by The distinctive blue-and-white livery of a late nationalized British Rail train can do funny things to a person. Memories of ripped seats, bun sandwiches and endless delays are, of course, one reaction. But for me, whose visions of that distant era of fully state-owned trains in this country have been gleaned from archive television, I prefer to think of John Cleese leaving his written speech on one of accident , causing chaos in the understatement. 1986 movie Clockwise. Or of The Young People scurrying to catch InterCity 125 to be present on The University Challenge on behalf of Scumbag College.
Best of all, I love the first episode of it Whatever Happened to the Likely Leas?in which the late James Bolam and Rodney Bewes, as estranged friends Bob and Terry, meet, after a five-year absence, in a six-seater BR compartment, left in the dark by the ubiquitous power failures of the early 1970s.
“Would you believe it? The jet age! High speed gas! InterCity makes great progress,” said Bob with my ears echoing sarcasm.
Maybe Bob was right. Perhaps there never really was a golden age of public transport anywhere in the UK. That’s certainly what I took from it until I started hearing Roger Wright’s memories and the ride aboard what was once his daily commute.
“The presence of the train depended on the inconsistency of the farmland, the rural setting and the near-absence of houses,” says Roger, managing director and owner of Epping Ongar Railway.
“The wildlife outside the train outnumbered the passengers by about a hundred to one. Pheasants were common on the road and I heard stories of drivers shooting them down and then picking them up for their supper on the way back.”
Roger is not casting his mind back to the 1950s. This commute was part of his life until 1994. What is even more amazing is that Roger’s journey was made on the Central Tube train; one that traveled through London’s West End and continued on, and on, and on, until it reached the part of the North Weald and Ongar branch line; the Tube stations equivalent to Svalbard or Samoa.
“A lot of people stopped using the line long before it closed, because the service was cut back and forth until it was impossible for people to carry it,” says Wright.
“Many people ended up driving to Epping from the surrounding area, rather than waiting for the Tube. People were angry about the constant cuts and lack of investment in the line. Councilors and local politicians were up, but sadly, there was no momentum to save him at higher levels. Costs had to be controlled and the line had to be expensive, per passenger, compared to central London.”
Even today, if you travel to the north-east of the Central Line, the hanging baskets on the terrace at Epping and the silence of the rural environment feel incongruous. It is very hard to imagine that the Tube once went further than this.
As if North Weald and Ongar weren’t strange enough, until October 1981 there was a stop between these two outposts called Blake Hall, which held the record for the lowest number of daily users of any Tube station on the network. ; a total of six. The isolation was so great that the late Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman once asked him about the possibility of living in the station master’s house.
But even the doyen of “Metroland” Blake Hall may have gone a little too far. What is more certain is that, 30 years on from the last Tube train leaving Ongar and North Weald stations, it is now possible to travel on this illustrious stretch of line again, albeit on a vintage British Rail train rather than a Tube carriage.
A Tube journey like no other
My recent journey began at Epping Tube station, where an early 1960s double-decker bus painted bright green took me and a three-dozen-strong crowd of families and couples (and lack of thermos-wielding anoraks) to the revived Ongar station. .
The station building, all brick and polished tiles, looks like a place Dr Beeching was too hard-pressed to close down, rather than somewhere on the London Tube network until the mid-1990s.
There is a small exhibition with photographs of the last Tube train departing on the night of September 30, 1994, with some press and public gathered on the platform. Ongar’s last night may have been the busiest since the station joined the Underground network in 1949.
The journey to North Weald, past Blake Hall (the desirable Betjeman station building is now a private house and not part of the revitalized heritage line) is not suburban; it is the undisturbed Essex countryside. As the blue and white train departs, we will move forward evenly with an ironing board, plowing farmers’ fields. We pass forgotten foot crossings, low bridges, and siding festooned with grass that rusts like banknotes. The most miraculous thing, however, is that this was ever considered part of London in the first place.
“I was riding the branch last night in 1994 with my daughter Helen, who was 13 at the time,” explains Roger.
“As the last train pulled out of Ongar, I explained to her that trains had left here every day for almost 130 years and this was the last ever. When she got upset, I comforted her by saying: ‘Oh, I hope someone makes it a heritage railway one day’, not thinking for a minute that this person would be me. .”
A railway line brought back to life
Roger now owns this former set of London Underground track. After retiring in 2007 from a “moderate bus operation” in north-east London (actually the prominent Blue Triangle firm), he became a minority shareholder in a company that had put the case for running trains on the now derelict line.
Millions of pounds and thousands of hours of volunteer work later – along with rebuilt and refurbished infrastructure; lower track beds; and heritage locomotives, signaling and rolling stock have been purchased – the Epping Ongar Railway opened to the public in May 2012.
On board, I’m starting to warm to the orange and brown striped seat patterns, designed by someone who I can only assume was going for a “tanning lotion and Bovril” color scheme. There are fewer retina-scratching colors outside as we pass the beech branches of beech and silver birch trees. I can’t see any pheasants but I do see a tractor in a far corner of a field just outside North Weald station.
We are here to return the old green bus to Epping to rejoin today’s Tube network. We’ve only traveled six miles but it amazes me how painful I think this wonderful branch line was ever allowed to disappear from the Tube map.
Although Roger argues that the Epping-to-Ongar line is unlikely to see a regular Tube service again (“anything is possible; but without a mega building project in the surrounding area, it would be difficult to justify”), I a full realization that in an age of balance sheets, HS2 cuts and endless strikes, the revival of Ongar and North Weald shows that there is still room in public transport for lines that are as odd and unnecessary as they are beautiful and beloved.
“If you want to make a million from running a railway, start with thousands,” says Roger.
“This is British eccentricity at its best. We love what we like and hate what we hate in equal measure. We also go back to the past that passed indiscriminately through our wonderful memories.”
Stay here
Just 20 minutes by road from Ongar, the Lion Inn is a buzzy restaurant with rooms, the oldest parts of the building dating back to the 15th century. The dishes are traditional and well-chosen (try the fish pie with smoked haddock, salmon, king prawns, lobster tails and cheese mash) and some of the 23 rooms have balconies looking out over the spruce gardens.
Book tickets
Book tickets for the Epping Ongar Railway at eorailway.co.uk. Tickets for adults from £7:50.
