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Gidea Park railway station is on
the Great Eastern Main Line, serving the neighbourhood of Gidea
Park in the London Borough of Havering, east London. It is 13
miles 41 chains (21.7 km) down the line from London Liverpool
Street and is situated between Romford and Harold Wood. Its
three-letter station code is GDP and it is in Travelcard zone 6.
The station is currently managed by Transport for London and is
served by the Shenfield – Liverpool Street stopping service as
part of the Elizabeth line. Eventually, the Elizabeth line
service will be extended beyond Liverpool Street to Paddington
and onwards to Reading and Heathrow Airport.
The station, constructed in a cutting, was opened as Squirrels
Heath & Gidea Park on 1 December 1910 by the Great Eastern
Railway on that company's main line out of London Liverpool
Street. The station consisted of two island platforms with
access via a footbridge, giving four platform faces despite the
line being of two tracks beyond the station environs. The
station signal box was elevated on a set of girders spanning the
two central tracks, and there was a goods shed and coal staithes
at the country end of the station on the south side of the line
controlled by an additional signal box. Immediately beyond the
goods facilities was the building known as the "Romford Factory"
which had been the original locomotive works for the Eastern
Counties Railway from 1843 until the opening of Stratford Works
in 1847, and remained in use by the railway working on the
manufacture and repair of canvas wagon sheets. The line through
Romford and Gidea Park as far as Shenfield was quadrupled in
1930 to provide increased capacity and additional carriage
sidings were added on the north side of the line opposite the
goods facilities as part of these works. The order of words in
the station name was switched to Gidea Park & Squirrels Heath in
late 1913 and the "Squirrels Heath" suffix was dropped by
British Rail in February 1969.
London Buses routes 294, 496 and school routes 649, 650 and 674
serve the station.
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