Hainault Loop
[2] In 1923, the GER was "grouped" into the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER), who provided passenger services until December 1947.
After this date, the route was electrified for London Underground services from both the Woodford and Leytonstone directions (the latter via a pair of new tube tunnels) and the link to Ilford (and, eventually, Seven Kings) closed on the Central line, having been served by Tube trains since 1948 (Woodford and Newbury Park stations being served by December 1947).
The GER built the line to foster suburban growth in Edwardian Ilford and Chigwell; the results were mixed.
Most of the route transferred to the Central line of the London Transport Executive (LTE) during 1947 and 1948 as part of the war-delayed New Works Programme.
A triangular junction at the southern end gave access to the main line, the site now occupied by Ilford carriage sheds and a maintenance depot run by Bombardier.
Further east, the embankment was bisected by the London end of the M11 motorway in 1977,[9] a concrete bridge carrying the line over the road.
Works for accessibility to each of the platforms at Roding Valley were completed in 2009; hitherto there were a couple of steps to street level.
East of here it turns southeast along Perth Road, then east to pass beneath Ley Street to the alignment of Wards Road, before curving northwards beneath Glebelands Avenue to reach the surface just south of Newbury Park, with the tracks passing to either side of the trackbed of the former line to Ilford: this explains the relatively long tunnel between Gants Hill and Newbury Park.
[13] Redbridge is the shallowest "deep-level" station on the Underground, 26 feet (7.9 m) below street level,[14] necessitating just a short of flight of stairs for entry.
Due to bomb damage to Grange Hill in 1944,[18] and expansion of the A12 Eastern Avenue at Newbury Park in 1956,[19] the original station buildings were demolished.
[20] Roding Valley had rather basic buildings on opening, with a wooden shelter on the Woodford-bound side, replaced by more substantial structures when transferred to the Central line.
The route was abandoned when the connecting curve to Seven Kings West Junction was lifted in 1956, the site of which is occupied by the depot's "New Shed", opened in 1959.
The recent construction of residential blocks and the long-standing and ongoing use of the alignment for allotment gardens mean that there can be no re-instatement of the line between Ilford and Newbury Park.
