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Pitsea
General information
Location	Pitsea, Borough of Basildon England
Coordinates	51.560°N 0.506°E / 51.560; 0.506
Grid reference	TQ738875
Managed by	c2c
Platforms	4
Other information
Station code	PSE
Classification	DfT category C2
History
Original company	London, Tilbury and Southend Railway
Pre-grouping	Midland Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway
Key dates
1 July 1855	Opened as Pitsea
1 June 1888	Re-sited
18 July 1932	Renamed Pitsea for Vange
December 1952	Renamed Pitsea
Passengers
2019/20	1.289 million
Interchange	0.220 million
2020/21	0.496 million
Interchange	94,956
2021/22	0.934 million
Interchange	0.163 million
2022/23	1.060 million
Interchange	0.199 million
2023/24	1.086 million
Interchange	0.195 million
Notes Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Pitsea is a railway station on the London, Tilbury and Southend line, serving the town of Pitsea in the borough of Basildon, Essex. It is situated at a junction where a loop via Grays re-joins the main line via Basildon. Down the main line it is 26 miles 42 chains (42.7 km) from London Fenchurch Street; via the loop it is 32 miles 37 chains (52.2 km) from Fenchurch Street. Its three-letter station code is PSE. The station and all trains serving it are currently operated by c2c.

The station is immediately south of the A13 road, adjacent to a level crossing which gives the main road access to the marshes area south of Pitsea and Basildon. The station is the closest for Wat Tyler Country Park which is about a kilometre away down Pitsea Hall Lane.

Design

The original 1855 station was located south of the existing station with 2 platforms and north of Pitsea Hall Lane level crossing. The timber station building was on the down side (towards Southend) of the line.

With the building and opening of a new route from Barking via Upminster the original station was replaced in June 1881 by a new structure comprising four platforms. A fifth was added in the 1930s for terminating trains via Upminster and was removed in the 1950s. It was north of the original station although the platforms of the new and old station overlapped.

The station building was on the remains of a hillock and footbridges linked that to the platforms which were on lower ground.

A new station building was opened in October 2005. Derek Twigg (then rail minister) attended for the "ribbon cutting" in November 2005. The building houses customer toilets and a retail unit. The station also has four automatic ticket gates.

The platforms serve:

1. - Fenchurch Street to Shoeburyness via Basildon
2. - Shoeburyness to Fenchurch Street via Basildon
3. - Fenchurch Street to Southend via Tilbury
4. - Southend - Fenchurch Street via Tilbury

The ticket office has two serving positions and uses the Tribute issuing system. Outside the ticket office is a self-service ticket machine that takes payment by both cash and cards.

History

Early Years (1855-1912)

Pitsea was originally opened in 1855 by the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway as part of their main line from London to Southend via Tilbury.

By 1855 construction of the line had reached Stanford-le-Hope railway station which operated as a temporary terminus whilst the line to Southend was still under construction. Services then operated via Tilbury, Barking and Stratford (where a portion to Bishopsgate station was detached) to London Fenchurch Street. A new direct line linking Barking with Gas Factory Junction (Bow) saw services no longer serving Stratford and reduced journey times from Pitsea to central London.

Since the railway opened Southend had seen its population grow and there was pressure to build a more direct route from Barking to Upminster to Pitsea. Construction began in 1883 and the line opened through to Pitsea on 1 June 1888. The original station was slightly to the south and was replaced by a new station on an adjacent site immediately west of the new junction when the new line from Barking fully opened.

At Pitsea a large retaining wall was built to support the hill side (on which the 13th-century church of St. Michael stood) and two new platforms provided.

A storm on 1 August 1888 caused a temporary closure of the new line until 1 October. The following day flooding on the Tilbury line saw the service suspended for six days meaning Southend had no rail service at all.

Midland Railway (1912-1922)

In 1912 the Midland Railway bought the LT&SR on 7 August 1912 so Pitsea became a Midland Railway station.

London Midland & Scottish (1923-1947)

Following the Railways Act 1921 the station became the responsibility of the London Midland and Scottish (LMS) Railway from 1 January 1923.

The station was renamed Pitsea for Vange in 1932, but reverted to the original name Pitsea in 1952. Examination of photographs from the period see the name Pitsea Junction displayed on the station nameboards although it was only displayed as Pitsea. For Vange was displayed on a smaller nameboard beneath the main nameboards.

Just after World War II started in September 1939, the passenger service was reduced as a wartime economy measure.

The nationalisation years (1948-1994)

Following nationalisation of Britain's railways in 1948, the station transferred under British Railways to the London Midland Region. On 20 February 1949, the whole LTS line was transferred to the Eastern Region, yet despite the organisational changes, the old LTSR still was a distinctive system operated by former LTS and LMS steam locomotives until electrification.

In the 1950s the station nameboards were supplemented by "Welcome to Basildon" boards which did not get a station until 1974.

The catastrophic North Sea flood of 1953 flooded parts of the LTS line on 1 February 1953 including the line west of Pitsea between Benfleet and Leigh-on-Sea and between Tilbury Riverside and Low Street. Main line services terminated at Benfleet during this period. The Tilbury line was restored on 9 February and full main line services resumed on 19 February.

During the late 1950s the LTS was being electrified and re-signalled and a number of changes were made at Pitsea in 1956/7 including extending all platforms for 12-car operation. This saw the closure of the bay platform between the platforms. An electrical control room was built behind Platform 4 for control and monitoring of the power supply. </ref>

A full electric timetable started operating in June 1962 which was primarily worked by Class 302 EMUs.

A new station building was provided in 1965 to replace the rundown 1881 structure.

The LTS line and Pitsea station became part of the London and South Eastern sector of British Rail in 1982, and in June 1986 this was rebranded as Network South East (NSE). With the Conservative government of the early 1990s looking to privatise the railways, the operation of the NSE passenger train service was put under the control of a Train Operating Unit.

The privatisation era (1994-2025)

On privatisation in 1994, infrastructure ownership passed to Railtrack and Prism Rail took over operations of the franchise, marketing the route as LTS Rail. Prism Rail were bought out by National Express in 2000 and in 2002 the line was rebranded as c2c.

Ownership of the infrastructure passed to Network Rail in 2002.

National Express sold the operation of the franchise to Trenitalia in 2017.

The station and all trains serving it are currently operated by c2c and are operated by Class 357 and Class 720/6 EMUs.

A more detailed history of the franchises can be found on the c2c page.

Private operation of the London, Tilbury and Southend line by Trenitalia c2c ceased on 20 July 2025, with the new publicly owned operator c2c taking over.

Operations

Services

Via Upminster

Services commenced on 1 June 1888 but the focus (and revenue) for the LT&SR was on the Tilbury service. About half of the Southend via Tilbury trains were diverted to use the new link and a number of Fenchurch Street to Pitsea via Laindon services ran but the connections to Southend were poor or non-existent. In the July 1889 timetable there were 15 trains per day using the link and albeit one (the 5.45 p.m. Fenchurch Street - Southend express) called at Pitsea. The problem was there was not enough population at Southend to support both routes so both ended up with an inadequate service.

In the December 1896 timetable the service was nine trains on a weekday (Monday to Saturday) noting that fewer passenger trains used to run in the winter. The first three down services terminated at Pitsea so passengers would have change to a service that had come via Tilbury.

By June 1962 the Tilbury to Pitsea line was the secondary route and the mainline enjoyed more direct and faster services to Fenchurch Street. That said the off-peak services were also two trains per hour on the main line with additional peak services.

Via Tilbury

In the November 1856 timetable the station was served by four trains per day operating from Fenchurch to Tilbury Riverside, where the train reversed, and then onto Pitsea and terminating at Southend. Similarly four trains operated in the other direction.

The Bradshaw′s dated December 1895 had nine down and nine up services on Mondays to Saturdays and three each way on Sundays.

The standard off-peak service to Pitsea via Tilbury in June 1962 - the first all electric service - was two trains in each direction calling all stations to Fenchurch Street with a reversal at Tilbury Riverside railway station. Note Low Street only had one call in these trains per hour. In the other direction it was all stations to Shoeburyness.

As of the June 2024 timetable the typical Monday to Friday off-peak service was:

• 2 tph (trains per hour) westbound to London Fenchurch Street via Basildon
• 2 tph westbound to London Fenchurch Street via Tilbury Town and Ockendon
• 2 tph eastbound to Shoeburyness
• 2 tph eastbound to Southend Central

Goods

The goods yard was located south of the first station site and its loop extended around the back of the down platform. When the junction station opened in 1881 the yard was relaid with a run round loop, head shunt, a larger goods shed and cattle pens.

In the September 1962 timetable the goods yard was served by weekday 1.25.a.m. Ripple Lane to Shoeburyness and 12.50 a.m Southend to Ripple Lane goods trains in the September 1962 freight working timetable.

The goods yard closed in 5 June 1967.

In 1976 a siding was installed for Foster Yeoman services on the site of the goods yard. It is not known when this traffic ceased, but the siding has since been lifted.

Signalling

The first station had a signal box which was replaced in 1881 when the new junction and main line were opened. The structure was located on the up side of the line immediately south of the junction. A new engine spur was laid in 1934 to enable locomotives to run round their trans without interfering with services on the main line. The 1881 box was in the way so it was demolished and a new box provided just to the south of it.

With the switch from semaphore signalling to colour light signalling in the late 1950s a new panel box covering the area was opened in 1960 and this was located at the Southend end of platforms 2 and 3. This opened on 23 June 1960 and interfaced with a number of manual boxes until they were abolished in the following years.

This box operated until 1996 when signalling for the entire London, Tilbury and Southend was taken over by the Upminster signalling centre.

Vange Station (proposed)

Initial plans for the LTSR identified a station at Vange, located about 1.5 miles towards Stanford-le-Hope rather than Pitsea as a potential station for the area. The station would have been located near Fobbing Level Crossing. It was never built because the towns folk of Wickford (which was 5 miles away) wanted a station nearer their town and Pitsea was chosen instead. When the Great Eastern Railway line to Southend Victoria opened in 1896, Wickford got its own station.