It is 8 miles 46 chains (13.8 km) down the line from London Liverpool Street and is situated between Ilford and Goodmayes.

Although they wished to amalgamate formally, they could not obtain government agreement for this until 1862, when the Great Eastern Railway (GER) was formed.

The GER realised that the two track main line was not enough to cope with the new suburban and longer distance traffic, and still provide a reliable service for the minor stations.

The answer was a programme of quadrupling (providing two additional tracks) along the route and this work took place in phases.

The southern part of the triangle diverged at Ilford Carriage Sidings Junction and was used by regular passenger services.

Plans were drawn up in the 1930s to electrify the suburban lines from Liverpool Street to Shenfield at 1,500 V DC and work was started on implementing this.

The electrification scheme and its associated works were finished and, from February 1949, the Class 306 EMUs operated the service to steam timings with an accelerated all-electric schedule being introduced in September 1949.

[11] The northern leg of the triangular junction was closed on 17 March 1956 and the site was then used for a further extension of Ilford depot.

An express train from Harwich Parkeston Quay to London passed a signal at danger and ran into the rear of a Southend-London stopping service at "fairly low speed".

A Ministry of Transport report on the incident stated that the express train's driver "cannot be excused entirely from responsibility" given his passing of the red signal.

The station is also served by a single early morning Greater Anglia service from Colchester to London Liverpool Street.

To facilitate staff access to Ilford depot, there is an early-morning service operated by Greater Anglia from Colchester to Liverpool Street that calls at Seven Kings.