Barking station

Barking is an interchange station serving the town of Barking, east London. It is served by London Underground, London Overground and National Rail main line services. It is located on Station Parade, in the town centre. On the Underground it is a stop on the District line and is also the eastern terminus of the Hammersmith & City line; on the National Rail network it is served by c2c services operating to and from ; and on the Overground it was formerly the eastern terminus of the Gospel Oak to Barking line, which has now been extended to . There is also interchange with London Buses and East London Transit routes on the station frontage. The Underground station is the busiest in the network outside of Zones 1 and 2. The station was opened in 1854 by the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway as one of the first stations on the route. It was rebuilt in 1908 and again in 1959. , significant redevelopment of the station is ongoing. The station was opened as part of the London Tilbury & Southend Railway (LT&SR)'s new line which left the Eastern Counties Railway's (ECR) main line at a new junction at Forest Gate. Two separate LT&SR trains from London started at Fenchurch Street and Shoreditch and were combined at Stratford for the journey to Tilbury (and split at Stratford in the opposite direction). Barking at this time was a small village and the original station was a two platformed affair which opened on 13 April 1854. Congestion at Stratford and deteriorating relationships between the lessees running the LT&SR and the Eastern Counties Railway saw a new route built between Barking and Gas Factory Junction where the new route joined the London & Blackwall Extension Railway, opening in 1858. Other than a new junction west of Barking (and west of the River Roding bridge) no changes were made at Barking and the original Forest Gate Junction section was then used by a goods trains and a rump Bishopsgate to Barking service operated by the ECR and after 1862 by the Great Eastern Railway.