Hello! i find myself on the Central line
towards the eastern end, sort of towards the extremities
outside Hainault Station.
as today on this nice sunny day I ride the line,
what is now a shuttle service,
as we'll find out in a moment,
between here and Woodford,
as we do Secrets of the Hainault Shuttle.
These are the Central Line
that goes round in a loop,
was originally built and operated
by the Great Eastern Railway Company
with steam trains in 1903.
It didn't become part of the Underground until 1948.
When that started, it always operated as a shuttle.
But in the 1990s through services started running
for the first time.
But in 2020, it went back to being a shuttle service again
as part of a plan to allow Central Line trains
to be refurbished.
Other anomalies to occur on this section of track,
was that it was also used as a test bed
for the automatic train operation system in the 1960s,
which was then used by the Victoria Line.
Also, until 2006, services ended early in the day
at 8:00 p.m. with no trains after that time.
So let's take a ride on the shuttle
from Hainault to Woodford to see what we can discover.
(station announcement) (train doors closing)
The first fun thing to acknowledge
is that Hainault has the shallowest lift
on the whole of the Underground.
Because there's like four steps there,
they've installed this lift here.
There's then a button here.
And once the door is shut,
Door closing.
(door beeping)
It goes through a vertical rise
of just 18 inches.
And that's it.
(laughs)
Linear exit.
Shallowest lift on the underground.
As the shuttle is every 20 minutes,
if you've just missed a train, you've got a bit of a wait,
but whilst you do wait on the platform,
you can spy the letters of the Great Eastern Railway, GER,
in the ironwork, which is very pretty.
Also, you get a great view of nearby Hainault Depot,
but for a really great birds eye view that's more fun,
hop onto Google 3D satellite view,
where, yes, you can see all the trains lined up,
but also over at the back
there are some old preserved units too.
Award yourself bonus points
if you know what type of stock it is.
(train chugging along)
(breaks screeching)
The first stop after Hainault and the depot
on the shuttle is Grange Hill.
(doors sliding open)
This is Grange Hill.
The station building that was built in 1903
is no longer there
as it was destroyed by a bomb in the Second World War.
Which is why the modern day building looks like this.
But it is to the outside of the station
we should go to see our next thing.
If you're a fan of a classic school TV drama,
Grange Hill, be aware, this was not filmed here.
It's got nothing to do with this Grange Hill.
It was actually filmed in Kingsbury in London,
in the made up fictitious borough of Northam
Anyway, if you do come to this Grange Hill
outside the station, come to this bridge here
and look down for an incredible view
through this tunnel where there's a train coming.
I love this tunnel
because you can clearly see that it's twice as high
than it needs to be for modern day tube trains.
And that's because it's another clue that this was
originally built for big trains
of the Great Eastern Railway.
It looks great and you can see all the way through it too.
(train humming)
Back inside the station,
we noted on the timetable board
that there are just three trains highlighted in red
in the morning on weekdays that do go straight through
at Woodford;
no shuttling back and forth for them.
And then, a wander down to the far end of the platform
reveals that the stopping board on the other side is
not at the end of the platform.
What does that mean?
Yep, it means that, sure enough,
when our tube train pulled in,
it's shorter than the full length of the platform.
Once again, it was built for the spec of the big railway
and not modern day tube trains.
(doors closing)
(train taking off)
The next stop is Chigwell.
And look, there used to be longer platforms here too.
Here they're overgrown.
But right next to them is this concrete block
which used to have a roundel on it.
Now, is it me,
or does that just mean that you can have some fun with it
by adding in your own designs?
(train slowing)
Also, the canopy poles are of a charming design here,
worth checking out.
As are the long green wooden benches,
which look good too.
But nothing looks as good as the outside
of Chigwell Station.
And this is probably the closest you'll ever get to imagine
of what Grange Hill Station used to look like.
And with the tube map just outside the station,
we need to have a quick chat about zones
and London boundaries.
I'm outside Chigwell looking at the tube map seeing
that all the stations on the Hainault loop are in Zone Four,
but the three Roding Valley, Chigwell, Grange Hill
on the shuttle,
used to be in Zone Five.
They were moved a few years back.
Now,
Roding Valley and Grange Hill, are also only just in Essex.
Chigwell, that's way in Essex due to the way the boundary
with Greater London works.
Here's the map.
Yes, the border of Greater London runs right
through these parts.
Here, you can see that Roding Valley is only just within
Essex with the border running past the south of the station.
And Grange Hill is only just in Essex too,
with the border just to the Eastern side.
Chigwell though is firmly in Essex.
And it's not the only thing in common
that these three stations have, as we'll find out later.
(distant traffic)
There's also a great view of Chigwell Station
if you wander up the side road and go round to the back
onto Hainault Road.
You can stand on the bridge and look down onto the station
and see that it too also has some concrete blocks in place
where roundels used to be, that are no more.
And as I've walked to here,
that sets me up nicely to walk to the next station,
Roding Valley.
Because instead of catching the train,
there's something really cool to see along the way.
Just head up the main road,
then turn right down Luxborough Lane
and you'll then get to this point here,
where you go over the M11 until
And that brings you to here the halfway point
between Chigwell and Roding Valley.
Roding Valley, the name of the station,
the valley of Roding is right here,
where there's a river, the river Roding,
and this where the Central Line trains go
across an impressive bridge.
I'm going to call it a viaduct.
(train driving along)
So next you carry on your walk here
through under the viaduct.
You then cut through a field
and that takes you to the station on the Underground
that has often been the answer in many pub quizzes'
transport round.
Oh yes, Roding Valley
This is actually the station where
the Geoff Marshall Bin Bag shot all started
in Secrets of the Central Line
but it is also infamously known as being
the London Underground's least used station out
of all the stations.
In fact,
here's the top 10 for the whole Tube.
And look,
Roding Valley, Chigwell, and Grange Hill are the top three.
Yes, the Hainault Shuttle officially serves
the three least used stations
on the whole of the Underground.
(distant train)
Stand on the footbridge,
and you look down onto the quietest of stations.
The rumble of trains you can hear
in the distance are actually those to the west
of Roding Valley;
going up to and coming down from Epping.
And that train going south is where we're heading next.
Farewell, bin bag in the breeze.
Just one stop along,
but not before we picked out a window to watch
the Hainault branch merge into the Epping branch.
And then it's Woodford where this train terminates.
Here, the shuttle train goes into a siding
where it reverses and forms a service going back
towards Hainault
Don't forget though, that a Whitford Station,
there's this fantastic underpass in splendid white tiles
with just a dash of red, Central Line red,
for that added touch.
And at Woodford Station that brings us to the end
of Secrets of the Hainault Shuttle.
The train has gone into the siding and it reversed back
and formed the shuffle running every 20 minutes
in the opposite direction
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