Epping To Ongar: Underground Evidence

On the eve of the 25th anniversary since London Underground closed what is now the Epping Ongar Railway, Christopher Westcott walks the six-mile route with the EOR’s communications officer Dean Walton, in search of evidence of the former operator.

NATIONALISATION of the railwaysin the postwar era resulted inthe London Transport Executive taking over operation of the Epping to Ongar line from September 25, 1949.

During the following eight years, services continued to be operated by steam locomotives hired from British Railways until electrification followed in 1957. With an electrical sub-station promised for Blake Hall, the line was initially operated using ‘light’ electrification from the existing sub-station at Epping. Therefore, the line initially operated with only enough power to run three or four-car trains, which ran as a shuttle rather than through services to central London.

As in steam days, passengers had to change trains at Epping to reach Ongar, and the limitations of building on green belt land meant the promised extra electrical sub-station never materialised. Arguably, it was these factors that had the greatest impact upon the growth of the line – or lack of.

With communities living adjacent to the three stations beyond Epping never likely to increase in size, freight services ceasing, and the RAF base at North Weald being slowly mothballed from 1958-64, the commercial viability for the line was doubtful. As a result, the only section of double track – on platforms 1 and 2 at North Weald station – ceased operation in 1976 and the track was lifted in 1978.

By 1970, London Transport complained it was losing £100,000 annually operating the Epping to Ongar line. Repeated attempts to close the line throughout the 1970s and 80s were successfully opposed, yet LT seemed to have already decided that closure was an inevitability. Slowly, it was wound down.