Ongar Aldwych and others

[frodshamfella]

I wonder how popular Elmers End to Addiscombe was too, I used the shuttle a few times to Woodside and once or twice to Addiscombe just for a look really. I only used the line off peak or at weekends and it was never busy. Maybe peak hours were different. Same for Selsdon and Sanderstead although that was only peak only when I knew it. Managed that once before it went.

 

[30907]

I wonder how popular Elmers End to Addiscombe was too, I used the shuttle a few times to Woodside and once or twice to Addiscombe just for a look really. I only used the line off peak or at weekends and it was never busy. Maybe peak hours were different. Same for Selsdon and Sanderstead although that was only peak only when I knew it. Managed that once before it went.

"It's dead down there offpeak" said a BR manager to me around 1970!
Addiscombe survived because of the depot, and the volume of traffic on the Mid Kent generally. However, that was declining, and IIRC the reduced service from 1978 all operated from Hayes with 2EPB shuttle sufficing for both "branches" even in the peaks (except for depot workings).

 

[Lucan]

missed out on and regret not experiencing West Croydon to Wimbledon , Epping to Ongar and Holborn to Aldwych .Can anyone share the memories

Mitcham, about the halfway point between Wimbledon and West Croydon, was my nearest station when I was a child. At that time it was operated by two sets of 2-EPBs, which passed each other on the double track length that extended from Mitcham Junction to a little way on the Down side (North-West, towards Wimbledon) of Mitcham - to just beyond the goods yard I believe. Most of the rest of the line was single track. The single-track token for the Wimbledon end was handled by the signalman in the box at Mitcham; that for the Croydon end (I believe) was handled from a platform office at Mitcham Junction. I was less familiar with the line to Croydon. The Mitcham box was at the Down end of the Down platform.

I remember the local furore over several efforts by BR to close the line. Mitcham Station was/is in a shallow cutting and the line passes under a main road at the down end of the platforms. The retaining wall of the back garden of a large house on the opposite side of the road (the premises of Mitcham Labour Club at the time) started collapsing one day and the line was closed for a time. We thought this would be the end, but the wall was shored up by a structure occupying the Up trackbed, and the line singled through the station to a point about 1/4 mile towards Mitcham Junction. Today, the structure remains and the Tramlink lines are interlaced at this point.

My mother always claimed that Mitcham Station was the oldest railway station in the World. I thought it was a flight of fancy, but later I found out that the goods-only Surrey Iron Railway (SIR) had a public siding about where the present-day Tramlink stop stands. That would have been about 1805. The route through Mitcham Station to about Waddon Marsh occupies the old SIR trackbed; I believe the SIR had a level crossing with the main road at Mitcham. The station offices I knew were on the Up side and reached through the middle of a large house via an arched passage. I believe it was an 18th century merchant's house and the arch originally allowed carts through to the back yard. The railway ticket office was in a charmingly ramshackle brick and timber extension on the rear of the house, through which the passage continued, somewhat winding and unlevel . The whole place had a pleasing odour that I identified with "railway" - as I child I assumed it was the smell of high voltage electricity. The passage beyond the ticket office turned right, straight onto the top level of the footbridge.

At Merton Park, there were still platforms and double track* in place for the closed line to Tooting. The booking office and station entrance were on the platform for Tooting, and passengers would walk down its platform ramp, cross the Tooting tracks on a board crossing, and up the ramp of the single platform for the WImbledon-Croydon trains. The relatively short length from Merton Park to Wimbledon was double track.

I don't regard Mitcham Station as closed. The line is now Tramlink, which does of course have a stop there. The house is now private and the Tramlink entrance is on the Down side.

These photos are of Mitcham Station c1970 I believe. The mock-Tudor house beyond it is the Crown Inn

* Later edit : from the Disused-Stations website I see that, although it was a double trackbed, the line towards Tooting from Merton Park had been singled before my time.

 

[Taunton]

The entire Eastern and Central Section DEMU fleet was based at St. Leonards, and after Uckfield to Lewes closed, the Uckfield units had to take a very roundabout route to and from the depot (they couldn't run direct from Hastings to Tunbridge Wells because of the loading gauge restrictions).

They did indeed. Every morning after the peak Selhurst used to put together a large lashup of Oxted line diesel units, 9 cars or more, and run them ecs down the Brighton line and through Lewes. I was doing a few visits to the big East Sussex council offices on the north side of the line there, and mid-morning the echoing noise from the diesel units as they opened up through the station was a distraction even at the rear of the building. Early afternoon and the return cavalcade came through. I don't know if they were all changeovers or if some went there just for fuel (must have used much of it just going to and fro).

Regarding London branch lines, in the 1970s (I think) Modern Railways did a specific series of visiting many of them, a different line each time, which the atmospheric black & white photos of the era make look even more dilapadated. I came across their one not long ago of what would now be my nearest passenger line, the Stratford to North Woolwich, at a time when the docks were still working to an extent but its many rail freight connections were falling into disuse. I think it was there they also did the Poplar freight line, riding on a Class 03 to sundry rusted sidings, which is all now DLR and high-rise banks territory.

 

[Dave W]

Mitcham, about the halfway point between Wimbledon and West Croydon, was my nearest station when I was a child.

Marvellous - thanks for sharing!

 

[edwin_m]

Regarding London branch lines, in the 1970s (I think) Modern Railways did a specific series of visiting many of them, a different line each time, which the atmospheric black & white photos of the era make look even more dilapadated. I came across their one not long ago of what would now be my nearest passenger line, the Stratford to North Woolwich, at a time when the docks were still working to an extent but its many rail freight connections were falling into disuse. I think it was there they also did the Poplar freight line, riding on a Class 03 to sundry rusted sidings, which is all now DLR and high-rise banks territory.

Yes it was Modern Railways and the series was called, not particularly imaginatively, London's Branch Lines. I don't remember Poplar but I didn't get every issue.

 

[Lucan]

The only time I saw the Epping-Ongar branch was for a track inspection during the time I worked for LT. The inspection was because it was supposed to be the roughest bit of track on the LU. It was not the PW gang's fault, in fact they had raised the complaint that in some places the ground and ballast were so waterlogged that no matter how many times they re-packed the ballast (manually), it would deteriorate again within days.

The single track Epping-Ongar line was then worked by a four car 1962 Tube Stock unit. We commandeered it at Epping between services (infrequent during the day.) and drove slowly towards Ongar with the PW foreman in the cab with us pointing out the bad patches, which we got down and examined.

I found the sight of a London Underground train in these rural surroundings bizarre, all the more as it was a tube train rather than surface stock. The route was lined with trees, and beyond that were just green fields; it was like the scene in the poem Addlestrop.

A guy I worked with had a shot at the LU all-stations record. At the time, the considered optimum route was to start with the first train of the day from Ongar. Later on his route he arrived at Morden at the south end of the Northern Line, and ran the half-mile to Morden Road Halt on the Croydon-Wimbledon line, also mentioned in this thread, to catch the train to Wimbledon and hence onto the District Line.

 

[frodshamfella]

Mitcham, about the halfway point between Wimbledon and West Croydon, was my nearest station when I was a child. At that time it was operated by two sets of 2-EPBs, which passed each other on the double track length that extended from Mitcham Junction to a little way on the Down side (North-West, towards Wimbledon) of Mitcham - to just beyond the goods yard I believe. Most of the rest of the line was single track. The single-track token for the Wimbledon end was handled by the signalman in the box at Mitcham; that for the Croydon end (I believe) was handled from a platform office at Mitcham Junction. I was less familiar with the line to Croydon. The Mitcham box was at the Down end of the Down platform.

I remember the local furore over several efforts by BR to close the line. Mitcham Station was/is in a shallow cutting and the line passes under a main road at the down end of the platforms. The retaining wall of the back garden of a large house on the opposite side of the road (the premises of Mitcham Labour Club at the time) started collapsing one day and the line was closed for a time. We thought this would be the end, but the wall was shored up by a structure occupying the Up trackbed, and the line singled through the station to a point about 1/4 mile towards Mitcham Junction. Today, the structure remains and the Tramlink lines are interlaced at this point.

My mother always claimed that Mitcham Station was the oldest railway station in the World. I thought it was a flight of fancy, but later I found out that the goods-only Surrey Iron Railway (SIR) had a public siding about where the present-day Tramlink stop stands. That would have been about 1805. The route through Mitcham Station to about Waddon Marsh occupies the old SIR trackbed; I believe the SIR had a level crossing with the main road at Mitcham. The station offices I knew were on the Up side and reached through the middle of a large house via an arched passage. I believe it was an 18th century merchant's house and the arch originally allowed carts through to the back yard. The railway ticket office was in a charmingly ramshackle brick and timber extension on the rear of the house, through which the passage continued, somewhat winding and unlevel . The whole place had a pleasing odour that I identified with "railway" - as I child I assumed it was the smell of high voltage electricity. The passage beyond the ticket office turned right, straight onto the top level of the footbridge.

At Merton Park, there were still platforms and double track* in place for the closed line to Tooting. The booking office and station entrance were on the platform for Tooting, and passengers would walk down its platform ramp, cross the Tooting tracks on a board crossing, and up the ramp of the single platform for the WImbledon-Croydon trains. The relatively short length from Merton Park to Wimbledon was double track.

I don't regard Mitcham Station as closed. The line is now Tramlink, which does of course have a stop there. The house is now private and the Tramlink entrance is on the Down side.

These photos are of Mitcham Station c1970 I believe. The mock-Tudor house beyond it is the Crown Inn

* Later edit : from the Disused-Stations website I see that, although it was a double trackbed, the line towards Tooting from Merton Park had been singled before my time.

View attachment 76702

View attachment 76703

Excellent thank you