Intensive suburban passenger workings are a feature of many great stations, but perhaps one of the most efficient in steam days were the ‘Jazz Trains’ of the Great Eastern Railway’s London Liverpool Street terminus. These intensive steam workings established a frequency of service that many thought impossible to achieve, as EVAN GREEN-HUGHES describes.
LIVERPOOL STREET station, on the east side of London, was first opened on February 2 1874 at a time when that part of the city was undergoing unprecedented expansion. Originally housing ten platforms, another eight were later added as demand for services exceeded the capacity of the original site.
The Great Eastern Railway (GER), which built it, pursued a policy of providing lavish and frequent services at prices which could be afforded not only by city gents, but also by ordinary workers, who used the trains in their thousands to reach new homes being built only a few miles away on developments promoted by the railway itself.
Above: The Liverpool Street suburban trains, known as ‘Jazz Trains’, were formed of articulated compartment stock and hauled by LNER ‘N7’ 0-6-2Ts through LNER and BR steam days. On April 4 1959 ‘N7/3’ 69683 passes Manor Road Sidings with an Enfield T…
