A now closed station that used to be the terminus of the North London Line, before the route was cut back to Stratford Station.
It has been effectively replaced by King George V Station.
The station opened on 14 June 1847 as the southern terminus of the Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway from Stratford. The service was later extended beyond Stratford to Palace Gates. In 1963 diesel traction replaced steam and the service was cut back to Stratford with peak-hour trains to Tottenham Hale. The route became an extension of the North London Line in 1979. From the 1980s only one track of the double track line was used through the Connaught Tunnel under the Royal Docks and on to North Woolwich where the station building and a platform were closed and replaced by minimalist entrance and passenger shelter on the south side. In 1985 the line from North Woolwich was electrified on the third rail system with the service running round inner north London to Richmond (a route part third rail and part overhead wire).
From 1984 to 2008 the original station buildings and one disused platform served as the North Woolwich Old Station Museum dedicated to the history of the Great Eastern Railway.
The station and the line to Stratford closed on 9 December 2006] to allow conversion of the North London Line between Stratford and Canning Town to a Docklands Light Railway (DLR) line. At closure the station was served by Silverlink Trains. King George V DLR station which opened in December 2005 on the extension from Canning Town gives a replacement service to the North Woolwich area.
Crossrail is approved to re-use the Connaught Tunnel and nearby NLL route by 2018, with a new tunnel under the Thames near the site of North Woolwich station.
This has thwarted two earlier schemes for using the fragment of railway near the station which had been seen as having no viable railway use:
- The North Woolwich Old Station Museum mentioned above, which has now closed.
- The Royal Docks Heritage Railway for a new museum at the site with a heritage railway.
The Wikipedia page is [1]; the Abandoned Stations page is [2] and the Disused Stations page is [3]. There are a number of videos - eg [4] and [5]. A piece on the future of the site here.