Romford–Upminster line

Romford–Upminster line
London Overground Class 710 between Upminster and Emerson Park in 2021
Overview
Status	Operational
Owner	Network Rail
Locale	Greater London
Termini	Romford Upminster
Stations	3
Service
Type	Suburban rail; heavy rail
System	National Rail
Services	1
Operator(s)	London Overground
Depot(s)	Ilford
Rolling stock	Class 710
History
Opened	7 June 1893
Technical
Line length	3 miles 30 chains (5.4 km)
Number of tracks	1
Character	Branch line
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Electrification	25 kV AC
Operating speed	30 mph (48 km/h)
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hide v t Romford–Upminster line
Legend
miles+chains   Great Eastern Main Line to Liverpool Street 0+00 Romford Great Eastern Main Line to Norwich 1+64 Emerson Park LTS line to Fenchurch Street │ District line via Tower Hill 3+30 Upminster unbuilt connection to District line Upminster depot London, Tilbury & Southend line via Ockendon London, Tilbury & Southend line to Shoeburyness

The Romford–Upminster line is a railway branch line in Greater London that connects Romford, on the Great Eastern Main Line, to Upminster, on the London, Tilbury and Southend line and London Underground. The route is 3 miles 30 chains (5.4 km) in length and there is one intermediate station at Emerson Park. The line is part of Network Rail Strategic Route 7, SRS 07.09, and is classified as a rural line.^[1]

The line is single-track throughout, electrified at 25 kV AC, has a loading gauge of W6, and a maximum speed of 30 miles per hour (48 km/h).^[1]

As of July 2021, services are operated by London Overground, with two trains per hour in each direction. The timetabled journey time from one terminus to the other is nine minutes. It is completely separated from the rest of the London Overground, but connects to TfL Rail at Romford and the London Underground at Upminster.

History[]

The line was originally built as a branch of the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LT&SR) and opened on 7 June 1893 providing the LT&SR with a link to the Great Eastern Railway (GER) at Romford and a small goods yard where the branch joins the Great Eastern Main Line. At Romford, the branch had a separate station entrance in a three-storey building opposite the Great Eastern station entrance. A cast-iron footbridge was constructed over South Street which opened when a LT&SR train was due. In April 1934 the LT&SR building ceased use as a station and the ground floor was rented as a shop, the London and North Eastern Railway, the successor of the GER, took control of the whole station.

Part of a 1904 Railway Clearing House junction diagram showing the line between Romford and Upminster

Emerson Park Halt was opened on 1 October 1909. A run-round loop was constructed 500 yards to the west to enable extra trains to run between Emerson Park and Upminster. When push-pull working began in 1934, the loop was no longer required and was removed in circa 1936.^[2]

From 17 September 1956, a diesel multiple unit from Stratford replaced the steam service, and from 20 April 1957 a new bay platform, numbered six, opened at Upminster, effectively making it part of the Great Eastern route.

There were some attempts to close the line in the 1960s, but these failed. It was later electrified, and electric trains began operating on 17 April 1986.^[3]

The line transferred to become part of the London Overground network in May 2015.^[4]

From 5 October 2020 the line has been operated using British Rail Class 710 rolling stock.^[5]

Infrastructure[]

The branch is known colloquially as the "Romford Push and Pull" as it is single-track throughout. It is electrified at 25 kV AC. Electrification of the line saw an end to years of speculation about its future. There is only one intermediate station, at Emerson Park. At Upminster, the connection west of the station to the main line was severed in 1968.^[6]

The branch has just one signal, on approach to Romford.^{[citation needed]} There were plans to link the line from platform six at Upminster to the reception tracks of the London Underground depot there. This would have allowed the transfer of London Underground D78 Stock units onto the main line to be hauled away by diesel locomotive for refurbishment at the Ilford depot. These plans were scrapped when the refurbishment work was transferred to Wakefield in Yorkshire and the transfer was done by road.^[7] The point-work, which was half installed, is still visible from the eastern end of platform five at Upminster.

Services[]

The line is entirely within Travelcard Zone 6.

Services are currently operated by London Overground, which replaced the previous operator, Abellio Greater Anglia, in May 2015.^[8] Trains are typically formed by a Class 710.

As of June 2021, the service pattern on the route is one train every 30 minutes between approximately 6:15 am and 10 pm Mondays to Saturdays, and approximately 8:30 am and 8 pm on Sundays. The journey time from one terminus to the other is timetabled as nine minutes.^[8]

Geology[]

During the construction of the railway in 1892, the geologist T. V. Holmes discovered a five-metre layer of boulder clay underlying the gravel and sand in a section just north of St. Andrew's Park. This is now the Hornchurch Cutting Site of Special Scientific Interest, which exhibits the southernmost limit of the Anglian ice sheet 450,000 years ago, the furthest south that any ice sheet reached.^[9]

References[]

Further reading[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Romford to Upminster Line.

• Holmes, T. V. (1892), "The New Railway from Grays Thurrock to Romford: Sections between Upminster and Romford", Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, The Geological Society, 48 (1–4): 365–372, doi:10.1144/GSL.JGS.1892.048.01-04.21, S2CID 130901888