London’s second quietest train station is set to close in May

Angel Road, London’s second quietest train station is set to close in May, the Department for Transport has announced. With just over 33,000 passengers in 2017/18, it’s beaten to the bottom spot only by South Greenford station’s 26,500 passengers.

The reason for the closure is not due to the lack of passengers, but in fact the exact opposite, the area is about to get considerably busier, and a replacement station is being built nearby, to be known as Meridian Water.

This new station will serve a large housing estate for some 10,000 new flats that’s being built nearby, and Angel Road was both too small too shabby, and too far from the housing estate to be of much use.

(c) Meridian Water

The new station, approximately 580 yards to the south will have three platforms (with space for a 4th), and is being be delivered as part of the Lee Valley Rail Programme upgrade of the railway between Stratford and the new station. This is an integrated programme of works that will provide more capacity for suburban services on the West Anglia Main Line, as well as improvements at Tottenham Hale and Northumberland Park stations.

The new Meridian Water station also includes passive provision for further capacity enhancement schemes in the future, including Crossrail 2.

At it’s peak, the new station is expected to handle 4 million passengers per year — a far cry from sleepy Angel Road’s 33,000 passengers last year.

As the new station is nearly completed, the Department for Transport has now issued the legal notice to close Angel Road “when the new station is opened, on or after 19 May 2019”.

(c) Network Rail

That date happens to be the same as the national timetable switch, which will either be painless, or a total disaster. Passenger train services that currently stop at Angel Road station will be simply timetabled to stop at the new Meridian Water station.

Greater Anglia, who run the trains through the station have already programmed Meridian Water station into their website, although obviously, at the moment, it’s a rather empty page.

However, on the 18th May, expect loads of train geeks to make what will for many of them be their first ever visit to Angel Road for it’s final day as a train station. And boy is that going to skew the annual visitor statistics for the year ahead.

from IanVisits http://bit.ly/2GtYZ0V