Ongar tube station

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Ongar

Location

Place

Chipping Ongar

Local authority

Epping Forest

History

Opened by

Eastern Counties Railway

Platforms

Key dates

Opened 1865
Closed 1994

Replaced by

none

Tube Portal

Ongar tube station is a closed London Underground station in the town of Chipping Ongar, Essex. Until its closure in 1994, it was the easternmost point of the Central Line.

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. Steam locomotives operated by British Rail for the Underground ran a shuttle service from Epping to Ongar from 1949 to 1957, when the line was electrified and fully taken over by the Underground's Central Line. However the shuttle service continued.

The entire Epping to Ongar branch was a single track line with one passing place at North Weald station, although this loop was taken out of service in 1976. Before the loop was taken out of use, 2 trains were able to use the branch which decreased to one after it was closed. It was therefore never suitable for heavy use, and the line was reportedly never profitable. For much of its latter years, the service only operated during Monday to Friday peak hours, and London Transport closed Blake Hall station, the least used on the entire system, in 1981. The line itself continued in use and there was a brief re-introduction of all day services in 1990. However, a system wide cost-cutting exercise saw the service return to peak hours soon afterwards, with an even more skeletal service than before. The line was under threat of closure for many years, and it 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 intention to run commuter services once again, but the lack of platform availability at London Underground's Epping station at the west end of the line has to date proven an insuperable obstacle to any commuter service provision. The current owners are the Epping Ongar Railway, a heritage railway company who run heritage trains on Sundays over the former Epping and Ongar line.

[edit] Trivia

John Betjeman, the Poet Laureate, expressed a desire to be Ongar stationmaster upon his retirement.

The sand drag at the very end of the rails — intended to help slow trains that overshot the stopping mark — was said to be home to a breed of harmless scorpion. However, this is now commonly believed to have been a hoax.

Although the station is no longer owned by London Underground, all distances on the network are still measured from Ongar.