London, Tilbury and Southend line
The London, Tilbury and Southend line 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,,,, Tilbury, Southend and.
Its main users are commuters travelling to and from London, particularly the City of London which is served by Fenchurch Street, and areas in east London including the Docklands financial district via London Underground and Docklands Light Railway connections at and. The line is also heavily used by leisure travellers, as it and its branches serve a number of seaside resorts, shopping areas and countryside destinations. Additionally, the Tilbury Loop portion of the route provides an artery for freight traffic to and from Dagenham Dock and the Tilbury and London Gateway ports. Freight traffic can also travel further using the connection to the Gospel Oak to Barking line and the Great Eastern Main Line at Forest Gate Junction, allowing access to other main routes.
Built by the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway Company – a joint venture between the London and Blackwall Railway and the Eastern Counties Railway companies – the railway was authorised in 1852, with the first section opening in 1854. The route was extended in phases and partnerships were formed with the Midland Railway and District Railway to provide through-services.
The railway serves three main routes. The main line runs from Fenchurch Street to Shoeburyness via Basildon over a distance of. A loop line between Barking and provides an alternative route via Rainham, Grays and Tilbury. Finally, there is a short branch line connecting the main line at Upminster with the loop line at Grays via. The line has a maximum speed limit of, although the and electric trains which run on it are capable of speeds of.
The line forms part of Network Rail's strategic route 6. It is classified as a London and South East commuter line. Passenger services form the Essex Thameside rail contract that is operated by c2c, which has been government-owned since July 2025..
History
Initial construction (1840–1858)
The first part of the line was built by the London and Blackwall Railway whose line from Blackwall opened in 1840 with a terminus at Minories and intermediate stations on the route at Shadwell and Stepney. The line had two independent tracks which were initially worked by cable haulage and it was not until 1848 that steam locomotives were deployed. The line was extended to the current London terminus at and operations commenced on 20 July 1841. A short-lived station opened on the route at Cannon Street Road in 1842 but this closed by 1848.The L&BR built an extension, known as the London and Blackwall Extension Railway, from Stepney station to a junction with the Eastern Counties Railway at Bow but there was a dispute and the junction was never completed. A short lived interchange station at Victoria Park & Bow was built at the junction but saw little traffic which led to a temporary closure of the line in September 1850. In January 1853 a new junction was built at Gas Factory Junction enabling the North London Railway to operate a new service into Fenchurch Street.
The construction of the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway was a joint enterprise between the LBR and ECR and was authorised by the London, Tilbury and Southend Extension Railway Act 1852 on 17 June 1852. The first section, built by Peto and Grissell, was opened between Junction on the Eastern Counties Railway main line and Tilbury, via and on 13 April 1854. The junction at Bow was finally completed and as part of the deal and this enabled the Eastern Counties Railway to also start operating into Fenchurch Street. At the same time a third track was opened on the Fenchurch Street approaches and the station expanded to four platforms.
LT&SR services initially ran from Fenchurch Street and Bishopsgate stations over existing lines to where they were coupled together and then via Forest Gate Junction to Tilbury for ferry connections to Gravesend.
Further extensions opened in late 1854 to Horndon, to Leigh-on-Sea on 1 July 1855 and finally to Southend on 1 March 1856.
In 1858 a more direct route from London to Barking was constructed through Bromley, and, connecting with the London and Blackwall Extension Railway a very short distance north east of Gas Factory Junction, and the service from Bishopsgate was withdrawn.
Route development (1875–1912)
Under the management of the LT&SR lessees from 1856 to 1875 little additional work was done to the LT&S lines. After some degree of independence was achieved in 1875 the LT&SR started to take steps to becoming an organisation that could stand on its own two feet. One of the first steps was building its own works/engine shed facility at Plaistow followed by ordering its first locomotives. A station at Upton Park was opened in 1877 largely funded by a developer.By the 1860s the railways in East Anglia were in financial trouble, and most were leased to the ECR; they wished to amalgamate formally, but could not obtain government agreement for this until 1862, when the Great Eastern Railway was formed by amalgamation.
In 1866 the LBR was taken over by the GER and all the stations between Fenchurch Street and Stepney became GER stations.
On 5 April 1880 the Limehouse Curve opened with a new junction called Salmon Lane Junction, located between Gas Factory Junction and Stepney it provided a link on to the London and Blackwall line, heading towards Blackwall. The GER ran a short-lived Palace Gates to Blackwall service via Stratford but this only lasted a year and there were some Backwall – Southend excursion trains run in 1890. Primary use of the line was to offer another goods route into the docks.
Under the management of civil engineer Arthur Lewis Stride, the line was extended from Southend to. There was also a direct line built between Barking and Pitsea, with new stations at Hornchurch and Upminster opening in 1884. An intermediate station at Dagenham opened in 1885 and the line extended east to East Horndon and later the same year to a re-sited Pitsea in 1886. Two years later a new station between East Horndon and Pitsea was opened at.
A new station was opened in 1886 at Tilbury Town railway station which was built in conjunction with the building of the rail connected docks next door.
A single-track branch was constructed between and and opened on 1 July 1892 with an intermediate station at Ockendon, The Upminster to Romford section was opened the following year.
The Tottenham and Forest Gate Railway was a joint venture between the Midland Railway and LT&SR and opened on 9 July 1894. This opened the way for through passenger trains from St Pancras to Southend although most trains terminated at Barking.
The approaches to Fenchurch Street were further improved in 1895 with the addition of a fourth track from Stepney to Fenchurch Street.
In 1902, the Whitechapel and Bow Railway was constructed as a joint venture with the District Railway, connecting the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway at Bromley with the District Railway at. The connection allowed through-running of District Railway trains from Central London to provide local services to Upminster from 2 June 1902.
A new station was provided at West Ham in 1901 which was built with four platforms in anticipation of quadrupling to East Ham. The track quadrupling progressed in stages between 1902 and 1905 on the south side of the existing lines which became the Local Lines whilst the newly laid southern lines were for longer distance services. The Local Lines were electrified allowing District line services to be extended to East Ham.
West of Barking, additional tracks and sidings were provided and the electrified tracks were extended to Barking and that section opened on 1 April 1908.
There were three new stations opened in the years before sale to the Midland Railway which were Dagenham Dock Thorpe Bay and for military use only in 1911.
Great Eastern Railway/Midland Railway (1912–1923)
One of, if not the biggest problem, the Midland Railway faced when it bought the LT&SR was the rising Southend traffic. Additionally traffic was rising on stations between Plaistow and Barking and there were plans to extend more trains out to Upminster. The Midland Railway saw extension of electrification as part of the answer and in 1913 a report by Merz & Mclellan suggested electrification and four tracking between Campbell Road Junction and Stepney station. West of Stepney a new junction at Ratcliff Square would see six lines as far as Cannon Street Road where the line would then drop underground and either run to Aldgate or via two subterranean additional platforms at Fenchurch Street and onto Bank. The lines would have been electrified and east of Bromley the Through Lines would also have been electrified and electric trains to Southend were envisaged.In parallel with this the GER was proposing improvements to Fenchurch Street and a plan was agreed that saw:
- The extension of Platform 1 to take longer GER North Woolwich trains
- The extension of Platform 5 and widening of platforms 4 and 5 to allow longer LTSR peak trains
- Re-arrangement of the approach tracks
During the war additional day tripper trains to Southend declined. Military supplies ran to Shoeburyness and Dagenham Dock and Tilbury was the arrival point for many American servicemen between 1917 and 1918. They were moved to camps all over the country by rail. After the end of the war Purfleet was a major demobilisation centre and rail was again used to disperse the former troops throughout the country. Records show that LT&SR locomotives worked as far as Wood Green on the Great Northern line from London Kings Cross.
The war slowed down the rise in traffic and house building at Southend was paused until the 1920s. The nature of traffic at Fenchurch Street was changing as passenger numbers fell on the GER Blackwall and North Woolwich services. As these services declined and were withdrawn, the LT&SR was allowed to run additional trains in their stead.
The Railways Act 1921 saw the Midland Railway become part of the London Midland & Scottish Railway whilst the GER became part of the London and North Eastern Railway.