Railways in Essex

As with the rest of the UK, railway mania swept through Essex in the 1840s and beyond, with new railway lines being added right up until 1913.

Map makers were keen to add these to their maps, so keen that they often added proposed routes before they were finalised or indeed possibly ever built. This means that sometimes you will see lines shown that have smooth flowing lines - suspicious of a proposed line - or lines on maps published well before the lines opened. Sometimes these lines were not in fact built, and of course some lines having opened then closed, and these can also take a time before publishers deleted them from the maps - even the OS was a bit slow at this.

The upshot of all this is that the presence (or absence) of a line on a map is not necessarily a good guide to the date of the map. The classic examples of these are the many Moules being sold as being "1837", when they show railway lines built in the 1840s and 1850s, and the maps of J&C Walker that have railway lines added in freehand manuscript to the printed maps as new lines opened and old printed stock was used.

Anyway, thanks to the excellent ERO publication Railways in Essex to 1923 and various railway books here is a list of the railway lines in Essex with their authorisation (ie Parliamentary Act passed) and opening dates.

Auth'd Open'd Events in chronological order of opening
1834 - London to Norwich proposal
1835 - London to Cambridge authorised
1836 - London to Norwich authorised
1836 - Romford to Thameshaven authorised, but never built; revoked 1856
1836 1839 Mile End to Romford opened
1835 1840 Stratford to Broxbourne opened
1836 1840 Shoreditch to Mile End opened, and
Romford to Brentwood opened
1837 1840 Blackwall Rail (Minories to Blackwall)
1835 1842 Broxbourne to Bishops Stortford opened
1836 1843 Brentwood to Chelmsford to Colchester opened
1841 1843 Broxbourne to Hertford opened
1844-48 - "Railway Mania" - many lines proposed, including lines to Maldon, Witham,
Braintree, Stour Valley, Sudbury & Halstead.
1835 1844 Bishops Stortford to Newport opened
1835 1845 Newport to Cambridge opened
1836&44 1846 Colchester to Ipswich opened
1844/45 1846/7 Stratford to North Woolwich opened
1846 1847 Colchester to Hythe opened
- 1847 Hadleigh branch line opened (in Suffolk)
1846 - Ilford to Ray House, and Layton Stn to Ray House (& on to Epping rather than Loughton)
- never built
1846 1848 Witham to Maldon opened and
Witham to Braintree opened (they are two lines)
1846 1848 Great Chesterford to Newmarket opened (but see 1851 below)
1837 1849 North Kent line opened (shown on many Essex maps)
1846 1849 Stratford-le-Bow to Stepney (mid Blackwall Rail) opened
1846 1849 Low Edmonton fork north westwards to Enfield opened
1846 1849 Marks Tey to Sudbury opened
1850? 1850 From Stratford & Stratford-le-Bow north-westwards, then west.
1850 1851 East Blackwall Rail to Stanford-le-Bow opened
- 1851 Great Chesterford to Newmarket closed (!), but stays on OS maps for decades,
despite track being removed by 1858.
- 1852 Shepreth to Royston opened (Cambridgeshire)
1847 1854 Manningtree to Harwich opened
1852 1854 Forest Gate to Tilbury opened, and on to Mucking
1852 1855 2nd line to North Woolwich opened after Royal Victoria Dock opened
1852 1855 Mucking to Pitsea opened
1853 1855 Spur line from Mucking to Thameshaven opened
1852 1856 Pitsea to Southend opened
1853 1856 Stratford to Loughton opened
1856 1858 Barking via Stepney to Fenchurch Street opened
1856 1860 Chappel to Halstead opened
1859 1861 Halstead to Castle Hedingham opened
1859 1862 Castle Hedingham to Great Yeldham opened
1859 1863 Great Yeldham to Haverhill opened
1859 1863 Hythe to Wivenhoe opened
1858 1863 St Margarets to Buntingford opened
1847 1865 Sudbury to Clare and Sudbury to Bury St Edmunds opened
1859 1865 Loughton to Ongar opened
1860 - Ongar to Great Dunmow authorised, but never built
1860 1865 Shelford via Haverhill to Clare opened
1860 - Ongar to Great Dunmow authorised, but never built
1861 1865 Audley End to Saffron Walden opened
1861 1866 Wivenhoe to Brightlingsea opened
1864? 1866 Wivenhoe to Thorpe le Soken opened
1863 1867 Saffron Walden to Bartlow opened
1864 1867 Thorpe le Soken to Walton-on-the-Naze opened
- 1867 Colchester St Botolph's station opened
1861 1869 Bishops Stortford to Braintree opened
1864 1870 Walthamstow branch opened
1864 1872 Walthamstow to Bethnal Green extension opened,
and Bethnel Green northwards to Low Edmonton opened
1871 1872 Northern Woolwich dock extension to Beckton opened
1864 1873 Walthamstow to Chingford opened
- 1874-75 Liverpool Street opened
1880 1880 Central Woolwich dock extension opened after Royal Albert Dock opened
1877 1882 Thorpe-le-Soken to Clacton opened
- 1882 Parkestone Quay station opened
1882 1884 Southend to Shoeburyness opened
1882 1885 Barking to Upminster opened
- 1886 Tilbury Dock opened
1882 1886 Upminster to Laindon opened
1882 1888 Laindon to Pitsea opened
1883 1888 Shenfield to Wickford opened
1883 1889 Wickford to Southend, Wickford to Malden, & Wickford to Southminster all opened
1883 1892 Grays Thurrock to Upminster opened
1883 1893 Upminster to Romford opened
1890 1894 Forest Gate to Tottenham link opened
1899 1901 Corringham light railway opened
1895? 1903 Chigwell-Fairlop loop line opened
1901 1904 Kelvedon to Tollesbury light railway opened
1901 1907 Tollesbury to Tollesbury pier opened
1906 1913 Elsenham to Thaxted light railway opened


© Peter Walker 2013 - 2018