Bid to get Bridge back on the rails

11:54am Thursday 21st July 2005

TRANSPORT campaigners visited the closed Lea Bridge station to mark its 20th anniversary.

On July 5, 1985, the train service from Stratford stopped at the station for the last time.

To mark the occasion, three members of the council's transport liaison consultative group set foot on the platform, off Lea Bridge Road, Leyton, once again.

They are fighting for the station to re-open.

A regular train service will start in December linking Stratford with Tottenham Hale, Stansted Airport and Hertford East and run through Lea Bridge, but trains will not stop there.

Cllr Eric Sizer, chairman of the consultative group, visited the station with Peter Woodrow of the Chingford Line Users' Association and pictures of the area were taken by Roger Gillham, from the association.

The station is heavily overgrown but Network Rail provided access and staff to help keep the party safe.

After visiting the station, the party also looked at the track bed of the Hall Farm Curve, which used to link Lea Bridge and St James Street stations.

Campaigners are actively working to get Lea Bridge station open, so that people living in Leyton can make the most of new services running because of the Stratford City development and the 2012 Olympic Games.

They are also campaigning to get the track over Hall Farm Curve relaid in a bid to get a direct train service between Chingford, Walthamstow and Stratford.