The Romford–Upminster line is a railway

branch line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industr ...

in Greater London that connects , on the Great Eastern Main Line, to , on the

London, Tilbury and Southend line The London, Tilbury and Southend line, also known as Essex Thameside, is a commuter railway line on the British railway system. It connects Fenchurch Street station, in central London, with destinations in east London and Essex, including , , ...

and

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The ...

. The route is in length and there is one intermediate station at . The line is part of Network Rail Strategic Route 7, SRS 07.09, and is classified as a rural line. The line is single-track throughout,

electrified Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic history ...

25 kV AC Railway electrification systems using alternating current (AC) at are used worldwide, especially for high-speed rail. It is usually supplied at the standard utility frequency (typically 50 or 60Hz), which simplifies traction substations. The dev ...

, has a loading gauge of W6, and a maximum speed of . , services are operated by

London Overground London Overground (also known simply as the Overground) is a suburban rail network serving London and its environs. Established in 2007 to take over Silverlink Metro routes, (via archive.org). it now serves a large part of Greater London as w ...

, with two trains per hour in each direction. The timetabled journey time from one terminus to the other is nine minutes. It is completely separated from the rest of the London Overground, but connects to the

Elizabeth line The Elizabeth line is a high-frequency hybrid urban–suburban rail service in London and its suburbs. It runs services on dedicated infrastructure in central London from the Great Western Main Line west of Paddington to and via Whitechapel ...

at Romford and the

at Upminster.

History

Steam era

The line was originally built as a branch of the

London, Tilbury and Southend Railway The London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LT&SR), was a British railway company, whose network connected Fenchurch Street station, in central London, with destinations in east London and Essex, including , , , Tilbury, Southend and . The company ...

(LT&SR) and opened on 7 June 1893 providing the LT&SR with a link to the Great Eastern Railway (GER) at

Romford Romford is a large town in east London and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Havering. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Historically, Romfo ...

and a small goods yard where the branch joins the Great Eastern Main Line. At Romford, the branch had a separate station entrance in a three-storey building opposite the Great Eastern station entrance. A cast-iron footbridge was constructed over South Street which opened when an LT&SR train was due. In April 1934 the LT&SR building ceased use as a station and the ground floor was rented as a shop, the London and North Eastern Railway, the successor of the GER, took control of the whole station. Captureromford

Emerson Park Halt was opened on 1 October 1909. A run-round loop was constructed 500 yards to the west to enable extra trains to run between Emerson Park and Upminster. When push-pull working began in 1934, the loop was no longer required and was removed in circa 1936. In the April 1920 timetable there are 27 down (towards Tilbury) and 22 up (towards Romford) trains a day. There were six through trains to Grays, four to

Tilbury Tilbury is a port town in the borough of Thurrock, Essex, England. The present town was established as separate settlement in the late 19th century, on land that was mainly part of Chadwell St Mary. It contains a 16th century fort and an ancie ...

and five short runs between Emerson Park and Upminster, with a similar number of return trains. On Sundays there were nine trains in each direction. By 1939 this had increased to 35 down trains and 27 up services on weekdays, still with nine in each direction on Sundays and a similar service pattern. The London, Tilbury and Southend Railway was purchased by the

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It ama ...

in 1912 and was amalgamated into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway on 1 January 1923. The line became part of British Railways on 1 January 1948, initially as part of the London Midland Region and then the Eastern Region from 20 February 1949. The short workings between Emerson Park and Upminster were eliminated with all services on the line calling at Upminster, Emerson Park and Romford from the 1949 timetable.

Diesel era

From 17 September 1956, a diesel multiple unit from replaced the steam service, and from 20 April 1957 a new bay platform, numbered six, opened at , effectively making it part of the Great Eastern route. The District line of the London Underground was separated from the British Railways tracks at Upminster which coincided with the end of through service from Romford to Grays.

Electric era

There were some attempts to close the line in the 1960s, but these failed. It was later electrified, and electric trains began operating on 17 April 1986. The line transferred to become part of the

network in May 2015. Sunday service was restored from the 13 December 2015 timetable. From 5 October 2020 the line has been operated using

British Rail Class 710 The British Rail Class 710 ''Aventra'' is a type of electric multiple unit passenger train built by Bombardier Transportation for use on the London Overground network. The trains are part of Bombardier's Aventra family. The contract to provid ...

rolling stock, taking over from

British Rail Class 315 The British Rail Class 315 is a fleet of alternating current (AC) electric multiple unit (EMU) trains, built by British Rail Engineering Limited at Holgate Road Carriage Works in York between 1980 and 1981; they replaced the Class 306 units. I ...

and

British Rail Class 317 The British Rail Class 317 is an electric multiple unit (EMU) passenger train constructed by British Rail Engineering Limited in two batches, 48 sets being produced in 1981–82 and 24 sets in 1985–87. They were the first of several classes ...

rolling stock.

Infrastructure

The branch is known colloquially as the "Romford Push and Pull" as it is single-track throughout. It is

. Electrification of the line saw an end to years of speculation about its future. There is only one intermediate station, at Emerson Park. At , the connection west of the station to the main line was severed in 1968. The branch has just one signal, on approach to Romford. There were plans to link the line from platform six at Upminster to the reception tracks of the

depot there. This would have allowed the transfer of

London Underground D78 Stock The London Underground D78 Stock, commonly referred to as D Stock, was a type of sub-surface rolling stock which operated on the District line of the London Underground, except on the Wimbledon to Edgware Road service. The first units were wit ...

units onto the main line to be hauled away by diesel locomotive for refurbishment at the Ilford depot. These plans were scrapped when the refurbishment work was transferred to Wakefield in Yorkshire and the transfer was done by road. The point-work, which was half installed, is still visible from the eastern end of platform five at Upminster.

Services

The line is entirely within

Travelcard Zone 6 Fare zone 6 is an outer zone of Transport for London's zonal fare system used for calculating the price of tickets for travel on the London Underground, London Overground, Docklands Light Railway, National Rail services (since 2007), and the El ...

. Services are currently operated by

, which replaced the previous operator,

Abellio Greater Anglia Greater Anglia (legal name Abellio East Anglia Limited) is a train operating company in Great Britain owned as a joint venture by Abellio, the international arm of the state-owned Dutch national rail operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen, and the J ...

, in May 2015. Trains are typically formed by a Class 710. As of June 2021, the service pattern on the route is one train every 30 minutes between approximately 6:15 am and 10 pm Mondays to Saturdays, and approximately 8:30 am and 8 pm on Sundays. The journey time from one terminus to the other is timetabled as nine minutes. Annualised entry/exit data from Transport for London for London Overground trips is as follows:

Geology

During the construction of the railway in 1892, the geologist T. V. Holmes discovered a five-metre layer of boulder clay underlying the gravel and sand in a section just north of St. Andrew's Park. This is now the

Hornchurch Cutting Hornchurch Cutting is an 0.8-hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Hornchurch in the London Borough of Havering. It is also a Geological Conservation Review site. It is at the southern edge of the Anglian ice sheet 450,000 y ...

Site of Special Scientific Interest, which exhibits the southernmost limit of the Anglian ice sheet 450,000 years ago, the furthest south that any ice sheet reached.