North Woolwich railway station

North Woolwich
North Woolwich Location of North Woolwich in Greater London
Location	North Woolwich
Local authority	Newham
Grid reference	TQ432798
Station code	NWW
Number of platforms	1 (originally 3)
Railway companies
Original company	Eastern Counties Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Eastern Railway
Post-grouping	London and North Eastern Railway
Key dates
14 June 1847	Station opened
29 May 1994[1]	Closed
29 Oct 1995	Reopened
9 December 2006	Station closed
Replaced by	King George V DLR
Other information
Lists of stations	DLR Underground National Rail Tramlink
External links	Departures Layout Facilities Buses
London Transport portal UK Railways portalCoordinates: 51°29′58″N 0°03′44″E / 51.4994°N 0.0623°E

North Woolwich railway station in North Woolwich in east London was the eastern terminus of the North London Line. It was in Travelcard Zone 3. The next station was Silvertown.

History

The station opened on 14 June 1847 as the southern terminus of the Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway from Stratford. The service was later extended beyond Stratford to Palace Gates. In 1963 diesel traction replaced steam and the service was cut back to Stratford with peak-hour trains to Tottenham Hale. The route became an extension of the North London Line in 1979. From the 1980s only one track of the double track line was used through the Connaught Tunnel under the Royal Docks and on to North Woolwich where the station building and a platform were closed and replaced by minimalist entrance and passenger shelter on the south side. In 1985 the line from North Woolwich was electrified on the third rail system under British Rail with the service running round inner north London to Richmond (a route part third rail and part overhead wire). Prior to closure, the typical service frequency Monday to Saturday was every 30 mins during the daytime increasing to every 20 minutes in the evening and every 30 minutes all day Sunday.

From 1984 to 2008 the original station buildings and one disused platform served as the North Woolwich Old Station Museum dedicated to the history of the Great Eastern Railway.

The station and the line to Stratford closed on 9 December 2006^[2] to allow conversion of the North London Line between Stratford and Canning Town to a Docklands Light Railway (DLR) line. At closure the station was served by Silverlink Trains. King George V DLR station which opened in December 2005 on the extension from Canning Town gives a replacement service to the North Woolwich area, and more recently to Woolwich itself.

Dual-voltage unit 313113 waiting to work the 14:37 service to Richmond a few days before the station closed.

A picture of the then less well used North Woolwich station in the year 2001.

RCTS East London Tour in 1951

Future

Crossrail is approved to re-use the Connaught Tunnel and nearby NLL route by 2018, with a new tunnel under the Thames near the site of North Woolwich station.

This has thwarted two earlier schemes for using the fragment of railway near the station which had been seen as having no viable railway use:

• The North Woolwich Old Station Museum mentioned above, which has now closed.
• The Royal Docks Heritage Railway for a new museum at the site with a heritage railway.

References

1. Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 174. ISBN 1-85260-508-1. R508.
2. Closure of North Woolwich station Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.

External links

• Royal Docks Heritage Railway Ltd
• London's Abandoned Stations - North Woolwich
• Disused stations