GER Ongar Branch

[rebeltc130]

Recently heard within the 1944 Greater London Plan by Abercrombie there were plans to extend the GER from Epping to Hertford East via around Rye House as well as from Ongar to Chelmsford, the latter by way of linking up with the GEML somewhere between Ingatestone and Margeretting. 

Was the original plan for the Central Line and Mainline railways to run parallel between Leyton to Epping and Ongar as opposed to the route being completely taken over by the Central Line under the New Works Programme or were there intentions by some in government to limit the Central Line eastern extension from Leyton to Woodford via Hainault (that may also tie into ideas for a Central extension from Newbury Park to Collier Row)? 

Also is there any truth to claims that before the Epping-Ongar route was closed on the Central Line, the route's fate and need for upgrades was pretty much tied to nearby RAF Chipping Ongar being one of six proposed sites in the 1970s to become London's 3rd airport before Stanstead was chosen? Curiously in the 1944 Greater London Plan the site at RAF Matching, not RAF Chipping Ongar that was planned to become an airport.    

[class411]

What are ‘GER’ and ‘GEML’?

[towerman]

Great Eastern Railway & Great Eastern Main Line.

[selbiehouse]

In the early proposals for new towns they were to be build at both Ongar and Margeretting so it would be reasonable to enhance railway facilities for an increased population. In the event these locations were not selected in the 1946 legislation.

[capitalomnibus]

it would not surprise me that the line would have linked to Chelmsford, at Ongar it just looks unfinished as though the line was to go further.

[jimbo]

Wasn't Chelmsford a possible destination when the Ongar line was first built, and also in more recent times since privatisation spoken of as a relief route for the Great Eastern?

[stapler]

Mar 25, 2023 19:48:36 GMT jimbo said:

Wasn't Chelmsford a possible destination when the Ongar line was first built, and also in more recent times since privatisation spoken of as a relief route for the Great Eastern?

This was mooted in LOIS - the London-Ipswich multimodal study in the late 1990s. The line from Leyton to Ongar is to main line loading -gauge.

But to preserve the metro type operation of the Central Line would have meant quadrupling south of Loughton or Woodford = megacost.

[enness]

Mar 25, 2023 19:48:36 GMT jimbo said:

Wasn't Chelmsford a possible destination when the Ongar line was first built, and also in more recent times since privatisation spoken of as a relief route for the Great Eastern?

According to "Branch Line to Ongar" (J E Connor, Middeleton Press) the company [Epping Railways] " acquired further powers in 1860 for the line to be extended from Chipping Ongar to Dunmow" - the plan did not survive to mergers that formed the Great Eastern Railway in 1862.

[castlebar]

The only way the railway will ever be extended east from Ongar,
is with crayons on a map.

[Chris M]

Never say never. I agree it is extremely unlikely in the present climate, and there are no serious proposals currently in any state of completion, but there are fewer barriers to an extension from Ongar than there are from termini like Chingford. 30 years ago few would have predicted the extensions to Battersea Power Station or Barking Riverside.

[castlebar]

Mar 27, 2023 16:10:38 GMT Chris M said:

Never say never. I agree it is extremely unlikely in the present climate, and there are no serious proposals currently in any state of completion, but there are fewer barriers to an extension from Ongar than there are from termini like Chingford. 30 years ago few would have predicted the extensions to Battersea Power Station or Barking Riverside.

NEVER

[trainwizard]

Mar 27, 2023 18:03:56 GMT castlebar said:

NEVER

While I do agree with the sentiment, it's not completely impossible. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that 20 years ago, Crossrail 2 was planned to take over the Epping branch. If this did happen, it wouldn't be long before there were calls to reopen Ongar and further extend the line (similar to the Elizabeth Line extensions various councils are proposing today).

[Chris L]

Mar 28, 2023 5:51:41 GMT trainwizard said:

While I do agree with the sentiment, it's not completely impossible. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that 20 years ago, Crossrail 2 was planned to take over the Epping branch. If this did happen, it wouldn't be long before there were calls to reopen Ongar and further extend the line (similar to the Elizabeth Line extensions various councils are proposing today).

It was proposed for the Chelsea-Hackney line and would have allowed the return of full size trains to the branch (as used on the Epping Ongar Railway).

Alternative routes and destinations have evolved.

Would anyone really want to travel on 1992 stock (or the replacement) to and from the depths of Essex?

Mod edit [Antharro]: Quote edited. Please be selective about the part of a post you wish to quote rather than the whole post verbatim, particularly if you are replying to the previous post in the thread.

[revupminster]

There will not be any railway extension to Chelmsford. There isn't the demand. 20 or was it 30 years ago the M12 was abandoned despite Charley Brown's roundabout having provision for it. Gallows Corner still awaiting upgrading and the "temporary" flyover removed.

[Chris M]

Road projects being abandoned is not evidence on its own of a lack of demand, in exactly the same way that railway schemes get abandoned and temporary layouts become permanent for other reasons as well as lack of demand (e.g. politics). Whether there was demand 20 years ago also does not mean that there will never be demand. Drawing the current transport network around Canary Wharf in the 1970s would have had you regarded as one of the looniest of crayonistas (if that term had existed then) - a declining industrial area will NEVER have demand for any of a light rail network, a new Underground line, a new high-capacity heavy rail metro, multiple bus routes a four lane dual carriageway with a tunnel towards central London let alone all of them. Suggesting a tourist cable car linking a gasworks to an industrial dock would have people wondering if you should be locked up.

[revupminster]

Canary Wharf was entirely privately driven (was it Olympia and York) and made a success of the DLR on the Isle of Dogs The DLR in the Royal Docks completely failed to attract private developers to any large degree and has just been piecemeal over the last 35 years with plenty of land undeveloped. Does the cable car pay it's way? Still waiting for bridge over the river to replace the Woolwich Ferry. I have various plans that are 30 years old and went to a couple of exhibitions for it. I will say the A13 improvements did take place once started. Rathbone Market was rebuilt in the 60s to accommodate it but work never started to the 90s.

Mod edit [Antharro]: Quote removed. Please be selective about the part of a post you wish to quote rather than the whole post verbatim, particularly if you are replying to the previous post in the thread.

[Chris M]

You've missed my point, which was that basing assertions of what infrastructure will be built based only on the land use of the past or present is not reliable. If something major gets built at say Norton Heath (however funded) then it is entirely possible that in 30 years from now the Epping-Ongar-Chelmsford corridor will have a 20tph service to central London, even though it would be madness to suggest building anything like that today. Will this happen? I don't know, but the point is nobody does.

The cable car not paying its way (afaik) is actually a good illustration of a different point - you can't discount the role politics has in what does and does not get built, and political decisions are not based solely on empirical qualitative data.

[brigham]

Do passenger transport projects EVER pay their way?

[stapler]

<<Would anyone really want to travel on 1992 stock (or the replacement) to and from the depths of Essex?>>
Those of us from the heights of Essex (Epping-Theydon-Loughton-Buckhurst Hill) already have to. The discomforts of the stock are compensated for by the frequency, long hours of operation, and relative Zone 6-cheapness of the service. That is why half Essex seems to drive to Central Line stations, park, if they can, for free (eg at Debden), and endure the 92TS, gaffer tape and all!

[spsmiler]

Mar 28, 2023 16:47:12 GMT revupminster said:

The DLR in the Royal Docks completely failed to attract private developers to any large degree and has just been piecemeal over the last 35 years with plenty of land undeveloped. 

For all its success there is, as you state, still a lot of undeveloped wasteland to be seen out of the windows when travelling through east London on the DLR Beckton and Woolwich branches.

But things are changing. For instance recent years have seen oodles of rabbit hutch style residential buildings being built in the area around West Silvertown - Pontoon Dock. Especially on the side of the railway facing the river Thames.

[rebeltc130]

Mar 25, 2023 19:48:36 GMT jimbo said:

Wasn't Chelmsford a possible destination when the Ongar line was first built, and also in more recent times since privatisation spoken of as a relief route for the Great Eastern?

Also recall reading about that when the Ongar line was built. It is not clear how the planned route would have travelled to Chelmsford and if it differed from what was considered in the 1944 Greater London Plan, yet connecting back onto the Great Eastern Main Line from Ongar at Margeretting would be more logical than running towards Chelmsford roughly parallel to the A414.  

Mar 26, 2023 9:15:50 GMT stapler said:

Mar 25, 2023 19:48:36 GMT jimbo said:

Wasn't Chelmsford a possible destination when the Ongar line was first built, and also in more recent times since privatisation spoken of as a relief route for the Great Eastern?

This was mooted in LOIS - the London-Ipswich multimodal study in the late 1990s. The line from Leyton to Ongar is to main line loading -gauge.

But to preserve the metro type operation of the Central Line would have meant quadrupling south of Loughton or Woodford = megacost.

Was the mooted late 1990s LOIS - the London-Ipswich multimodal study to follow a similar route as the mentioned in the 1944 Greater London Plan or did it differ significantly from the earlier scheme?  

[jimbo]

Since the traffic objective would be Chelmsford and beyond, I think it would be talked of as the Chelmsford line even if it connected to the main line at Margeretting, a much less known location.

[towerman]

I’m sure in the 70s when Standstead was going to be developed there was talk of double tracking and extending the Ongar branch.

[stapler]

Apr 5, 2023 15:36:36 GMT rebeltc130 said:

Was the mooted late 1990s LOIS - the London-Ipswich multimodal study to follow a similar route as the mentioned in the 1944 Greater London Plan or did it differ significantly from the earlier scheme?

I will try to find out, but memory tells me it was short on detail!

[ertowerty1]

Regarding the loading gauge of the Epping-Ongar section, I have seen a drawing for the LNER/GER loading gauge which was presented to the designers of the M25 bridge over said railway which has a pencil note afdded to the evvect that main line stock will never run over that section again. These couple of lines of text put paid to main stock on the branch and cost the EOR a lot of money later on.
THerefore any extension for main line stock was certainly off the agenda in the 1980s.

I can remember in the 1970s when tube stock was being moved onto the East London line of raising the track for the tube stock for level platform access.Scroll on a decade or two and full size stock was back on the line, firstly A stock then London Overground.
So advance planning and predication is not much in the forefront.
With Great Dunmow rapidly expanding, perhaps it might have been a good idea at the time to have made Standsted Airport a through station, picking up the old formation towards Braintree.
I'm sure further development will continue along the A120 corridor, the ressurected Bishops Stortford-Braintree line may have further use.

[jimbo]

1938 tube stock served the East London Line since it was to become a branch shuttle of the Fleet Line, which was to take over New Cross platform on its way to Lewisham and branch to New Cross Gate. This all fell through, and it reverted to surface stock when available. I recall the difficult step up to platforms with low car roof, so I don't know if much track lifting was undertaken.

[roythebus]

Mar 29, 2023 7:42:38 GMT brigham said:

Do passenger transport projects EVER pay their way?

Yes, Croydon Trams took the number of passengers in the first year that was projected for year 5.

[zbang]

Ah yes, the continuing animosity between the Deity of Farebox Recovery and the Deity of Public Convenience, and the Traveling Public giving both of them the side-eye.

[brigham]

Do they still have coin-operated public conveniences?
I haven't 'spent a penny' in years!

[revupminster]

Aug 31, 2023 7:38:01 GMT brigham said:

Do they still have coin-operated public conveniences?
I haven't 'spent a penny' in years!

Ah The Scotsman's Lament
"Here I sit broken hearted,
spent a penny and only f-----"