Looking north from Woodford Underground station

Image: © Marathon Taken: 8 Sep 2015

The Eastern Counties Railway Loughton branch line opened on 22nd August 1856. It ran north-east between the small villages of Leyton and Leytonstone, reaching the Roding Valley at Wanstead. It then followed the west side of the valley to reach Loughton. An eleven and a quarter mile extension beyond Loughton was opened as a single line extension from Loughton through Epping to Ongar on 24th April 1865. Woodford, which was a straggling village extending for about three miles along the Stratford to Loughton road, received two stations. The first called George Lane, Woodford served the extreme southern end while Woodford station was just east of Woodford Green and Woodford Wells. At the opening of the Loughton branch most trains terminated at Fenchurch Street, but from 1874 most trains were diverted to Liverpool Street. With the growth in residential traffic, the Great Eastern Railway (which now operated the line) rebuilt stations on the inner section. In addition a double track was completed as far as Epping in January 1893. Woodford was rebuilt with a bay and a booking office on the up side in 1892 as middle-class housing was spreading around the station. Despite this there was no large-scale suburban building between Snaresbrook and Loughton until the early 1900s when new villas and shopping parades started to appear near the stations. Until the mid 1920s almost every house built near these stations was in the higher price range. By the outbreak of the Second World war much of the land between Epping Forest and the River Roding was covered with houses as far as Loughton but there was much discontent with the LNER steam service. Tube train operation of the branch was first mooted in the early 1930s and a major objective of the 1935-1940 London Railways New Works Programme was to give the eastern suburbs of London a more direct link to the West End. The Central line would be extended beyond Stratford to Leyton where it would take over the working of the Ongar line. Work resumed in 1945 and Tube trains reached Leytonstone on 5th May 1947 and Snaresbrook, South Woodford and Woodford on 14th December 1947. For the extension of the Tube, Snaresbrook, South Woodford and Woodford received new ticket halls. Electrification was carried through to Epping on 25th September 1949. In this photograph an Epping bound train is just leaving the station.

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