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Woodgrange Park railway station
is a London Overground station on Romford Road in Manor Park in
the London Borough of Newham, east London. It is on the Gospel
Oak to Barking line, 12 miles 1 chain (19.3 km) down the line
from Gospel Oak; it lies in Travelcard Zones 3 and 4. The
station is managed by London Overground, which also provides all
train services. It has only limited station buildings and
facilities, and as of October 2019 was the 9th least-used
railway station in Greater London.
The station is on the Gospel Oak to Barking line, 1.75 miles
(2.82 km) west of Barking. Its National Location Code (NLC) is
7467. It stands on Romford Road, a short walk from Manor Park
station with which Woodgrange Park has an official
out-of-station interchange. However, the National Rail Timetable
suggests interchanging one stop to the west, from Wanstead Park
to Forest Gate.
Track was laid through the site in 1854 as part of the first
section of the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway, from Forest
Gate Junction on the Eastern Counties Railway to Barking. The
LT&SR opened a more direct route from Barking to Fenchurch
Street on 11 March 1858 so its trains could avoid the congested
station at Stratford. After that the line was used by a small
number of Liverpool Street to Barking services operated by the
Eastern Counties Railway and after 1862 the Great Eastern
Railway. A few goods trains also used this route.
In 1894 the Tottenham and Forest Gate Railway opened a new
railway to Tottenham, beginning at a junction just north of the
station site. This railway was a joint venture between the
Midland Railway and London Tilbury and Southend Railway. The
station was opened on 9 July 1894 and on opening was served by
trains from the new line as well as the few GER Liverpool Street
- Barking services. A few services were routed to East Ham via
the East Ham loop but the majority went onto to Barking (with a
small number continuing to Southend).
Some goods sidings were opened on the Barking end of the station
and these acted as exchange sidings between Midland Railway and
LT&SR trains as well as serving local businesses. In connection
with this facility a short spur line (known as the East Ham
Loop) to East Ham was opened in 1894 and this allowed LTSR goods
trains from the London (Fenchurch Street) direction to access
the exchange sidings.
The exchange sidings lasted until 1909 when a new facility
between Woodgrange Park and Barking was opened as Woodgrange
Park and Barking Goods Yard (which acted as the exchange point
between the Great Eastern and LTSR) were congested. The whole of
this area was remodelled 1905-1909 as part of the quadrupling
from Bromley to Barking and the electrification and extension of
District Line services. By 1916 the goods sidings at Woodgrange
Park were reduced to coal traffic only and continued in this
role until closure whilst the former exchange sidings were used
for engineering traffic.
Following the 1921 Railways Act Woodgrange Park became a London,
Midland & Scottish Railway(LMS) station.
In 1948 the station was taken over by British Railways following
the nationalisation of the railway.
The spur from East Ham closed in 1958 when the few remaining T&FG
services were diverted to Barking and its closure was part of
the scheme to separate the LTS and District Line into two
distinct railways. The engineering sidings closed 27 June 1964
and the station coal yard closed 7 December 1964.
During 1964 the street level station buildings were demolished
and replaced by a new structure and the platform buildings were
demolished and replaced by shelters c1976. At this time the
station was little used.
The section from Forest Gate Junction through the station to
Barking was electrified in 1962 as part of the LT&SR
modernisation and electrification scheme, and was used by a
limited number of c2c services (which do not stop at Woodgrange
Park) and by regular freight trains. The Tottenham and Forest
Gate line (now more commonly known as the Gospel Oak to Barking
line) was closed between October 2016 and February 2017 whilst
that line was fully electrified. Electric trains worked by Class
710 now work that line and this service was extended to Barking
Riverside in July 2022.
It is a station with limited facilities; the ticket office was
demolished in the late 1990s, and the space used for a small
cycle rack. Staff operate from a container-sized portable
office. Recently a number of self-service touch-screen ticket
machines have been added, which accept coins, credit cards and
notes. Oyster card validators have also been installed. The
station was briefly equipped with APTIS equipment in 1988/89.
The normal London Overground passenger service is four trains
per hour in each direction, dropping to half-hourly in the
evenings. There used to be a parliamentary train service also
operated by London Overground running at 07:59 on Mondays to
Fridays from Woodgrange Park to Willesden Junction (no return),
but this was cancelled in 2018. The line is also used for
freight trains to and from the Port of Tilbury and the
railfreight terminal at Dagenham Dock. c2c's infrequent services
to Liverpool Street also pass through without stopping.
London Buses routes 25, 86, 425 and night routes N25 and N86
serve the station.
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