Upton Park tube station

Upton Park is a London Underground station on Green Street in the Upton Park area of Newham, East London. It lies between Plaistow to the west and East Ham to the east on the District and Hammersmith & City lines. The station opened in 1877 as an infill stop on the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway route from Fenchurch Street to Barking. An Edwardian brick building was added in 1905 when electric District Railway services began using extra tracks. The Metropolitan line started serving the station in 1936, and the older Fenchurch Street–Southend platforms were closed in 1962. The station’s history reflects changes in London’s rail network. It was the first on the line designed by a property developer, Read, who also built the nearby housing estate. By 1921 it carried 2.9 million passengers a year, making it the second busiest on the London, Tilbury and Southend line. The District line took over most services by 1912, and peak-hour trains reached ten per hour by 1938. After nationalisation in 1948, ownership passed to British Railways before returning to London Underground in 1969. Today the station has two operational platforms, one for eastbound and one for westbound trains. The 1902 brick building survives above the tracks, while the closed platforms from the Fenchurch Street–Southend line lie to the south. The westbound platform still shows signs of its original canopy marked ‘LTSR’. Trains run every few minutes to central London, Upminster and Barking, with journeys taking as little as five minutes to Barking or eighteen minutes to Tower Hill.