Location Enfield Town Station code ENC Fare zone 5 Address Enfield, United Kingdom | Managed by Great Northern DfT category D 2011–12 1.250 million Number of platforms 2 | |
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Similar Gordon Hill railway station, Bowes Park railway st, Grange Park railway st, Bush Hill Park, Crews Hill railway station | ||
Enfield Chase railway station is located in Windmill Hill, Enfield, in the London Borough of Enfield in north London, and is in Travelcard Zone 5. The station, and all trains serving it, is operated by Great Northern. It is directly west of Enfield Town centre. The current station opened in 1910 with the extension of the Hertford Loop Line to Cuffley, replacing a previous station a short distance to the west which opened in 1871. Originally called simply "Enfield" station, the current name was adopted in 1924 to avoid confusion with Enfield Town.
Contents
Services
The service runs to Moorgate via Highbury & Islington. The service uses class 313 EMUs, as these are the only units cleared to Moorgate.
The typical off-peak weekday service is 3 trains per hour to Moorgate and to Hertford North; one of the latter per hour continues to Letchworth Garden City via Stevenage.
In peak hours, the line runs a much more frequent services, with certain services not calling at all intermittent stations. However, all of these additional services call at Enfield Chase.
At weekends, the service is a half-hourly service to Hertford North and an hourly service to Stevenage and two trains per hour to Moorgate.
The original terminus
The original Enfield Station in Windmill Hill opened on 1 April 1871 as the terminus for the Great Northern Railway branch line from Alexandra Palace. By 1887, 37 trains a day left Enfield, mainly for King's Cross, but also to Broad Street and until 1907, to Woolwich and Victoria. The station building was a two-storey twin-gabled house, similar in style to the single-storey building at Palmers Green. It was sited lengthways across the end of the track. The single island platform was covered by a wide canopy for much of its length. Enfield Station had been intended to bring prosperous middle class commuters to the area. A journalist visiting the station in 1885, saw a sign advertising cheap workmen's tickets for trains scheduled to arrive in London before 8 am, only to find that the timetable showed that there were no trains that met that criterion. The old Enfield Station closed to passengers in 1910 (when replaced by the present station ) but remained in use as a goods depot until 1974. The surviving buildings were demolished and replaced during the 2000s with housing along a new street called Gladbeck Way.
The new high level station
By the end of the 19th century, there was a need to relieve the pressure on the main line to the north out of Kings Cross, and a plan to continue the Enfield branch to Hertford and Stevenage was conceived. An Act of Parliament was passed in 1898, and the GNR set about acquiring and demolishing houses and compensating land owners in the area. Work on the line commenced in 1906. The new Enfield Station was sited a few hundred yards to the east of the existing one, and raised above ground level so that north bound trains could access a new bridge crossing the road at Windmill Hill. It opened on 4 April 1910 for services as far as Cuffley. The first through train to Stevenage did not run until 4 March 1918, because of a host of legal and engineering difficulties, and shortages of men and material caused by World War I. The name Enfield Chase was adopted in 1924, to avoid confusion with Enfield Town station.
Connections
London Buses routes 121, 231, 307, 313 and 377 serve the station.