UPDATE: Network Rail have informed me that they expect the opening to be 3rd June – now also confirmed by the ORR, and details below updated with new times and dates.

Meridian Water, a brand new station for North London opens next Monday, and at the same time, a nearby station will close.

Net gain = 0 stations.

Angel Road is one of the quietest stations in London, but its replacement a short walk away is expected to be exceptionally busy… when a massive new housing estate is completed.

At it’s peak, the new station is expected to handle 4 million passengers per year — a far cry from sleepy Angel Road’s 33,000 passengers last year.

Although Angel Road legally closes on Sunday, the station is closed at weekends, so the actual last trains will be on Friday evening. Also, its replacement at Meridian Water legally opens on Sunday, but will in fact be closed on Sundays until the houses are built, so the real first trains will be on Monday morning.

Simples!

The last train from Angel Road Station

Angel Road is looking as abandoned as it ever has, but there are now a few small signs warning that the station is due for closure. Those are in themselves sufficiently rare documents that I am surprised they haven’t been swiped by railway collectors.

Other than the official notices, there are no other notices in more customer friendly language to announce in BIG LETTERS that the station is closing. Meridian Water station maybe just a few yards away, but people will still manage to be oblivious to the closure, until they arrive on Monday expecting to catch a train.

The final trains to call at Angel Road will be on Friday 31st May at 7:47pm for Bishops Stortford, and the 7:52pm for Stratford.

You could take a risk of catching the last train out of London, arriving at 7:47pm and run across the footbridge to get the last train back into London a few minutes later. But miss the last train, and it’s a long walk home.

Wiser heads — if such a phrase applies to people determined to ride the last train — would be best to catch the 6:47pm from Stratford to arrive at Angel Road for 7:03pm, and then take a wander around the industrial wastes of the local amenities.

Do tap in and out during the final week, so we can really mess up their usage statistics for the station.

Also, if you fancy, walk to the very far end of the platforms, and you can see just how exceptionally close the Meridian Water station platforms are. The entrances are a decent walk from each other, but the platforms almost meet up.

The first trains to Meridian Water Station

There’s still a lot of work going on at Meridian Water, but the station looks, from the outside at least, as if it is close to being ready to accept passengers.

It’s deceptively built station, as there’s a lot more of it underground. Thanks to the soft soil in the area, the piles for the station are deep, as are the unusually deep piles for the lightweight platforms.

(c) Acanthus Architects LW

The platforms are completed though, and most of the signs now uncovered. Workmen were still on site at the weekend, looking like they were clearing out the decorating equipment ready for passengers to use the space.

In the distance, can be seen the tall towers of Docklands, the likely destination for many of the city workers will be snapping up the blocks of flats when they are built next door.

Baring any Elizabethan sized problems, this bit of railway infrastructure looks to be on time.

Incidentally, the location for the station shown on Google Maps is wrong, it’s further north, opposite the Tesco Extra supermarket.

The first trains to the shiny new Meridian Water station on 3rd June will be the 5:57am arrival from Hertford East, the 6:13am arrival from Bishops Stortford, and the 6:19am from London Liverpool Street.

So, this coming weekend Angel Road loses a station and Meridian Water gains one. But there will always be a train at Angel Road, at the playground next to the station.

Addendum: I’ve asked Greater Anglia twice if they are planning anything for the opening, but they’ve not replied to my enquiries.

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15 comments
  1. ChrisC says:

    Is there a reason why they built a new station rather than just refurbishing the old one since they are so close together?

    Was it the housing developer who funded it and so decided the location?

  2. GT says:

    Chris C
    The old station had really terrible access, down a long narrow, obscure path. The new one has much better availability of access.
    One thing bothers me though … I think we were promised a 1/4-hourly service, but the National Rail timetable still shows the old half-hourly service.
    Does anyone know any different to this please?

    • Dan Coleman says:

      The 3rd tracking programme in the Lea Valley corridor is not yet complete and there are still a few more things to construct before 4tph can be offered. Also, although this new station is in a much better location, passenger numbers are not expected to rise dramatically until the housing project is complete.

  3. Rog Laker says:

    GT – see the updates in Network Rail’s ‘media’ Web pages. Additional half-hourly all-day/every day service from September.
    Ian – PLEASE avoid insertion of rogue apostrophes ie “At it’s peak”. ONLY insert when an abbreviation of “it is”.

  4. JP says:

    I love the whimsy of the suggestion to banjax the Angel Road railway station passenger numbers in its last week. Good on ya!
    The construction of the new facility and the scrapping of the old, mere metres down the line, may well be one of the last examples given the growth of green issues. All those piles!
    Talking of which, perfecting punctuation is an itch I find nigh~on impossible not to scratch, but if I may say, I’ve yet to come across an example that itself comes across as anything other than punctilious (including of course this very one here.)
    Finally what did William, bishop of London do such that his own apostrophe was ignored in Bishop’s Stortford?
    Now off to untwist my knickers…

  5. James Miller says:

    It certainly looks like the passenger figures for Meridian Water will be good in June, as there’s a music festival in the area on June 7-8 called Field Day.

    https://anonw.com/2019/04/17/former-gasworks-turning-into-entertainment-venue/

    At present only the Angel Road trains show up on the National Rail timetable. Will the two tph from Stratford stop all day, as this would help me to get to IKEA.

    I can see the music venue needing 24 hr service on Friday and Saturday. So will the four tph shuttle run to the same times as the Night Tube and the Night Overground?

    • James Miller says:

      It appears the shuttle seems to start on Friday June 8th.

      But it has a curious timetable, in that it runs a few minutes after the Bishop Stortford train. It runs from Platform 12 at Stratford, with the Bishops Stortford train running from 11.

      Will the shuttle go round the High Meads Loop?

      It looks to me, that Greater Anglia could be using the Field Day Festival to test out the timetable.

      After all, Thameslink have shown how big timetable changes can cause chaos.

  6. Melvyn says:

    So will all those who took part in last train at Angel Road be back this week …!

  7. Dave Cockle says:

    National Rail Enquiries are not showing Meridian Water open on Tuesday 28th May. A NRE journey from Meridian water to Tottenham Hale on 28/5 instructs one to walk from Meridian Water to Angel Road to catch a train to Tottenham Hale.

  8. Dave Cockle says:

    National Rail Enquiries are not showing Meridian Water as open on Tuesday 28th May. A NRE journey from Meridian water to Tottenham Hale on 28/5 instructs one to walk from Meridian Water to Angel Road to catch a train to Tottenham Hale.

  9. Dave Cockle says:

    Greater Anglia now say an opening date of Monday 3rd of June 2019.

  10. Graham Larkbey says:

    The whole changeover has been immensely confused and confusing. Closure was twice postponed at the last minute and it was virtually impossible to get definite info from Greater Anglia or Network Rail. Drivers were clearly confused too – on 24 May our driver stopped at Angel Road AND Meridian Water (and some people got off there!). On the last day Angel Road was festooned with posters urging NR to move its now-redundant footbridge to Pilning, whose own footbridge was controversially demolished in 2016 to make way for overhead wires, since when its already-skeletal service has been reduced to one-direction-only. For further details see http://www.pilningstation.uk

  11. Cathleen Summers says:

    The train is running now u saw it driving past just wondering the stations are his train stops at

  12. Geoff Demprunt (LARF) says:

    This Line needs to be twin tracked expeditiously. A further Station added at Jarrow Road N17 or Markfield Par N15.

    People on the North London Line are being left behind because their 30 minute Journey Stratford to Gospel Oak or 36 minutes, to West Hampstead, is oversubscribed and Capacity is almost at its limit.

    8 mins Statford to Markfield (Wallis) a 2 min connection and 15 mins to Gospel Oak, or 23 mins to West Hampstead, is quicker for Passengers travelling beyond Gospel Oak.

    2 Trains per hour, Walthamstow Queens Road to Willesden Low Level, bypassing or stopping at a 4 Platform or realigned Gospel Oak

    and

    2 Trains per hour, Walthamstow Queens Road via Carlton Road Junction and West Hampstead,to Brent Cross West and on to Acton and Hounslow via the Dudding Hill Line, would significantly enhance Capacity, until Crossrail 2 and those Funds could be diverted now.

    £30 million for a new Station (* Lea Bridge as a guide) and £36 million for 12 new Trains (Bombardier Contract Option) would be a good Budget

    Let’s not wait for the inevitable Act Now, Passengers are Paying and require a Service.

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