That's the shortest public railways in London
...by length, not by time
...could be tube, rail whatever
...within the Greater London boundary
...not private like the Ruislip Lido railway
...regularly timetabled, not one-off or peak-time oddities
...where the driver gets in the cab at one end and expects to drive to the other end
...basically a common sense list, these aren't rigid constraints to be pernickety about
1) Waterloo - Bank(1.38 miles)
Of course Waterloo to Bank is the shortest, unarguably so. It's been part of the tube network since 1994 but would have been on this shorlist before that. It's disconnected from the rest of the network so trains have to be craned in and out. Trains are platform-cloggingly busy in the peaks, in one direction only, and a vacant zippy luxury at other times. The Saturday service introduced in 2013 hasn't resumed since the pandemic.
2) High Street Kensington - Kensington Olympia(1.73 miles)
The District line's mini shuttle, a U-shaped ride generally devoid of passengers except at times of exhibition overload. Only runs at weekends, plus a teensy handful of trains before 7am and around 8pm. Was massively downgraded in 2011 to help make the rest of the District line timetable more reliable. Runs every 20 minutes at best, so if you just miss a train at High Street Kensington it's quicker to walk to Olympia than wait for the next one.
3) Grove Park - Bromley North(1.75 miles)
The shortest National Rail line in London is a spur off the Orpington mainline to deliver folk to the less useful side of Bromley town centre. The journey takes five minutes and is generally timed to connect with a fast train to/from London Bridge. Runs half-hourly - maybe every 20 minutes in the peaks - and not at all on Sundays. How grand the entrance to Bromley North looks, reflecting how important the line once was. Intermediate Sundridge Park is more of a quiet semi-rural throwback.
4) West Ealing - Greenford(2.75 miles)
GWR's west London oddity, lopped off from the rest of their network in 2016 in preparation for Crossrail. This sideshow through the backside of Ealing was never well-frequented, and is even less so now you have to change at West Ealing to get any further into town. Features London's shortest platforms (at South Greenford and Castle Bar Park). Should be getting electric battery trains rather than diesels, possibly imminently, as soon as the extended trial finally ends.
5) Stratford - Canary Wharf(3.22 miles)
It's my local DLR service, part of the inaugural Docklands Light Railway offering in 1987. The default ride is 13 minutes long, although it can be faster to go the longer way by Jubilee or even the Elizabeth line. In peak times half the trains extend to Lewisham, which makes 8 miles altogether, although at present this service is suspended while the DLR has an existential crisis as the old rolling stock becomes life-expired before the new rolling stock is ready.
6) Romford - Upminster(3.5 miles)
The Overground's lowliest outpost finds itself firmly in the shortest railway list. Now branded the Liberty line, it's served by a lone train which shuttles up and down its single track through the duller parts of Havering. When they close it at weekends for engineering works, which is surprisingly often, they just tell people to take the 370 bus and hardly anyone suffers. Intermediate station Emerson Park is permanently the Overground's least used station.
n.b. This is where the Central line's Hainault-Woodford shuttle would fit in, being 3.76 miles long, but most of it runs outside London so I'm skipping it. Feel free to put it 7th if you prefer.
7) Dalston Junction - New Cross(5.75 miles)
You may not have been expecting this one. The Windrush line has four branches, all equally served, and the shortest by far is the spur that runs off to New Cross. Also these trains only run from Dalston Junction, not from Highbury & Islington, making this a shorter journey than it might have been. If nothing else it's easier to get a seat on a southbound New Cross train.
8) Stratford - Meridian Water(6 miles)
Back to National Rail, in this case Greater Anglia, and the backway from Stratford to Tottenham Hale running up the Lea Valley. The line reopened to passengers in 2005 with an intermediate station at Lea Bridge added in 2016. This particular 6 mile service only kicked off in 2019 when tumbleweed Angel Road station was replaced by sparkling Meridian Water, bridgehead to a massive Enfield regeneration project that's barely off the ground. If nothing else, future residents will find it dead easy to reach Westfield.
9) Stratford International - Beckton(6.63 miles)
Back to the DLR and its second-shortest regular run. Direct trains from Stratford International to Beckton are another casualty of the current DLR train shortage, but technically they still exist. Should a Thamesmead DLR extension ever be built then fewer trains will run to Beckton but some will still go this way, retaining its place as one of London's ten shortest railways.
10) Bank - Lewisham(6.88 miles)
Again on the DLR, the end-to-end ride from Bank to Lewisham is just under seven miles long and concludes this list. That's unless I've missed something, an even shorter London railway that's escaped my scrutiny of lists and maps. I'm therefore expecting to have to delete this paragraph and insert a new one higher up when someone points out a better candidate, but until that happens the tube has two lines in the Top 10, the Overground has two and the DLR has three.
Also under 10 miles: Stratford International - Woolwich Arsenal (7.2 miles), Tower Gateway - Beckton (7.7 miles), Bank - Woolwich Arsenal (8.9 miles) Also under 11 miles: Victoria - East Croydon (10.5 miles), Liverpool Street - Chingford (10.5 miles), Liverpool Street - Enfield Town (10.75 miles)
Used to be shorter than Waterloo - Bank: Holborn - Aldwych (0.38 miles), Acton Town - South Acton (0.6 miles), Finchley Central - Mill Hill East (0.95 miles)
