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Cartoon Postcard circa 1900
The branch line to Chingford from London's Liverpool Street station can trace its history back to 1864 when two competing sets of plans were drawn up for a line to connect London to High Beech deep in the heart of Epping Forest.
The first plan was to construct a line from Loughton Branch Junction between Stratford and Leyton on the Epping Line (see Ongar Line History) through Leyton Green, Walthamstow, Highams park and Chingford.to High Beech. The second line was to follow virtually the course of the present branch, starting at a junction east of Hackney Downs station on the proposed new line between Bethnal Green and the old Northern & Eastern's (N&E) Lea valley line to Cambridge; this would pass through Walthamstow to join the first line near the site of the present day Wood Street station. In the mid 1800's Chingford and much of the present day Walthamstow were farming communities, so two lines to London may have seemed to be generous in the extreme, but the southern part of Walthamstow was already a prosperous community and the Great Eastern Railway saw great development potential in both routes. By opening up new areas to both surburban traffic during the weekdays and excursion traffic to Epping Forest at weekends they hoped to quickly recover the expenditure on both lines.
Both were approved by Parliamentry Bills deposited in 1864, but construction did not begin until 1866 as the Great Eastern was short of development capital. Initially, work started on only the second line (ie that starting at Hackney Downs) but stopped soon afterwards in 1867 due to shortage of funds. In 1869 the GER obtained leave from parliament to abandon the whole of the line from Leyton to High Beech, except for a small portion which would connect with the line from Hackney. However in 1869 the GER laid a spur from the N&E's Lea Valley line to Shern Hall Street Walthamstow which they opened to passengers in April 1870 (and without Parliamentary approval!). In the same year the GER obtained powers to alter the allignment of the original branch from Hackney to achieve the current allignment through Wood Street Walthamstow. This line was to terminate at Chingford Green. With funds now available, work commenced immediately and the line was completed through to Chingford and opened in November 1873.
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Chingford Station in 1966
With this line opened, the GER laid plans to extend the branch through to the original destination of High Beech. However concern about the preservation of Epping Forest as a recreational area meant that permission was only given to extend the brach a few hundred yards to the site of the present station. This section was built and opened in September 1878 when the branch tracks were also doubled throughout. To placate passengers from the old Chingford Station, a number of footpaths were laid to provide easy access to the new terminus. However, terminus is not perhaps how the GER saw their new station as plans were drawn up a few years later (1883) to again extend the brach to High Beech. This intention is obvious still today as the layout of Chingford station is that of a through station rather than a terminus.
That the branch delivered the hoped for growth of this area of South West Essex is evident by the growth in population of the areas it served. In the thirty years following its opening, Walthamstow's population increased nine-fold to nearly 100,000 inhabitants and the branch expanded its services rapidly to meet the demand, many arriving at the main stations by the trams then being introduced. Despite the intervention of the First World War, partonage on the branch increased alarmingly and there was much local critisism of the overcrowding of the peak hour trains (over 20 people in a single compartment being a common occurance!). Not that this was a weekday problem, on Whit Monday 1920 over 100,000 passengers were conveyed to Chingford which was now effectively the main gateway to (the now protected) Epping Forest.
A Gospel Oak to Chingford Train in 1910
Clearly radical steps had to be taken to solve this problem, something shared with many of the GER's other services in North East London. And in 1920 the solution came in the form of a new operating method of military precision.
The Jazz Service
The Jazz service delivered a high frequency commuter service to the East London suburbs of London which required a high degree of professionalism on the part of the GER's operating staff. Trains were scheduled to leave the rather cramped confines of Liverpool Street station and feed down the four tracks which served a large area of North East London and South West Essex, including the branch line service to Chingford. Quick turn arounds at each end of the service were required as any delay in releasing a locomotive (remember that this was a steam hauled service) could delay the whole timetable. New signalling was installed and conflicting train movements at junctions were eliminated as far as possible by coordination of timetables of all the services, main-line and surburban. At main stations on the network, such as Wood Street Walthamstow and Chingford, new sidings were laid and track layouts simplified to ensure that trains could be turned quickly and without delay to other services. Thus the Jazz service, as it became known, delivered a 40% increase in capacity of peak hour services and greatly reduced the overcrowding on the line, all without the vastly greater expenditure on electrification or additional lines which would have otherwise been required.
Electrification
Electrification of the Chingford branch came in November 1960 when the overhead 25kV equipement was fully commissioned and services were switched to smart new 3-car units built by British Railways at York These replaced the Nigel Gresley designed articulated coach sets which had maintained the service since the days of the Jazz service. These maintained a peak hour service of nine departures during the peak rush hours, a significant improvement of the six per hour service of the former steam trains. However this improved frequency was (relatively) short-lived as the opening of the new Victoria Line to Walthamstow in September 1968 brought much needed additional commuter capacity to the still overcrowded Chingford line. With the Victoroa Line taking many passengers away from the busiest section of the branch, service frequencies were gradually reduced until by mid-1980's only four rush hour trains were required.
Services are now operated by West Anglia Great Northern (WAGN) and recieve a Government subsidy to ensure the continuation of the service.
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