Highams Park Station (HIP)

Address: The Avenue, Chingford, London E4 9LA
Opened: 17 November 1873
Station Code: HIP
Fare Zone: 4

London Overground Line(s) Served:

Lea Valley Lines (Chingford Branch)

Service Pattern(s):

Four trains per hour to London Liverpool Street
Four trains per hour to Chingford

Station History

The station opened on 17 November 1893 by the Great Eastern Railway as ‘Hale End’, although the station was located around 3/4 mile from the hamlet of the same name. This, coupled with the Great Eastern Railway‘s desire to increase ridership on the line, led to the station being renamed ‘Highams Park & Hale End’ in 1894.

The hoped-for increase in passenger traffic on the line did not materialise, and only the local dairyman kept traffic flowing by sending his produce up and down the line. In fact, it was not until the arrival of plastics manufacturer The British Xylonite Company in 1894 that the population of the area, and the passenger and goods traffic to and from the station, increased to the originally desired level.

Following the discovery that the original station buildings were not fit for purpose, they were demolished in 1900 with the current station building, designed by renowned GER architect Neville Ashbee constructed and opened in 1903.

With the grouping of the railways in 1923, the line and its stations came under the management of the London & North Eastern Railway, and it was under this management that a signal box and level crossing was constructed at the station in 1925, before colour light signalling was brought in to replace the existing semaphores in 1935.

Nationalisation in 1948 saw a change of management to the new British Railways (Eastern Region) and this company introduced the 1955 Modernisation Plan, which would see the Chingford line and its stations electrified, with this being achieved in the late 1950s, although electric train services did not commence until 12 November 1960.

Following the electrification, and the downturn in goods traffic, the station sidings were taken out of use and lifted in 1965.

With sectorisation of the railways in 1986, Highams Park became part of Network Southeast. This continued until the Railways Act 1993 saw operations transferred to West Anglia Great Northern in January 1997, before further changes saw the franchise awarded to National Express in 2004.

The final changes of management regarding the Lea Valley lines happened in October 2012 and May 2015 with Abellio Greater Anglia taking the reins before Arriva Rail London assumed operations under the London Overground banner.