North Weald tube station

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North Weald

Location
Place	North Weald
Local authority	Epping Forest
History
Opened by	Eastern Counties Railway
Platforms	1
Key dates	Opened 1865 Closed 1994
Replaced by	none
London Transport Portal

North Weald tube station is a closed London Underground station in Essex, England. It was located between Epping and Blake Hall on the Central Line, serving North Weald Bassett.

It was first opened by the Eastern Counties Railway on 1 April 1865, serving principally as a goods station taking agricultural produce from the nearby farms into central London. During World War II, it was frequently used by airmen travelling to and from the nearby North Weald Aerodrome. Steam locomotives operated by British Rail for the Underground ran a shuttle service from Epping to Ongar (stopping at North Weald) from 1949 to 1957, when the line was electrified and taken over by the Underground's Central Line.

Although the Epping to Ongar branch was normally operated as an isolated branch of the Central Line, for two days every year, through trains were run from London, terminating at North Weald. These trains served the North Weald airshow on the Saturday and Sunday of its opening at the aerodrome almost adjacent to the station. The normal Epping to Ongar shuttle dovetailed with this service passing the terminating train on the adjacent line during its southbound journey. The through train was operated as an extra train on the normal Central Line timetable, but had to be restricted to 4 cars long because of limitations on the available traction current on the branch.

The line from Epping to Ongar is a single track line with the exception of North Weald station which functioned as the only available passing place for trains travelling in opposite directions. The station's two platforms were both used until 1976 when the southbound tracks were lifted. Until this time, access to the two platforms was controlled from the original Eastern Counties Railway signal box still sited on the southbound platform to this day. Until this occurred, North Weald was the only section of the London Underground network to be signalled using mechanical semaphore signals. Although disused, the illuminated track diagram in the signal box continued to show the progress of trains until the line's closure.

The Epping to Ongar branch was not heavily used and was never profitable. The service was further undermined when the Greater London Council removed the running subsidy for the line because the line was not within the boundaries of Greater London, and no comparable subsidy was forthcoming from the local government agencies in Essex. Fare levels were therefore much higher than on the rest of the Underground network, and the operators were being no more than truthful when they cited diminishing passenger numbers as a reason for running down the service. The Epping to Ongar line, including North Weald station, was finally closed on 30 September 1994. The station and the line are now in the ownership of a private company who, at time of purchase, publicly stated their intentions to run commuter services once again: to date this stated ambition has been thwarted by the absence of available platform space at the Epping end of the line. The current owners are the Epping Ongar Railway, a heritage railway company who run heritage trains on Sundays over most of the line, stopping short of Epping.