History
Opening Soon
Zone 1
Cravens Heritage Trains - History
Now in our 30th year, Cravens Heritage Trains is the successor to the Cravens Preservation Group.
2025 marks another sad anniversary of the closure of the Epping to Ongar branch of the Central Line. Closed by the Secretary of State for Transport in 1994, the last London Transport services over the line were on 30th September of that year and it was our Cravens Unit - car numbers 3906 4927 and 3907 - that hauled those heavily loaded last services. There is a 1994 video on YouTube which captured that last day. The link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3hLhW05gJU
Whether the Cravens Unit will run again over LU metals is the subject of discussions right now by those in authority, but one thing is for sure, without active volunteers coming forward to help with any restoration, the future is not assured. Please consider signing up to be a member of Cravens Heritage Trains and maybe even coming along to the Members AGM on 1st November. Your voice could make all the difference.
Our history. Created back in 1995, the Cravens Preservation Group's purpose was to purchase from London Underground the three car Cravens Unit that operated the Epping to Ongar shuttle in its final days, prior to closure on 30th September 1994. In conjunction with the Ongar Railway Preservation Society, the original plan was to operate a hybrid railway service.
During the weekdays we would provide a commuter and community service and at the weekends run a heritage railway, however subsequent events did not follow this plan. None-the-less, the Cravens unit was in safe hands and stabled initially at Hainault Depot before being moved to Ruislip Depot.
In 2001 Cravens Heritage Trains leased the former signal cabin at Epping Station from London Underground with the plan of replacing the previously removed lever frame, restoring it to working order and using the ground floor - the old Relay Room - as a Museum to display items of Underground heritage. This sub-section of Cravens Heritage Trains is now the very successful Epping Signalling Museum.
By 1999, it was time to formalise the group and Cravens Heritage Trains Limited was incorporated as a company, we have no shareholders and are constituted as a company limited by guarantee.
Established 2001
CHT were approached in 2004 with an offer of the redundant Acton Works shunting locomotive L11. Negotiations concluded successfully and L11 arrived on site at Epping by low loader on 14th April 2004. Our operations at Epping are run by a sub group of Cravens Heritage Trains focusing on activities in the Museum. You can read more of the group's activities in the Epping Signalling Museum part of this website.
Click one of the 'destinations' on the map at the top of this page to go to a chosen subject, or the arrow below to go direct to the Cravens home page
© 2025 Peter Scouse, Cravens Heritage Trains Ltd.
