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Railways in Canvey Island

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Shimbleshanks

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I visited Canvey island last night. Cycling back to Benfleet station, I noticed a Station Road. And yet my Jowett's Atlas doesn't show any railways at all on Canvey, nor does my modern rail atlas. What's the explanation?
 
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aylesbury

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Now thats something I did not know ,the island could do with a tramway as it is pretty self contained.Used to go there in the fifties when the buses all started from a graveled area just before the river bridge at Sth Benfleet all green and pretty old.The LT&SR had Stanier 2-6-4 tanks on a mixture of LMS/Midland and some BR mk1,s on an intensive service for those days.Thanks for providing the info its always good to find out the whys and werefore of history.
 

Bald Rick

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I was in a meeting a couple of years ago with the (former) MP for Canvey Island, also attended by various county and district council reps.

He suggested, in all seriousness, that we should close the railway from Southend to Shoeburyness, sell the land for housing, then use the cash to build a railway into Canvey Island. The Essex CC cabinet member for transport choked on his tea.
 

Ivo

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I was in a meeting a couple of years ago with the (former) MP for Canvey Island, also attended by various county and district council reps.

He suggested, in all seriousness, that we should close the railway from Southend to Shoeburyness, sell the land for housing, then use the cash to build a railway into Canvey Island. The Essex CC cabinet member for transport choked on his tea.

Assuming you're referring to Bob Spink, it never occurred to me that he could be so cold. He was well-respected all over the area.

This idea is dumb at best and downright moronic at worst. It's not just the passenger requirements for the east of Southend; there is also the MoD to contend with - and it is dependent on its sub-network of lines, whose only access to the national network is via SRY.

I have never known why Canvey had a Station Road, although I know of it (I may have even been down there before now). I can't imagine for one moment it would be related to its tram "network" though; perhaps it was related to some kind of water-based station?

Canvey would benefit from having its own station, there is no doubt about that. But it mustn't come at the expense of half of Southend! And, truth be told, I'm can't think of anywhere that would be worthwhile without resorting to a tram into the town centre anyway, apart from possibly this area (the area next to Castle View School, opposite Devon Way, in particular), but even then it isn't that close to the central area.

--------------

[pedant]

By the way, shouldn't it be on Canvey Island?

[/pedant]
 
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jonb

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I don't think the cost is justified to be honest. Canvey surely must have a good network of buses to/from Benfleet station (which is actually the parkway for the island). For what will essentially be self contained, dedicated option I wouldn't have thought the demand is there?
 

Ivo

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I don't think the cost is justified to be honest. Canvey surely must have a good network of buses to/from Benfleet station (which is actually the parkway for the island). For what will essentially be self contained, dedicated option I wouldn't have thought the demand is there?

Its network is reasonably good (see the attached map I've made, stupidly using Satellite mode and not Map mode on Google Maps :roll:), but not perfect. Some of the routes are quite limited; the 3 runs on Sunday evenings only, the 16 runs only a few times a day and then only during the peaks and the 28 only runs during the peaks (although it does give the eastern end of the island a faster link to Benfleet station, which is its purpose). Of the rest, the 1 runs hourly to Chelmsford (but is not run by First), the 22 runs every 20 minutes to Basildon, and the remaining three run seven times an hour between them to Southend along different routes. However, you will also see from the map that some areas are quite far from a frequent service. For instance, the area to the west of the town centre (the area in the blue box) used to have an hourly service but now has nothing, while the Thorney Bay area has nothing west of Furtherwick Road. Not to mention the island's industrial areas have no service at all.

Canvey also comes under the Benfleet PlusBus scheme, which covers pretty much the entire Borough of Castle Point (see here), which helps. I'm not sure if the 1 is covered though.

Overall, on this evidence Canvey probably doesn't need a station, even though such a thing has been proposed on several occasions. It does need some kind of alternative route off the island though - the B1014 and A130 (which meet pretty much as soon as you get on the island, causing one very busy roundabout!) cannot always cope...

Does it have to be a railway station? Bus station Police station come to mind easily - sure there may be others if I tried.

Canvey has never had a bus station and its police station is some distance away. It is very close to a former bus depot though.
 

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Ivo

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Huh.

That would actually have been quite a useful link. It would halve the journey time between the eastern end of the island and Southend, and almost halve the journey time from the town centre to Southend.
 
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