Emerson Park
Overgrown bus, meet shed. Repeat four times an hour
If Clapham Junction is Britain's busiest railway station with 17 platforms, Emerson Park must be a candidate for Britain's quietest, with barely half a platform. Just the one train, coincidentally run by One trains, services this small, single-track station about half-a-mile north of Hornchurch, back and forth, back and forth, until mid-evening. You strongly get the impression this train hates its job, and its employers hate it too and would scrap it if at all possible.
Where the train starts its amusingly crap little journey, in Upminster, there are no signs, notices or timetables for boarding the train anywhere. You find the train beyond a gate set into the bridge over the track. Then you swear loudly as it leaves in front of you and you have to wait for half an hour. Suspiciously, Upminster's services are run by a rival to One, C2C.
The train (which usually has a maximum of three passengers, none of whom are going to Emerson Park) runs steadily along a track at what's essentially a long, extended ditch. First class and second class are indistinguishable. Look out of the window, and you will even see footpath crossings – "Stop, look and listen for trains" – across the line. After a few minutes, you will get to the single platform of Emerson Park.
Not that you would know where you are. Three of the signs appear to have been stolen. There's a barn painted a rust colour on the platform. It sounds like there are mice trapped inside. There is no ticket office and a large blob of goo has gummed up the help point speaker button. Lucky Emerson Park is "Not a penalty fares station".
Residents of Zone 6, #23 – Emerson Park
 | Having fun driving around and around that roundabout in your D-reg Ford? Of course you are. |
Up the ramp and out of the station, and you find a huge pub in the middle of a roundabout and a very narrow bridge. This is the northern part of Hornchurch, and is a little closer to parts of the town than the tube station about a mile south. Of immediate note is a pink shop selling sickly balloons and two posters for the Conservative Party. The newsagent across the road is probably the only one in the world left with a mechanical cash register that goes "Ding!"
A couple of minutes down Butts Green Road, which sounds much more like an STD than it actually should, you get to what you could call Hornchurch's cultural centre. The Queen's theatre, a photograph of which you can see above, is showing Shirley Valentine, like all suburban theatres do. Then you have the Hornchurch library, which has some quite nice local art (kittens, fruit, flowers) on display. According to an Excel graph pinned to the notice board, they consistently hit their lending targets, and it seems to be quite a nice steady focus for the local community groups.
What's on in Havering Libraries?
- British Sugarcraft Guild
- Baby Bounce and Play Me Time
- Havering Hearing Eyes Social Club
Biographies on display in "Famous Lives" section of Hornchurch library
- Camilla: The King's Mistress
- Sir Michael Caine: 70 Not Out
- Fat Boy Slim
- Barry Manilow
- Margaret Thatcher
- Harold Shipman
Some of Havering's council buildings reside here too. Good luck if you've come here for the Citizens Advice Bureau. Signs for the CAB point in all directions. The library, the arts centre, the theatre and the large building saying "Citizens Advice Bureau" all have notices outside saying "THIS IS NOT THE CITIZENS ADVICE BUREAU". Where it is, exactly, remains a mystery, although you might have better luck next door at the Trading Standards Office, which shares premises with the Registry Office.
Back over the bridge and north of the station goes up into a more residential area, with high fences and trees on either side to break the noise of the busy road. There's quite a nice bakery here, although there's one very slow member of staff serving cream cakes to several burly residents, and a pink piece of blue tack called the "Emerson Park Card and Balloon Company". Predictably, this sells cards and balloons, although some of them looked rather rainsodden. Then, there is a garden centre that looks like a pub.
Unforgivably awful garden ornaments for sale in Emerson Park
- Hedgehog in armchair
- Severed head of crouching, fanged monkey
- Rock with moustache
- Rabbit holding sign: "Keep off the grass: That's My Dinner"
Over the crest of the hill you spot something strange; there's a mustard-yellow spire here. On closer inspection, this belongs to The Church of the Latter Day Saints, or the Mormons as they prefer not to be branded. Opposite there's a large patch of wasteland that looks like something Damien Hirst might try to put in the Tate Modern and call art, which then would accidentally be thrown in the bin by a gallery cleaner to general tabloid hilarity. Emerson Park stops about here, at the mini roundabout.
When it's time to return, there are usually a pair of kids waiting on the platform, trying to break into the shed. At least there are announcements ("The next train to arrive at the platform is...") and a small, surprisingly unvandalised TV screen. After you board the train, it continues to follows the ditch along, then eventually joins the main line to Suffolk. It then sheepishly pulls in at a hidden platform in Romford away from the rest of the mainline station, over a precariously high covered footbridge.
Emerson Park's probably only used about four times per day at rush hour; it's a wonder that Dr Beeching didn't axe it, let alone the Tories. Worth a visit if you want to convince somebody train stations aren't all busy, sophisticated and technologically advanced.
Statistics
Last train to Zone 1 No direct trains. Last train to Romford: Mon-Sat 1958, Sun no service.
Time to Zone 1 21mins on One (Liverpool Street, change at Romford. Not including inevitable time waiting for connecting service.)
What to do if you get stuck in Emerson Park after the last train to Zone 1
First of all, there aren't any trains to Zone 1. Second of all, Hornchurch tube station is a short bus journey south, Gidea Park BR isn't too far north. It's only 8pm. What do expect, sympathy?
