all platforms. But there are problems. (1) If you are arriving by train, it is not unusual to be stranded on the train because staff do not bother to turn up with a ramp, even if they have been informed by staff at your starting station that you will be arriving and needing assistance. (2) If you want to board a train, it can be hard to find staff to help. (3) The lifts often break down, and online information about lift outages is patchy and extremely unreliable because staff do not bother to update it when a lift breaks down. (4) A few staff are shockingly rude.

Toilets

There are new toilets near the Brighton Yard entrance. They are good, and the accessible toilet is very good, it even has a RADAR lock which you can actually lock PROPERLY from inside to prevent unwanted intrusion while you're doing your business. However, the cubicle has been designed either by a Martian or by an armadillo, because there is no wheelchair transfer space next to the toilet. This is absolutely idiotic. See my photo.

Staff

The staff vary from friendly and helpful to rude, patronising and insulting. The best staff are the roving dedicated assistance team, who get top marks for friendliness, helpfulness and professionalism. Platform staff can be shockingly ignorant about correct and safe ramp deployment: you may find them using the wrong type of ramp for the rolling stock, or failing to engage the ramp tabs in their slots. Both of these errors can lead to extremely dangerous situations, in which a ramp can fall off a train during use, causing potentially severe injury to the wheelchair user and even to bystanders. Staff can be very elusive - many times I have got stuck on a train waiting for someone to turn up with a ramp to let me off. They either don't get the message that has been transmitted, or they ignore it. This is very frustrating and annoying. In general the assistance provision on the South West Trains platforms is vastly better than the assistance on Southern and London Overground platforms. The London Overground staff in particular are too often shockingly rude and negligent. I have had some terrible encounters with gateline staff, who have been rude, ignorant, patronising and unhelpful. Although all this is very unsatisfactory, it is a hundred times better than the situation a few years ago. Some improvements in staff conscientious and friendliness have been made, and I no longer totally dread travelling to and from this station.

Anything else you wish to tell us?

If you enter the station via the shopping concourse in St John's Hill, you can reach the raised concourse via a lift underneath Platform 1 at the opposite end of the concourse, and then take a second (separate) lift from Platform 1 to the upper level; or you can enter the station at the raised concourse level via the charming old station building (pic attached below) in Brighton Yard, further up St John's Hill.

Photos