3rd visit to Chelmsford on Great Eastern Main Line featuring all services from Greater Anglia

The curved layout at Chelmsford station opened in 1843 when the Eastern Countries Railway or ECR opened the line between Brentwood and Colchester however at the time of opening due to the geological surroundings of Chelmsford meant a 18 arch viaduct had to be built consisting which nowadays passed over the Central Park.

The first version of Chelmsford was built slightly to the North of the existing site of todays station.

The former ECR station building was replaced in 1885 which was constructed at the same time when the Great Eastern Railway (GER) merged with the ECR however the station buildings, forecourt largely dates back to 2016.

A collision took place in 1907 on the up line when a passenger express ran into a wagon and loco whilst during shunting operations although the wagon was completely wrecked and the loco suffered minor damage and stayed on the tracks fortunately there was no injuries in the incident.

As for the 2 platform layout at one time there was a 3rd line between the 2 platforms tracks which was controlled by a nearby signal box on the up platform at the eastern end which also controlled the station, set of sidings that served a goods yard as well as the Hoffman Ball Bearing Factory.

The signal box was taken out of use in 1994 although the original building is still in intact today however the avoiding line was removed overtime and the sidings were reduced down to serve a building materials yard and a mail sorting office.

The Mail sorting platform long since been out of use and eventhough the sidings did see some use before closing in 2014 during track relaying.

Lines north of the station nowadays only use by a limited number of trains at either end of the day.

Monday to Saturdays upto 5 trains per hour call here in either direction

Hourly services to and from Norwich call here as well which since March 2020 are operated by Class 745s which replaced the Class 90s loco hauled services with the Class 90s being used for Freightliner replacing the Class 86s. The 745s will also replace the Class 379s for Stansted Express as 745/1s although the difference between the two is that the 745/0s which will be used for GEML have 1st class whilst the 745/1s for Stansted Express are standard class only.

On Sundays trains are 2 per hour with only stopping services from Clacton and Ipswich with Norwich services which run non stop

There are no direct services from Braintree to London on Sunday which are cut back to Witham and No direct services from Colchester Town either.

Music used:
JJD Adventure
Music provided by NCS

Video link:
NoCopyrightSounds
   • JJD  Adventure | Glitch Hop | NCS  ...  

Filmed on Saturday December 3rd 2022 on iPhone 14 Pro and edited on iMovie

#chelmsford #greateranglia #essex #greateasternmainline