Surbiton station unquestionably is better than Kingston.

It has super speedy 20 minute services into Waterloo and has a lot better connections to the south too.

Woking, Guildford and Basingstoke can all be reached directly.

Plus Surbiton has a much better design than Kingston to boot.

While at Kingston station getting to Waterloo takes much longer and apart from Shepperton most of the other stations on the line can be reached easily via bus.

So why is this? Why is Kingston's central station inferior in every way?

Well there are two main reasons.

Firstly the organisation who ran the coaching business in Kingston (The Kingston Corporation) feared the railway would impact on their business.

Therefore the station was built a mile and a half south of the town centre.

The station was initially called Kingston on opening in 1838 but was renamed Surbiton when a town started to develop around the station.

The second reason is because of the people of Kingston itself!

Yes the station was built in Surbiton instead because the rich Kingston residents thought that the town was too high-class to have a railway.

So using their influence the mainline was built south of the town.

As the railway become more and more important the Kingston residents would live to regret their decision and a station in the centre of the town would open in 1863.

That's why getting to Waterloo from Kingston you'll always have to stop at places like Norbiton and Raynes Park - as these stations are all on the Kingston loop.