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The railways were already well established in the Thurrock area by 1900 - but this
website starts in 1970, when British Rail were the operator of the day. British Rail
was created via the Transport Act 1947 and came into being on the 1st January 1948.
The railway through Thurrock became part of what was known as the LTS or London,
Tilbury & Southend railway. The London terminus is at Fenchurch Street, with the
other end actually being Shoeburyness. The line from the Southend/Shoeburyness
direction comes to Thurrock from Pitsea, with the first station being Stanford-Le
-Hope; then East Tilbury. Between Stanford & East Tilbury, there’s a spur off to
what is known as Thameshaven - this spur carries freight traffic only (ie, it’s not
a passenger train route. There used to be stations at Low Street and Tilbury
Riverside (closed 1992). The next station is Tilbury Town, then it’s onto Grays.
after Grays, the line splits with the main line going onto Purfleet - and out of
Thurrock to Rainham (Essex), then on further to London Fenchurch Street. The
other route is a single line calling at Chafford Hundred (opened 1995) and Ockendon
where there is a passing loop. The single line then continues towards Upminster
and onwards to London Fenchurch Street. There is much industry to West of
Thurrock, and the railway played a large part with many sidings between Grays
and Purfleet. Some of those sidings still exist today.
Another recent development in the West of Thurrock is the arrival of the 2nd stage
of the high speed rail link (2007) for Eurostar services between London and France.
Eurostar merely passes through Thurrock - coming out of a tunnel under the river
Thames, crossing between the Dartford tunnel & bridge roadways, then skirting
around the town of Purfleet. It then runs alongside the c2c line towards Rainham.
There is one other rail station in Thurrock that isn’t directly connected to any of the
others - West Horndon. The railway line itself actually forms part of the boundary
between the boroughs of Thurrock & Brentwood, so it only just qualifies for inclusion
on this website! West Horndon is on what is known as ‘the main line’, with the next
station towards London being Upminster, and in the Southend direction it’s Laindon.
I don’t actually have much information with regard to British Rail in Thurrock in the
early days, but certainly from 1986 the railway through Thurrock became part of
British Rail’s new Network Southeast area. A chronic lack of investment in the line
at this time saw the line labeled the ‘misery line’ with failures of both rolling stock
and infrastructure occurring often.
In 1995 the line saw the start of very real investment when the whole signalling
system was renewed. Everything from points, cables, crossings and the signals
themselves were renewed. A new integrated signal & control centre for the line
was built at Upminster. Everything was in place and control of the Thurrock area
went to Upminster in August 1996.
1996 also saw the LTS line privatised, going to a company called PRISM Rail, with
ownership of all the infrastructure going to a company called Railtrack. 2000 saw
PRISM taken over by National Express (the well known long distance coach operator)
and in 2002 National Express changed the company name to c2c. The line was now
shaking off it’s misery line tag and the birth of Network Rail (also in 2002) to succeed
Railtrack as infrastructure owner along with new rolling stock in the shape of 74
class 357 trains (2003) has finally seen a turnaround in the lines fortunes.
The line now regularly features at the top of league tables for punctuality and
reliability, and has won many awards for it’s ever improving service.
Thurrock bus operators have a long history of being associated with the Fenchurch
Street to Southend line - Harris Bus and Town & Country provided rail replacement
services.....as dose the current Thurrock operator Ensign Bus!
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