London's rail freight traffic is dictated by the geography of the city.
When railways first came to London, each line was built by a different
company seeking to link their area to the capital. There was no through
service from one side of London to the other, and indeed the railway
companies were prevented from entering the central area of the City and
West End. In order to transfer freight traffic from one company to
another, the various railway companies made links to the orbital North
London Railway, which ran from Broad Street station in the east to
Richmond in the southwest, and also had a route into the east London
docks. Traffic from north to south London was dictated by the River
Thames and the need to maintain height for navigation to the upriver
docks and wharves. Thus there were no bridges east of London Bridge
until Tower Bridge (road) opened in 1894, and no others until the QE2
bridge at Dartford (also road) opened in 1991. Most cross-river traffic,
which these days includes traffic to and from the Channel Tunnel, used
the route through Kensington Olympia and the river bridge at Chelsea.
This book takes the freight routes around London geographically, in an
anti-clockwise direction, starting in east London north of the Thames
and ending in southeast London. It covers the period since 1985 when BR
blue gave way to corporate sectors with different liveries and on into
privatization, and shows the various types of locomotives used, and
freight traffic carried over this period.
