Emerson Park is a London Overground station serving the Emerson Park neighbourhood in Hornchurch in the London Borough of Havering, east London. The station is on the Romford to Upminster Line and is the only intermediate station on that single-track line, from. The station was opened as Emerson Park Halt in 1909 by the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway on a branch line which had connected Romford with and since 1893. The station has been managed by London Overground since 2015, which also operates the train services. Emerson Park has no station buildings other than a canopy over the single platform. It has relatively low but fast-growing patronage for a suburban railway station, with approximately 350,000 passenger entries/exits in 2018/19, compared to 127,000 five years prior and just 59,000 ten years prior: a 600% increase over ten years.
History
The Romford to Upminster Line was constructed in 1893 as a branch of the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway. Property development in the immediate area and in 1908 the proposed new railway station in nearby Gidea Park, which opened in 1910 on the Great Eastern Railway, prompted the LTSR to construct a station on their branch. The station was opened on 1 October 1909 as Emerson Park Halt on the branch line from Romford to Grays via Upminster, where it connected with the main line from London Fenchurch Street. A run-round loop was constructed 500 yards to the west to enable extra trains to run between Emerson Park and Upminster. When push-pull working began in 1934 the loop was no longer needed and taken out in. Originally named Emerson Park Halt, and shown in some timetables and on some signage throughout its history as Emerson Park & Great Nelmes, the station name was later simplified to Emerson Park, but the date of this change is not recorded. Even though the station has long been called Emerson Park, one platform sign installed by National Express East Anglia in the late 2000s still read: "Welcome to Emerson Park Halt".
Design
The station consists of a side platform located to the north of the single track. Access to the street is provided by a ramp. The station is of basic design and has no buildings other than a canopy covering part of the platform. There are Oyster card validators and a ticket vending machine. Digital display boards and voice announcements provide departure information.
Services
The station is in London fare zone 6. Service from the station is two trains per hour to Upminster and two per hour to Romford. The timetabled journey time to Upminster is five minutes and to Romford is four minutes. In 2015 the station transferred from Abellio Greater Anglia operation to London Overground. Since then, services run Monday to Saturday between approximately 6:15 am and 10 pm, and on Sundays from approximately 8:45 am to 8 pm. Oyster pay as you go has been available at the station since 2010. The numbers of passenger entries and exits at the station have been recorded as follows: Note: due to a change in methodology of counting entries/exits, the change from 2014/15 to 2015/16 may be overstated.
Connections
routes 165, 256 and 370 serve the station. It is one of three stations in the Hornchurch area, all some distance from the town centre; the others are Hornchurch and Upminster Bridge, both on the London Underground's District line.
