Walthamstow Queens Road Station

I don't know the story of that girder mesh but the "logical" answer is that it was put in place to stop the nearby land falling on the railway. I don't know the history but I expect a lot of the housing was added after the railway was shoved through the area and, at some point, the weight bearing down damaged whatever the original sidewall support was. I imagine the piling and cross bracing was added to stop Walthamstow falling on the railway. You can see other places where extra bracing and piling has been added at some point on the stretch from Blackhorse Rd to Queens Road. Must admit that I did not know that Lord Warner (developer of much of Walthamstow) was also behind the construction of the line through Waltham Forest.

The line user group has a nice history page which also gives histories of the stations. They are as bemused as you are as to why Queen Rd was chosen as a name!

www.barking-gospeloak.org.uk/history.htm

Point of order, Thomas Courtney Warner was a Baronet so he was a Sir not a Lord.You have to be a full Baron and upwards to be a Lord.

I live on the Warner estate and jolly nice properties they ate too.

"ate"?

The curse of making a typo when making a correction (thanks btw).

And I live in a Warner flat too. Far better than one of those modern "bolt it together" rabbit hutches.

The bracing is indeed to prop the retaining walls apart. There have been historical problems with retaining walls failing in that area. The steel beams used as the primary propping are quite long and so prone to buckling under compression. They are restrained from failure by twisting (torsional buckling) by the beams running parallel to the tracks. However, the whole frame would still be able to buckle by the whole set of props going into a ( or S shape (lateral buckling) so the diagonal beams are added to prevent that.

The OLE is now energised.

They are. Originally looking like this:





They were removed in 2008 as part of stabilisation works and replaced with simple steelwork (made with some difficulty in Ireland):



However the original arches were grade 2 listed and so had to back somewhen. This opportunity arose in 2014 when track lowers and the associated major drainage work was undertaken both under the arches and through the nearby tunnel. The track lowering was necessary to give clearance for electrification, which was promised to be delivered by 2016*. The restored masonry arches were placed directly on top the steel arch, I don't think the masonry is currently load-bearing:



IMHO the resorted arches don't look too bad; not conserved in aspic but preserved as part of the operating railway.


*Electrification is still pending, some of the mast foundation have recently started to be erected.

Wasn't aware that had happened over the course of many years instead of in one go. Looks like the steelwork was replaced in 2014 too as the fixings are quite different.

Hopefully in time some grime and algae will make the stones and suspiciously bright pointing blend in a bit better. Pity they couldn't extend the height of the retaining walls in stonework to match the top of the new steel-masonry construct.

I notice that Queens Rd has a lot of shops along it, and seemingly ore in the past (since converted to houses). It may have been the nearest busy road back in the 60's with chain stores and banks and the like as was common then.