Northern and Eastern Railway
Its ambition was cut successively back, and it was only constructed from Stratford, east of London, to the towns of Bishop's Stortford and Hertford.
A number of schemes were put forward for connecting London and York, and some of these were planned to pass through Cambridge.
[2] Meanwhile, a public meeting was held at Cambridge Town Hall on 23 January 1836, at which it was decided to support a route surveyed by James Walker.
4. c. ciii), but the route was cut back to run from London to Cambridge only; it received royal assent on 4 July 1836.
This was agreed to, and Parliament ratified the arrangement, so the N&ER's planned line was rerouted south of Tottenham to join the ECR at Stratford.
c. lii), which received royal assent on 4 June 1840; the line beyond Bishop's Stortford to Cambridge was abandoned, and the share capital was reduced to £720,000.
[5] On 15 September 1840 the N&ER started operation between the ECR's Stratford station and Broxbourne, a distance of about 15 miles (24 km).
[2][10][8] A criticism of the route of the N&ER was that the line followed the valley of the River Lea, while nearly all of the settlements were on higher ground, and were some distance from their respective stations.
[11] The northernmost extent of the line was at Bishop's Stortford, opened before the end of 1843, when the N&ER ceased to control its own network.
However a special arrangement was made to receive excursion trains at Hockerill, 1⁄2 mile (0.8 km) or so north of Bishop's Stortford station.
An advertisement in The Times in October 1843 read: Newmarket Houghton Meeting—A special train, consisting of first-class carriages only, of the Northern and Eastern Railway, stopping only at Tottenham and Broxbourne, will leave the London Terminus, Shoreditch, for Hockerill, Bishop's Stortford, on Monday, 23d inst., at half-past-seven a.m., and return from Hockerill at half-past nine o'clock at night, thereby enabling persons attending Newmarket to see the whole of the races and return to London the same evening.
Ample accommodation may be had at Hockerill should parties prefer to send their private horses and carriages the day before to wait the arrival of the trains.
Extra post horses and carriages will be in attendance to convey persons forward, and may be ordered to be in readiness by sending a letter to Messrs. Edwards and Stokes of Hockerill.
Places may be secured [to travel] by coaches meeting the train to Newmarket and back, at the Golden Cross, Charing-cross.
The ECR was to pay the N&ER 5% annually on the £970,000 capital cost of building the line, and profits would be apportioned.
The physical conversion was undertaken between 5 September and 7 October 1844; it was achieved without interruption to the running of trains, except on the Hertford branch.
[5] From the first day of 1844, the N&ER was simply a financial shell company, receiving lease charges from the ECR but not having any rail operations of its own.
[1] The ECR and certain other companies in the east of England amalgamated to form the Great Eastern Railway (GER) in 1862.
[1] In 1872 a new shorter route towards Broxbourne was opened, from Bethnal Green, near Liverpool Street, via Hackney Downs to Copper Mill Junction, south of Tottenham Hale station.
The dominant traffic is on the section between Copper Mill Junction and Bishop's Stortford, part of the route from London Liverpool Street station to Cambridge and Stansted Airport.
The intermediate stations already opened to the public are at the Lea Bridge Road, Tottenham, Edmonton, Enfield-Highway and Ponder’s End, Waltham Cross, and Broxbourne.
One of the advantages of this mode of construction is, that the carriages are less likely to run off the line, or to give way by reason of an axle breaking on the journey."
