The Jazz Service
At the beginning oh the 20th gentury GER realised that changes were needed at Liverpool Street Station. Electrification of the west-side lines was considered in 1903 but nothing was done. After WW1 electrification was considered again but it was thought that the estimated £3,000000 just for the Enfield line was too expensive.
So GER decided on a much cheaper way to achieve greater capacity and more suburban trains. They decided to operate an intensive steam service. Thus the "Jazz Service" was born and the first services ran on 20th July 1920.
The Jazz Service from Enfield Town to Liverpool Street
The 'jazz trains' carried more passengers in the rush hour than any other railway in the country. The early "Jazz Trains" were so called, because they had brightly coloured coach doors to differentiate between first and second classes to help speed up loading. The first class coaches had a bright yellow stripe on the roofline and the second class a bright blue one These services started in 1921 after a reorganisation of Liverpool Street station. The Jazz Service showed what could be achieved by steam haulage for the intense commuter traffic into London’s Liverpool Street Station without the need for expensive electrification. The "Jazz Service" of 1921 was the world’s most intense steam suburban service and the "Jazz Train" nickname lingered on with railwaymen up to the 1960's at least
The Jazz service to the East London suburbs of Enfield and Chingford required trains to leave Liverpool Street station and maintain a schedule which is not that much slower than electric trains of the modern era. At each end of the service quick turn arounds were essential as any delay could interrupt the whole timetable. Signalling was improved to ensure that trains could be turned speedily and without delay. The Jazz service greatly reduced the overcrowding on these commuter lines.
At first these trains were worked by "Buckjumpers" small 0-6-0 Ts and later by "Glasshouse Gobblers" 2-4-2Ts. The first of the N7 0-6-2Ts were built at Stratford, they were Scheduled for the Jazz service to replaced the Buckjumpers and the Gobblers but WW1 postponed the building of the intended quantity of N7s. After the 1923 grouping Sir Nigel Gresley of the LNER liked the N7s so much that he built many more, with the class eventually totalling 134 in number. The N7s were good steamers and powerful and easily managed the trains on the Chingford and Enfield lines right up to electrification at the end of the 1950's.
The Jazz service terminated at Liverpool Street one of the busiest railway stations in London which served East London and East Anglia. Liverpool Street was opened in 1874 by the Great Eastern Railway replacing Shoreditch Station, within a year it was opened to GER suburban services, it was built next to Broad Street Station.
The N7 0-6-2Ts that worked the Enfield branch line were shedded at Enfield Town and the N7s that worked the Chingford trains were shedded at Wood Street Walthamstow. Both of these sheds were sub sheds to Stratford 30A MPD. At Enfield shed the N7s numbered from 69657-69671 this was the only type of engine used at Enfield and Wood Street in the 1950s.
Photo of Enfield Shed
A normal train was a quint art set, that was a set of five coaches, two quint art sets coupled together was called a full train. Each quint art set had 38 compartments, full train 10 coaches 76. These coaches were non corridoor. At busy times about 15 people occupied each compartment with some standing. Thats approx 1140 passengers on a packed full train. During the evening rush hour from Liverpool St. with a full train the N7s had to be worked hard on the uphill climb to Bethnal Green but the N7s coped very well. Crews were allowed a few extra minutes on these full trains. Trains from White Hart Lane station after a Spurs football match were always packed. People would cram themselves into each compartment and there would be well over 1140 passengers on these trains.
Local trains from Enfield to liverpool St.were always very tightly timed. On a full train (10 coaches) all stations the time allowed was about 38 minutes for a run of 10 miles with 14 station stops.With 5 coaches trains the time allowed was 31 minutes. BR decided to speed up some of the trains by making them semi fast. These trains made the usual stops as far as Seven Sisters and after that only stopped at Hackney Downs missing 6 stations before reaching Liverpool Street, these trains we were allowed 26 minutes.
Stations from Enfield to Liverpool Street
<DIR> <DIR> Bush Hill Park
Lower Edmonton
Liverpool Street
At Liverpool Sreet during the rush hour am and pm. On arrival the fireman would uncouple the train and another engine would couple on the other end. Usually after a couple of minutes the train would leave, the crew would then take the engine to the holding dock at the end of the platform. After a short wait in the dock another train would arrive, the engine in the dock would then back onto the train and couple up. Sometimes there would only be ten minutes or less between arrival and departure. Filling the water tanks at Liverpool Street was not necessary as a full tank could complete the round trip. The first train am from Liverpool Street was not worked by an Enfield crew possibly Stratford sent a light engine to work it. The last train for Enfield was about 12-15 am and the last engine would run home light. A normal days work for footplate crews would be three round trips, thats sixty miles with more than eighty station stops. As well as all that engines had to be prepared and dispose of. So some people think local work was easy, but there was nothing easy working the Jazz.
Westinghouse air brakes were used on the the Jazz trains as they allowed for more efficient braking and speeded up stop-start times at stations.
Old Photo Liverpool Street Station
