By Train To Ongar - A Film By Fred Ivey

Filmed in the final month of operation (September 1994) of the Ongar branch Fred's camera catches the rural quiet of the line while following 62 stock unit no 1510 and then he spends time at Epping watching 1960 stock working the branch.

The branch really was a rural idyl. Electrified in 1957 the remotest station, Blake Hall, took its power supply from the traction current. The station telephone was connected to the GPO's North Weald exchange one of the last manually operated exchanges in the country. Game was left besides the track by farmers for train drivers to collect in return for drivers whistling up at certain points on days when a game shoot was in action. Evening newspapers were also carried for many years. No wonder John Major's government were happy to approve closure of this relic from the pre-Beeching railways.

Professor Abercrombie's Greater London Plan of 1944 saw the line being extended to Chelmsford as Ongar was planned to expand into a new town. Instead Harlow became the new town and Ongar remains to this day a sleepy Essex market town.