Wickford railway station is in the town
of Wickford in the Basildon district of the
county of Essex in the East of England. The station
is currently served and managed by National Express East
Anglia with services to and from London Liverpool Street
station, Southend Victoria and Southminster. The
station was previously called Wickford Junction, when the
route to Southminster also included a line to Maldon and
more agricultural traffic passed through the station.
Wickford acts as the Western terminus of the Crouch Valley
Line which runs to Southminster Railway Station. The station
comprises two mainline platforms (Platform 2 for Southend and 3 for
London) and two branch line bay platforms(Platforms 1 and
4) at the Southend/Southminster end of the station. At the London
end of the station there was once a goods yard
and turntable for steam locomotives; a couple of sidings
remain here for storing engineering vehicles or failed trains, but
much of the railway land here is now in use as a car
park for rail passengers. The signal box that was
once located at the end of platforms 3 and 4, before the bridge
crossing Wickford High Street, was demolished in the early 1990s
following the introduction of new signalling controlled
from Liverpool Street. The upper floor of the original Great
Eastern Railway station buildings on platforms 1 and 2 were
destroyed by fire in the late 1990s due to human error however the
ground floor (including the ticket office, waiting room and staff
accommodation) was saved and remains in use.
This cache belongs to the SideTracked series. It is not designed
to take you to a magical place with a breath taking view. Its a
distraction for the weary traveller, but anyone else can go and
find it too.
Since placing, I have decided to increase the difficulty rating
to 3 in light of the constant muggle activity at GZ.