Chadwell Heath railway station

Chadwell Heath
Station entrance seen in July 2022
Chadwell Heath Location of Chadwell Heath in Greater London
Standort	Chadwell Heath
Local authority	London Borough of Redbridge
Managed by	Elizabeth line
Owner	Network Rail
Station code(s)	CTH
DfT category	C2
Number of platforms	4
Accessible	Yes
Fare zone	5
National Rail annual entry and exit
2017–18	3.755 million
2018–19	3.973 million
2019–20	4.055 million
2020–21	1.510 million
2021–22	2.746 million
Key dates
11 January 1864	Opened
Other information
External links	Departures Layout Facilities Buses
Coordinates	51.5678°N 0.1292°E / 51.5678; 0.1292
London transport portal

Chadwell Heath railway station is on the Great Eastern Main Line in Chadwell Heath, which straddles the London Borough of Redbridge and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham in East London. It is 9 miles 79 chains (16.1 km) down the line from London Liverpool Street and is situated between Goodmayes and Romford. Its three-letter station code is CTH and it is in Travelcard Zone 5.

The station was opened in 1864 by the Great Eastern Railway (GER) on the line between London and Romford built by the Eastern Counties Railway in 1839 (extended in 1840 to Brentwood and thereafter to Colchester and Norwich), the GER having taken over the line in 1862. The station is currently managed and served by the Elizabeth line.

History

Chadwell Heath station building in 1988

Chadwell Heath Station was opened on 11 January 1864 and is built on the site of Wangey House, one of Dagenham's oldest buildings dating back to 1250. Wangey House was partly demolished when the Eastern Counties Railway built the line in the 1830s; the last surviving portion was demolished when the Great Eastern Railway widened the line in 1901.

Chadwell Heath had just two platforms linked by a footbridge when it opened in 1864, a Great Eastern Railway mid-Victorian single storey ticket office attached to a two-storey station master’s house at platform level fronting a station approach leading down from what was then called Chatty’s Lane (now Station Road) which crossed the tracks on an overbridge. A simple open waiting shelter with projecting canopy sheltered the London-bound platform. All of this was swept away in 1900 when the line was quadrupled between Ilford and Romford in 1899-1902 and a new station with four platforms was opened in 1901. The ticket office was relocated over the tracks and was the same design as Seven Kings and Goodmayes - a dual-pitched roof structure of red brick with stone dressings, a semi-circular pediment above the entrance which was sheltered by a generous twin-arched canopy; miniature arched pediments topping the end gables.

In 1923, the GER amalgamated with other railways to form the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER).

Plans were drawn up in the 1930s to electrify the suburban lines from Liverpool Street to Shenfield at 1,500 V DC and work was started on implementing this. However, the outbreak of the Second World War brought the project to a temporary halt and it was not until 1949 that the scheme was completed.

The station suffered a direct bomb hit in April 1941 which wrecked Platform 1 and the footbridge and damaged the ticket office. The damage was repaired but the damaged semi-circular pediments to the ticket office façade and the end gables were all removed and a simple box-style canopy replaced the elaborate late Victorian original.

Chadwell Heath was the focus for the housing estate temporary railway built for the construction of the Becontree estate in the period 1926–33.

On January 1 1948, following nationalisation of the railways, Chadwell Heath became part of the British Railways Eastern Region.

From February 1949 the Class 306 EMUs operated the service to steam timings but an accelerated all electric schedule was introduced in September 1949.

In June 2017, new Class 345 trains began entering service in preparation for the opening of the Crossrail. As of March 2023, the four platforms at Chadwell Heath station have been extended from their previous length of 184 metres (201 yd) to accommodate the Crossrail trains which are over 200 metres (220 yd) long as they have been extended to nine carriages. New lifts, signage, help points, customer information screens and CCTV has been installed. Additionally, a new passing loop for freight traffic was constructed to the west of the station, to replace the disused loop further up the line at Manor Park.

Services

As of the May 2023 timetable, the typical Monday to Friday off-peak Elizabeth line service is:

• 2 tph (trains per hour) westbound to Heathrow Terminal 5
• 6 tph westbound to Paddington
• 8 tph eastbound to Shenfield

Preceding station	Elizabeth line			Following station
Goodmayes towards Heathrow Airport Terminal 4 or Terminal 5		Elizabeth line		Romford towards Shenfield

Connections

London Buses routes 62 and 368 serve the station by the nearby Chadwell Heath Station bus stop.

External links

• Train times and station information for Chadwell Heath railway station from National Rail
• Excel file displaying National Rail station usage information for 2005/06 Archived 22 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine