Waterloo Bridge station opened in London on 11 July 1848. The opening had been brought forward by a week so passengers could travel by rail to the Epsom Derby.

The London and South Western Railway built the terminus to replace its earlier station at Nine Elms. It brought the railway about two miles closer to central London and opened with six platforms. Racegoers soon formed an important part of its traffic alongside passengers travelling between London and the south-west.

The station was not planned on the scale it later reached. Its size came through repeated extensions as demand increased.

A separate Windsor station opened beside the original platforms in 1860. Two platforms for suburban services were added on the opposite side in 1878, forming the south station. A northern section followed in 1885. Waterloo then had eighteen platforms divided between several parts of the terminus.

The additions increased capacity but made the station difficult to use. It had four areas treated as concourses, unclear platform numbering and poor information displays. Four approach lines served the entire terminus, causing delays as traffic grew.

By 1899, the railway company had accepted that further additions would not solve the problem. It sought permission to rebuild and enlarge the station. The work took about twenty years and replaced the separate sections with a large main concourse beneath a new roof.

The Waterloo that opened on 11 July 1848 was a six-platform terminus whose opening had been timed partly around a day at the races. Decades of unplanned growth left the later railway company with a much larger job.