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The Great Eastern Main Line (GEML, sometimes referred to as the East Anglia Main Line) is a major railway line on the British railway system which connects Liverpool Street station in central London with destinations in east London and the East of England, including , , , , , and a number of coastal resorts including and .〔National Rail, ''Rail Services Around London & the South East'', (2006)〕 Its main users are commuters travelling to and from London, particularly to the City of London and Docklands financial districts, and business and leisure travellers. The route also provides the main artery for substantial freight traffic to and Harwich and the rest of England via London.〔(Network Rail ) - Route 7 - Great Eastern (PDF)〕 == History == The first section of the line opened in 1839 between a short-lived temporary terminus at in the East End of London and , then in the Municipal Borough of Romford in Essex, and was built by the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR). The London terminus was then moved to Shoreditch (later renamed Bishopsgate) in the Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green in July 1840 and at the eastern end the line was extended out to in the same year. A further of route was added to by 1843.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Eagle 61 :: Railway Guide books of the Eastern Counties Railway )〕 The original gauge for the line was , but this was converted to in 1844. The section of line between Colchester and was built by the Eastern Union Railway (EUR) to standard gauge and opened for passenger traffic on 15 June 1846. Its sister company the Ipswich and Bury Railway built the line to Bury St Edmunds and this opened on 20 November 1846. Both companies shared the same office, many directors and key staff and started operating as a unified company using the EUR name from 1 January 1847. An extension from a new junction at to opened on 1 December 1849 although the position of this station was poor and a spur to allow some trains to operate into Thorpe station was opened to regular traffic on 1 November 1851. The ECR leased the EUR in 1854, but by the 1860s the railways in East Anglia were in financial trouble, and most were leased to the ECR; they wished to amalgamate formally, but could not obtain government agreement for this until 1862, when the Great Eastern Railway (GER) was formed by amalgamation. Until 1860 trains serving Ipswich used Ipswich Stoke Hill railway station which was located south of the tunnel. The current station was opened and located north of the tunnel. From November 1872 became a temporary terminus to relieve the main high-level Bishopsgate station while the GER was building its new permanent terminus at . The latter opened in stages from February 1874, beginning with the first four platforms, until it was fully open from November 1875. At that time the 1840 Bishopsgate station closed to passengers and was converted into a goods station. The GER was grouped in 1923 into the London and North Eastern Railway. In the 1930s a flyover was constructed just west of to switch the main and electric lines over, to enable main line trains to utilise Liverpool Street's longer west side platforms without having to cross east side suburban traffic in the station throat. The new arrangement also facilitated cross-platform interchange with the Central line at , with services commencing in 1946. Either side of the Ilford flyover there are single-track connections between the slow and fast pairs of lines, with the westbound track extending to and just beyond. A short fifth platform face serves the track at Manor Park, but it sees no normal use. The eastbound track extends as far as Ilford, connecting with that station's fifth (bay) platform, which does see some peak-time services. It was also envisaged that a flyover would be built at the country-end of the carriage sidings at to allow trains for to change from the fast line to the slow line, instead of at the London-end of as they do now. Plans were drawn up in the 1930s to electrify the suburban lines from Liverpool Street to Shenfield at 1500 V DC and work was started on implementing this. However, the outbreak of the Second World War brought the project to a temporary halt and it was not until 1949 that the scheme was completed with electrification being extended to in 1956. After nationalisation in 1948 the GEML formed part of the Eastern Region of British Railways. The British Railways 1955 Modernisation Plan called for overhead line systems in Great Britain to be standardised at 25 kV AC. However, due to low clearances under bridges the route was electrified at 6.25 kV AC. The section between Liverpool Street and Southend Victoria was completed in November 1960. Extensive testing showed that smaller electrical clearances could be tolerated for the 25 kV system than originally thought necessary. As a result, it was now possible to increase the voltage without having to either raise bridges or lower the tracks along the route to obtain larger clearances. The route between Liverpool Street and Southend Victoria was converted to 25 kV AC between 1976 and 1980.〔Glover, John (2003). "Eastern Electric", Ian Allan, London. ISBN 0-7110-2934-2.〕 Electrification was extended to Colchester in 1961 by British Railways' Eastern Region and finally to by 1986. In 1986 it became part of Network SouthEast. Between January 1997 and March 2004 suburban and medium-distance services were operated by First Great Eastern, while fast main line services were operated by Anglia Railways. Between April 2004 and February 2012 services out of Liverpool Street except for limited c2c services were all operated by National Express East Anglia. As of February 2012 services out of Liverpool Street except for those limited c2c services are operated by Abellio Greater Anglia; in May 2015 the Shenfield "metro" stopping service transferred from to TfL Rail, the precursor to Crossrail. Liverpool Street IECC replaced signal boxes at Bethnal Green (closed 1997), Bow (closed 1996), Stratford (GE panel closed 1997), Ilford (closed 1996), Romford (closed 1998), Gidea Park (closed 1998), Shenfield (closed 1992) and Chelmsford (closed 1994). The system uses BR Mark 3 solid state interlockings, predominantly four-aspect signals and a combination of Smiths clamp-lock and GEC-Alsthom HW2000 point machines. The first signal box to be closed and transferred to Liverpool Street IECC was Shenfield in 1992, which had only opened in 1982. The last boxes to be transferred were at Romford and Gidea Park in 1998, and were the oldest of those being transferred, having been opened under the GER/LNER 1924 resignalling scheme. In summer 2011, the Docklands Light Railway was extended from to Stratford and Stratford International. It uses the former North London Line alignment that runs beside the Jubilee line and directly links Stratford on the GEML to its international counterpart as well as local stations to the south and existing DLR branches in the Royal Docks. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Great Eastern Main Line」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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