Shoreditch Station And What The Overground Has Achieved

The entrance to Shoreditch which is covered in graffiti
The entrance to Shoreditch

Shoreditch station (not to be confused with Shoreditch High Street station) was the terminus of the East London Line. The East London Line was London's twelfth tube line and operated between New Cross/New Cross Gate and Whitechapel with occasional extension to Shoreditch. But the East London Line closed on December 22 2007 with Shoreditch station itself closing a year and a half earlier on June 9th 2006.

Shoreditch Station

Taken through a grate with the Great Eastern Mainline below with what remians of Shoreditch platfom just obscured on the right
The Great Eastern Mainline with Shoreditch's platforms located on the right

Shoreditch Station was the terminus of the East London Line and is located just off Brick Lane. Brick Lane is famous for its curry houses and has quite a lot of artistic graffiti which spreads to the station building.

Today the station building of Shoreditch Station on the East London Line is a heavily graffitied abandoned building. In fact when I went there (at about midday on a weekday) two separate people were actively adding to the graffiti.

Despite the graffiti there is no obvious evidence of this building's former self with no hidden roundels, no posters of its history, and no station signs (not even graffitied ones).

Shoreditch station has graffiti on every single section of its building and walls
Shoreditch's building is covered with graffiti

The New Shoreditch Station (Shoreditch High Street)

Shoreditch High Street station is located a few hundred metres away from the old Shoreditch station, on the other side of the Great Eastern Mainline which runs into and out of Liverpool Street. Unlike the old Shoreditch station this new station has a vastly better service with 16 trains an hour in each direction for the whole day everyday (when there’s no engineering work) which is in line with the rest of this section of the Overground. This is a massive uplift compared to the original Shoreditch station which was only open at peak hours Monday-Friday and most of the day on Sunday for Brick Lane.

The Overground on its way over the Great Eastern Mainline to Shoreditch High Street station
The Overground going to Shoreditch high Street

The new station opened on the 27th of April 2010 and whilst being on a viaduct and being above ground, the station is enclosed in a box (which covers the railway on all sides with no windows) which is almost 400 metres long. This box looks strange as there is no obvious reason for its existence, but it was allegedly created to allow the railway to continue to be operational during the construction of nearby skyscrapers, which haven't (yet) materialised.

What The London Overground Has Achieved

The London Overground has rapidly expanded since its inception in 2007, with it taking over many commuter services from many different operators in many different areas of the capital. What links most of the routes is the fact that they were underused, low frequency, and had dirty unloved stations. But now these routes have been transformed, because of the investment being part of the Overground brings, with new trains, improved frequencies, clean stations, and staff at every station from first to last train.

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