Visitors to London are often impressed by its internal public transport links, whether that’s bus, tube, rail, tram, DLR, or overground.
The vast network ferries around the millions of people who call the city home, as well as the countless tourists who explore the capital every day.
London not only serves domestic travel but that further afield, too, all around the UK and even to continental Europe.
Transport for London (TfL) is similarly expanding its borders, with tube trains now travelling as far as Reading — though this sort of travel is nothing new.
History shows us that the London Underground system has long served the fringes of the city, including as far east as Essex, where in the early 20th century tube trains took holiday-goers to one particular seaside destination.
The London Underground has always been tied up with Essex given how close the county is to the capital.
One of the oldest lines, the Central Line, runs as far as Epping, Chigwell and Buckhurst Hill, and the Elizabeth Line today goes all the way to Brentwood and Shenfield.
In the early 1900s, TfL didn’t exist, and London’s train companies competed with each other for customers, some eventually running services as far as Shoeburyness on Essex’s coast.
The service ran on a line almost identical to what is today known as the c2c Rail line and would take tourists to Southend-on-Sea in the days when the seaside town was a booming hotspot.
When the underground first opened in 1863, the Metropolitan Line could only take passengers so far east into Essex before they would have to alight and take a connection.
By 1910, new contenders such as the District Line were hoping to take things further into Essex. Instead of leaving customers to hop off the tube and onto a different train, they wanted to take the underground as far as Southend-on-Sea.
Coming to an agreement with the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LTSR), they were eventually given the green light to run their own trains on the Southend-bound lines.
In return, the LTSR was able to use the District’s own lines in the east of London between Whitechapel and Bow, instead of ending at the more restrictive London Fenchurch Street.
This then allowed the District Railway to run tube trains — along what is today known as the District line — all the way to the seaside gem of Shoeburyness.
Trains started at Ealing Broadway, ran through London, and were non-stop between Barking and Leigh-on-Sea before ending at the seaside.
Extremely popular among day trippers, the train route proved more convenient than the alternative ferry service.
The service ran from 1910 for 29 years until it was officially shut down in 1939.
Why would such a popular endeavour shut down? Well, the answer to that isn’t entirely clear, but it could have something to do with the District Railway’s takeover in 1933.
In return, the LTSR was able to use the District’s own lines in the east of London between Whitechapel and Bow, instead of ending at the more restrictive London Fenchurch Street teminus.
That saw London Transport — which would later become TfL — swallow up the privately owned District Railway and make vast changes to the way it looked and worked.
The onset of World War 2 also saw a considerable decline in the number of people using the service and leisure activities in general.
After the war, the line didn’t reopen, and the Ealing Broadway to Shoeburyness service never ran again.
Today, the only access to the tube from Southend is via the c2c line and change at Upminster, Barking, West Ham, Stratford, Limehouse or London Fenchurch Street.
