Blakehall Station

[Momochi]

Blakehall (or Blake Hall) Station, Essex
London Underground Central Line, Epping-Ongar extension.

Being the least used station in the tube network at the time, with as little as just 6 passengers per day.

Closed in 1981, before the Ongar extension itself being closed in the mid 90's. The station buildings were later redevloped as part of the private residential properties.

Epping Ongar Railway is now a heritage railway running steam engines and old train / tube carriages during weekends in summer months, with museums at North Weald and Ongar stations also connected by heritage buses.

 

[Tell]

I was going to say does it still run... the "bendy road" between Chelmsford and Epping. I knew it well. I never travelled on the extension line beyond Epping before it was closed. You got the former secret nuclear bunker that you can go round up there accessed by the fake cottage and the mast that proudly sits in the countryside part of the nuclear watch communications hub. Thatcher closed them all down. Ongar is noteworthy for the Waitrose as I recall with the fancy car pricing car park . Take a ticket or something. Nearly had me once.

I've been amused of recent by the new breed of trainspotters. I come from a third generation of railway workers although I didnt take up the call. At University some students were nuts about trains. The new breed getting a tidy income from their hobby are the Youtubers. Now they ride the lines, get off at the stations, walk about. Interview folk. Get home remix and add music and upload to YouTube. Gone are the days of standing at the end of platforms recording train numbers.

Great grandfather was a wheel right. Have his qualification certificate of making cart wheels (giant certificate). Circa 1880 or so, may be before. Left Olney for the calling of the LMS or whatever it was called at the time, repairing stage coaches passing through Olney was old hat, making trains in Wolverton was the thing. Wolverton works employing 5,000 people in it's heyday if not more.

I did actually spot some of SeatCupras board photos of the walls and building of the works. Seat HQ in MK had loaned out a car. The good people of the board had taken it to Wolverton and got those back drop moody pictures of the car against the old Wolverton works brick buildings. @Syphon confirmed when I said recognise the backdrop.

 

[Momochi]

I was going to say does it still run... the "bendy road" between Chelmsford and Epping. I knew it well. I never travelled on the extension line beyond Epping before it was closed. You got the former secret nuclear bunker that you can go round up there accessed by the fake cottage and the mast that proudly sits in the countryside part of the nuclear watch communications hub. Thatcher closed them all down. Ongar is noteworthy for the Waitrose as I recall with the fancy car pricing car park . Take a ticket or something. Nearly had me once.

I've been amused of recent by the new breed of trainspotters. I come from a third generation of railway workers although I didnt take up the call. At University some students were nuts about trains. The new breed getting a tidy income from their hobby are the Youtubers. Now they ride the lines, get off at the stations, walk about. Interview folk. Get home remix and add music and upload to YouTube. Gone are the days of standing at the end of platforms recording train numbers.

Great grandfather was a wheel right. Have his qualification certificate of making cart wheels (giant certificate). Circa 1880 or so, may be before. Left Olney for the calling of the LMS or whatever it was called at the time, repairing stage coaches passing through Olney was old hat, making trains in Wolverton was the thing. Wolverton works employing 5,000 people in it's heyday if not more.

I did actually spot some of SeatCupras board photos of the walls and building of the works. Seat HQ in MK had loaned out a car. The good people of the board had taken it to Wolverton and got those back drop moody pictures of the car against the old Wolverton works brick buildings. @Syphon confirmed when I said recognise the backdrop.

The bendy road - A414 perhaps? My aunt used to drive me from Chelmsford to Loughton every Saturday morning, a long long time ago.

And Ongar.... That was my very first time walking around the town, parked at the Sainsbury's carpark (spent £5 for 1hr free parking). Many EVs, from Mercedes to MGs. Also a suspicious couple, each having their own vehicle parked at the far end, opposite of mine, the lady soon got in the man's car for some considerable time, later both went to the lady's car, a long goodbye kiss with the lady in the driver's seat and the man standing beside with door opened, before the lady drove off..... Obviously I had become opaque to them behind the windscreen in my own car while having my meal deal from the supermarket

 

[Tell]

Would be Sainsbury's. One night on the bendy road a caravan was left skewed over the road in the dark detached... its how they get rid of them in Essex. Detach and drive away. May have been travellers.

I never did the preserved railway line but did do Kelvedon:

https://nuclearessex.com/nuclear-bunker/

I got the collection of OS maps. When the nuclear responce planner left he gave us the maps. Nothing special old OS series. Public bodies had to employ a nuclear planner an ex military man.

 

[tracktoy]

I went to school in Ongar (well I say went I was supposed to go) and the Essex boys I knew would strip the good stuff (if there was any) and burn the rest.

 

[Momochi]

Would be Sainsbury's. One night on the bendy road a caravan was left skewed over the road in the dark detached... its how they get rid of them in Essex. Detach and drive away. May have been travellers.

I never did the preserved railway line but did do Kelvedon:

https://nuclearessex.com/nuclear-bunker/

I got the collection of OS maps. When the nuclear responce planner left he gave us the maps. Nothing special old OS series. Public bodies had to employ a nuclear planner an ex military man.

I still kept an old map of Chelmsford dated back to the early 90's somewhere at my mum's flat, can't remember if it also covers Epping/Ongar.

 

[Tell]

I still kept an old map of Chelmsford dated back to the early 90's somewhere at my mum's flat, can't remember if it also covers Epping/Ongar.

Use to be old out of copyright OS maps on a website somewhere. I've got an original one mile to the inch of North Buck without the new city on it. Chelmsford would be unrecognised now as mass building in Essex. I hear moans from Essex people that they are building all these new houses but not new roads, so the good people of Essex stand in traffic jams with their cars. Milton Keynes is being built out as well. Epping Forest has planning controls on it with the City of London conservators. People get spanked if they try anything in the forest. The secret is to move to a conservatory area, National Park etc.