The station waiting rooms and the compartments of the train, both for living and for dead passengers, were partitioned by both religion and class to prevent both mourners and cadavers from different social backgrounds from mixing.

Soon after the end of the Second World War the surviving parts of the London station were sold as office space, and the rail tracks in the cemetery were removed.

[3] Despite this rapid growth in population, the amount of land set aside for use as graveyards remained unchanged at approximately 300 acres (0.5 sq mi; 1.2 km2),[3] spread across around 200 small sites.

[7] A Royal Commission established in 1842 to investigate the problem concluded that London's burial grounds had become so overcrowded that it was impossible to dig a new grave without cutting through an existing one.

At a shareholders' meeting in August 1852 concerns were raised about the impact of funeral trains on normal traffic and of the secrecy in which negotiations between the LSWR and the cemetery's promoters conducted.

[22][23][note 2] On 30 June 1852 the promoters of the Brookwood scheme were given parliamentary consent to proceed by the London Necropolis and National Mausoleum Act 1852 (15 & 16 Vict.

[25] A site for the London rail terminus was identified and leased,[30] and a 2,200-acre (3.4 sq mi; 8.9 km2) tract of land stretching from Woking to Brookwood was purchased from Lord Onslow.

[33] On 13 November the first scheduled train left the new London Necropolis railway station for the cemetery, and the first burial (that of the stillborn twins of a Mr and Mrs Hore of Ewer Street, Borough) took place.

[28] No run-around loop was provided, but a single crossover allowed trains from the branch to reverse onto the northern (London-bound) track of the LSWR.

After passing through white gates marking the cemetery boundary, it curved south into the northern, Nonconformist section, the site of North station (51°18′10″N 0°37′58″W / 51.30281°N 0.63264°W / 51.30281; -0.63264).

[38] After crossing Cemetery Pales the branch turned east and ran through the southern, Anglican, section, terminating at South station (51°17′59″N 0°37′23″W / 51.29977°N 0.62300°W / 51.29977; -0.62300) near the road from Bagshot to Guildford (today the A322) which marked the eastern boundary of the site.

[39] Aside from a short 100-yard (91 m) siding just south of Cemetery Pales, built in 1904–05 to serve the LNC's new masonry workshop, the layout of the branch remained unchanged throughout its operation.

[50] For extremely large funerals such as those of major public figures, the LSWR would provide additional trains from Waterloo to Brookwood station on the main line to meet the demand.

[51] The mourners included the 21-year-old Mohandas Gandhi, who recollected witnessing a loud argument between "a champion atheist" and a clergyman at North station while waiting for the return train.

With large numbers of American personnel based in the west of England, a dedicated rail service for the transport of bodies operated from Devonport to Brookwood.

[71] On the authority of Thomas B. Larkin, Quartermaster General of the United States Army, the US servicemen buried at Brookwood during the Second World War were exhumed in January–May 1948.

They were not transferred to Cambridge in 1948, but instead reburied in unmarked graves at Oise-Aisne American Cemetery Plot E, a dedicated site for US servicemen executed during the Second World War.

Its proximity to the Thames meant that bodies could be cheaply transported to the terminus by water from much of London, and the area was easily accessed from both north and south of the river by road.

[105] The building housed two mortuaries, the LNC's boardroom and funerary workshops, and a series of separate waiting rooms for those attending first, second and third class funerals.

[112] It was completed on 8 February 1902,[112] and the LSWR viaduct was widened to serve a greatly enlarged Waterloo station, destroying all traces of the original LNC terminus.

Behind it was the main terminal; this held a communal third-class waiting room,[115] mortuaries and storerooms,[114] the LNC's workshops,[116] and a sumptuous oak-panelled Chapelle Ardente, intended for mourners unable to make the journey to Brookwood to pay their respects to the deceased.

[117][118][note 14] The Southern Railway's Divisional Engineer inspected the damage at 2.00 pm on 17 April, and his report read simply "Necropolis and buildings demolished".

[117][note 15] The last recorded funeral party carried on the London Necropolis Railway was that of Chelsea Pensioner Edward Irish (1868–1941), buried on 11 April 1941.

[54] In the original proposal, Richard Broun had calculated that over its first century of operations the cemetery would have seen around five million burials at a rate of 50,000 per year, the great majority of which would have utilised the railway.

[113] Faced with the costs of rebuilding the cemetery branch line, building a new London terminus and replacing the rolling stock damaged or destroyed in the air raid, the directors concluded that "past experience and present changed conditions made the running of the Necropolis private train obsolete".

[124][note 18] The run-around loop and stub of the branch line west of Brookwood station remained operational as sidings, before being dismantled on 30 November 1964.

[127] Since Mountbatten, the only railway funeral to be held in the United Kingdom has been that of former National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers General Secretary Jimmy Knapp, carried from London to Kilmarnock for burial in August 2001.

[130] Suffering cash flow problems and distracted by a succession of hostile takeover bids, the LNC management never proceeded with the scheme and the buildings fell into disuse.

[131] The LNC continued to lobby the SR and its 1948 successor British Railways until the 1950s on the matter of cheap fares for visitors to the cemetery, but were unable to come to any agreement.

[127] In 1957 the Southern Region of British Railways considered allowing the LNC to sell discounted fares of 7s 6d (compared to the standard rate of 9s 4d) for day return tickets from London to Brookwood.