page_title: Northern and Eastern Railway
section_title: From 1844
hierarchical_section_title: Northern and Eastern Railway / From 1844
caption_attribution_description: English: Broxbourne &amp; Hoddesdon Station, with train. View northward, towards Bishop's Stortford and Cambridge (and Hertford East); ex-Great Eastern London - Cambridge main line, junction of branch to Hertford East. The photograph hardly shows the station, which was newly rebuilt, but features one of the last steam-hauled Hertford - Liverpool St. locals (hauled by a Class N7 0-6-2T) leaving. Electric trains had begun to run from Liverpool St. to Hertford and Bishop's Stortford three days before on 14 November. Note that there are three more steam locomotives in the sidings to the right.
context_page_description: The Northern & Eastern Railway was an early British railway company, that planned to build a line from London to York. Its ambition was cut successively back, and it only constructed from Stratford, London to Bishop's Stortford and Hertford. It was always short of money, and it got access to London over the Eastern Counties Railway. It was built at the track gauge of five feet, but it converted to standard gauge in 1844.
  Its main line opened progressively from 1840 to 1842. It was worked by the neighbouring Eastern Counties Railway, and it leased its network to that company in from the beginning of 1844 for 999 years. From that time it was a financial company only, it amalgamated with the Great Eastern Railway in 1902.
  The entire network is still in use and electrified, and part of the original main line now forms a section of the main line between London and Cambridge.
context_section_description: From the first day of 1844, the Northern and Eastern Railway was simply a financial shell company, receiving lease charges from the Eastern Counties Railway but not operating any railway. The N&ER network extended from Stratford to Bishop's Stortford and from Broxbourne to Hertford, and it became the stem of the important main line to Cambridge, finished by the Eastern Counties Railway. The approach to London was later altered to run through Hackney Downs, but the Stratford to Copper Mill Junction (Tottenham Hale) section was retained, and became a key link for goods traffic approaching Temple Mills Yard.
  In 1849 the Eastern Counties Railway opened a branch line from Angel Road to Enfield.
  The Eastern Counties Railway and certain other companies in East Anglia amalgamated to form the Great Eastern Railway in 1862. The GER adopted a policy of running frequent passenger services on the London suburban lines: in 1864 there were 29 departures for the Broxbourne line. Shoreditch station had been renamed Bishopsgate, but it was obviously inadequate for the Romford line traffic and the Broxbourne line, and the decision was taken to extend westwards: Liverpool Street station was opened in 1871.
  In 1872 a new shorter route towards Broxbourne was opened, from Bethnal Green, near Liverpool Street, via Hackney Downs to Copper Mill Junction, near Tottenham (Hale) station. In time this became the dominant route from London. In 1891 the Churchbury Loop was opened, from Bury Street Junction, to Cheshunt. The area was undeveloped and the sparse train service failed to encourage residential travel. It closed to ordinary passenger trains in 1909.
  The N&ER line never became the primary route from London to York, but the Great Eastern Railway eventually (from 1882) participated in a joint railway, the Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Railway, which gave it access to Doncaster, and by means of running powers to York. A significant flow of coal ran south from Yorkshire to London, and for a while an express passenger train, the Cathedrals Express, ran over the route. The cathedrals were Ely, Peterborough and Lincoln, and the service ran from 1892 to 1918.
caption: Broxbourne station in 1960
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