trains eight coaches long. Opening and Operation Work from Wimbledon to South Merton was completed quickly, so that services could begin running as a single-track operation on 7 July 1929. The remainder of the line opened on 5 January 1930, more than forty-five years after the first Wimbledon to Sutton link was proposed. As hoped by the original promoters, the opening of the line stimulated the construction of new areas of private and public residential development throughout the 1930s, although large areas remain as parks and playing fields. The St. Helier Estate was completed in 1936. The opening of the Wimbledon to Sutton line and the C&SLR led the population of the parish of Morden, previously the most rural of the areas through which the lines passed, to increase from 1,355 in 1921 to 12,618 in 1931 and 35,417 in 1951. Ordinary ticket sales from Morden South station increased from 9,840 in 1930 to 50,817 in 1938 but, from the SR's perspective, the line was not a great success. The service, originally operating from West Croydon to Holborn Viaduct station in Central London, was slow and indirect and many of the potential passengers from the line's catchment area continued to use the buses and tube route via Morden. Goods services operated on the line, to a goods yard at St. Helier station, until it was closed in 1963, and to an Express Dairies bottling plant adjacent to Morden South station, which opened in 1954 and closed in 1992. The line is now called the St Helier Line, and forms part of the Sutton Loop, served by trains from Thameslink and Southern. Notes and references Notes References Bibliography External links Underground Group plan from 1922 showing the W&SR and proposed extension of C&SLR to Sutton Southern E-Group - photographs of construction of Wimbledon to Sutton Line Transport in the London Borough of Merton Southern Railway (UK) Transport in the London Borough of Sutton History of the London Borough of Merton History of the London Borough of Sutton History of the London Underground History of rail transport in London