Drayton Green - London's New Least Used Station
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- Опубліковано 14 гру 2022
- With the new ORR stats out for the 2021-2022 period just been released, there were some changes including that London now has a new Least Used Station! So I headed back out over to the London Borough of Ealing for a trip on the Greenford branch to Drayton Green and made sure I went on the last day that a parliamentary train was also running ...
I've updated the Least Used Station Map for 2022 and you can downlad that here: geofftech.co.uk/downloads.html
The ORR Estimates of Station Usage are here: dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statist...
Geoff keeps influencing the system. He announces the “Least Used Station in X”, railfans go to it and the following year it’s no longer the least used 😂
Which in turn lets him do more videos, and therefore make more money, pretty good business strategy I’d say
We're just his puppets... He's been pulling the strings for years!
It's a perpetual content machine :D
And totally screws up the statistics! It must have the bean counters going mad. Keep it up!!
Haha - station pump and dump 😂
As interesting as I find his videos to be I think I really watch because of Geoff’s resemblance to Daniel Craig. It allows me to fantasize that Bond retired from MI6 to indulge in his true passion for London’s rail system.
In all the years growing up in Hanwell, I never knew people got the train from Drayton Green Station, weather it’s going to a West Ealing or Paddington or the other way Castle Bar and Greenford from Drayton Green. Thx m8, Good Vid. 😮😀😊👍
It would explain how he would know about Granborough Road station, despite it closing in 1936.
@@grantour8131 I've only ever known Kids from Drayton Manor High School use that stop, either going to and from Castle Bar or Greenford.
What shall he do to his endless supply of Aston Martin's now that he uses rail...
@@carddamom188 That’s easy: Sell them off to be able to afford the train fares 😂
You can tell theres not much going on at a station when Geoff resorts to going through the bins for content
Done It , Bin There
87% of all subscribers watch this channel solely for the bin content.
I felt a cold chill running down me, seeing Geoff laying on a cold platform, in the cold.
i liked the random shot of a car driving past with a flat tyre lol
That's my station! I can literally see my house in this video! Had you come on a day I was working in the office, I might have been one of the handful of passengers you saw. Wish I'd have known you were hanging round metres from my house for hours, I'd have brought you some much needed tea.
The station was absolutely ideal until 2016, trains into Paddington only every half an hour but living so close it was easy to plan journeys accordingly. Its downfall comes from West Ealing also being walking distance, with its frequent purple trains.
The most annoying thing was the timing - they cut the service off at West Ealing years before the Elizabeth Line Line even opened! It's only in the last few months, now that purple trains go all the way through past Paddington, that there's been any difference to the service. They made the change to the Paddington -Greenford service way too early, a huge inconvenience for no good reason.
Still, feel strangely honoured to have the title of London's Least Used Station, and especially proud to have it featured on this channel
something to do with changes in the OOC Area. What could have been useful electrify and run onto the HEX routing into LHR
Hello neighbour!
Would had gladly offered Geoff tea or coffee and somewhere to warm up, had I known!
When GWR announced the plan to cut back the service at West Ealing they promised to increase the frequency to 4 trains per hour. That never happened. The route needs to be taken over by TfL as the latest addition to the Overground.
Lovely to see the Help Point at 9:09 still running that I built in 2012-ish when I was on placement at Amey!
Trivia, these were deployed to stations where they didn't want to spend money in proper signs. They are just little windows PCs running a little web browser with some JS (jQuery I believe ha!) that querys the station controller on site.
They've gotten me home many a time over the years and wonderful to see them whenever they pop up!
As a young teenager in the early 1970's, I would travel on this service to visit relatives in West Ealing from Northolt via the Central Line at Greenford. I even had the privalege of riding in the drivers cab a couple of times. Now and again it would be a two carriage train. Amazing memories
Geoff, here's a factoid you may not know. Stanley Kubrick's film 'The Shining' was mostly shot in the backlot of studios in Borehamwood and the end scene, shot in a snowy maze, was actually a salty maze, probably using something very similar to the magic salt you found. One report suggests 900 tons of salt was used. The packets would have filled a few more bins I'd guess!
I suspect TfL's contractor is supposed to remove their own waste - rather than relying on the station bin!
I've walked through that kind of salt in the backlot of EMI Elstree Studios (as it was), when it was being used for the same purpose on another film many years ago!
A visit to Drayton Green Station inspired me to write a song as a lovesick teenager in 1977. On the surface, 'Missed Connection' bemoaned the terrible state of the delayed / cancelled train services and the consequences of not making it to a date on time. Between the lines, it was a 'you don't understand me' song. 😪Your video has inspired me to revisit it.
The station or the song ?
Link the song
FWIW There is no recording of the song and I've forgotten most the tune / chords but some of the words come back.
I’ve been waiting in my station
For my connection to you.
A second’s pause, just formed an hour
For my thoughts to shower pain on me.
The station man says we’re running late
Well thanks a lot, I know that mate
It’s just another missed connection with you.
Drayton Green. Destination
for febrile love and desolation.
Amongst by muddied recollections
I rue our other missed connections.
As our lips kiss but philosophies miss
I’m not sure I can give anymore.
As the rain pours, no open doors.
No more trains to take me on, to come and go.
Ah, some teenage joys of a trip to Drayton Green.
😉
@@Startup99 See my reply FWIW
@@peterbrown7092 I sung it in my head in the style of Billy Bragg
I absolutely love the Greenford branch, if i'm bored I just give it a quick ride there and back. It's an interesting little branch and always feels like no-one else uses it.
Outside of peak hours they don't much.
Ugly truth, pre-barriers at West Ealing, it was a pseudo-free shuttle around the local area. Until relatively recently there were no barriers at Paddington and the worst that could happen if you didn't pay is that you would have to pay at the other end. I suspect this was a strong source of passenger numbers.
From conversations with my former MP, GWR probably would have liked to close the line a long time ago but the aggro would be considerable. TFL really aren't keen to take it clearly. Whether there is really a strong case to connect Northolt/Ruislip with the Liz is questionable: you'd have to run two trains and you could achieve a similar result just by having a 4x service at GFD and just have them connect there without extending the line.
6:26 and little did Geoff know, that in a few days after filming this, there would indeed be snow and not just salt on the floor😂
I was heading out from Euston on that day - there were more trespassers on the West Coast main line too, in addition to someone sadly jumping in front of a train at Watford Junction. We ended up pulling in at Wembley Central (a station I’ve never visited, and never thought I’d get to see on National Rail) and I got another train home from Marylebone. Tricky day on the trains!
Geoff, your dedication to wake up very early in the freezing cold just to get that specific train is very admirable.
Would be great to see if TfL can take over this line little-used shuttle as part of the 'London Overground' as all 3 of these stations are among the least-used in London, and could get much better publicity on the Tube Map connecting Elizabeth Line & the Central Line :)
Great video by the way as always!!
Or even beyond. Not followed the route by ideal orbital rail High Wycome - West Ruislip-Greenfordish - West Ealing - Acton - Clapham Junction - Beckenham Junction ( depends on crossings of the other lines if that causes delay )
I think I would maybe shed a tear to see CBP on the TFL map
The big snag with the line is that the platforms are only 2 carriages long including the bay at Greenford. Otherwise it could have made a useful western outlet for the Elizabeth Line when it goes up to 24 tph in May. Running nowadays from West Ealing rather than Ealing Broadway doesn't help.
I don’t think that’s a great idea…
Hi Geoff, a really, really interesting video. Our family lived just around the corner from the station in Park Road, where I lived from birth until I was about 23. It was wonderful and amazing to see the station that was a significant part of my youth, as me and my sisters would regularly take the train from there up to Ealing Broadway, or sometimes down to Greenford.
A very nerdy thing you could have done to fill your day. When you went to get your breakfast or your your multiple coffees, you could have taken the train to West Ealing station, got on a train to Hanwell station and come out of the south entrance of that station. The entrance was closed in the early 1970s, but reopened in December 2014 (for Cross Rail?). You could then have walked from there, grabbed your breakfast/coffees on the main road and then walked the half mile back to Drayton Green station.
You could also have gone to West Ealing and then taken a train to Southall. That bit of the line takes you over the wharncliffe viaduct in Hanwell. It was started in 1836/37 and is the first engineering design Brunel did for GWR. Then, just before you got to Southall station, you would have got to the Three Bridges (also called Windmill Bridge), which is a combination of a road bridge which goes over a Grand Union canal bridge, both of which you go under on the railway line. It is the last project that Brunel did before he died in 1859.
One last fact. From The Drayton Green station towards West Ealing, just up round the right hand bend visible in the video, there is a track that ran past the end of our garden. It went to a large train engineering depot, with all the yellow track maintenance trains in it. Every year our dad would boost me and my sisters up over the fence to get to the track side, so we could pick the blackberries that grew there.
Cheers James
Hooray, a new video. Thank you! Housebound as too icy to walk without falling over, so this has raised my spirits no end.👍
Drayton Green was my local station; I grew up just down the road in Courtfield Gardens and sometimes used it to get a train to Ealing Broadway. The Greenford trains used to terminate at Ealing Broadway in the 1970s and 1980s and move onto a little siding between the down relief line and up mainline, east of EB’s station platforms. They were often one-coach, sometimes two-coach DMUs. Where did you get coffee at Drayton Green Station? I can only think you might have had to walk or get the bus half a mile west to Greenford Avenue to get coffee, which is closer to Hanwell Station than DG.
I remember the council flats being built between Drayton Green and Castle Bar Park above the railway and a time before then in the early 1970s where there was no tunnel. All the signals were semaphores. And I remember one Saturday in 1974 or 1975 seeing a parade of locomotives and rolling stock from Jacobs Ladder, where the Greenford Branch branches off from the mainline, on its way from the old National Railway Museum in Clapham to the new one in York, including the Flying Scotsman under its own steam.
Thank you for the nostalgic trip down memory lane, which brought me right back to my roots from across the Pond in New York.
My guess would be left towards Hanwell, where I used to live. Happy days. Crap coffee, but happy days.
@@aldhous That would make sense. It’s a bit of a long walk back to The Avenue and Geoff might have been better off catching a train back to West Ealing to find coffee, or even the E1 bus, on The Avenue, if the E1 still operates the same route. It’s been a very long time since I was on Greenford Ave, but can’t think of anywhere to get a decent cup of coffee there.
@@photomcphotofacepoole1286 Ah the E1, there's a memory. Used to love the Uxbridge fast bus along that route that would miss out most stops.
Don't want to research the bus number for fear of falling into another sentimental pre-Christmas melancholic rose-tinted rabbit hole malaise! 😂
(Pretty certain it was the 607!).
@@aldhous I think I’ve seen 607s on my last visit to Ealing, which was 10 years ago. I remember 274s and 273s and rose in them when they were operated by RTs. I think the 274 was from Ealing Broadway to Yeading and maybe even then onto Hayes and Harlington. The 273 went a bit of a different route but may have ended up in the same place. I rode the 274s more than 273s to Argyle Road by Sutherland Avenue, or an E1 from Ealing Broadway if that came first. But the 274 was the bus of choice when it was an RT. Anything to hear and feel that engine idle purr.
Nice to see you in the area again, Geoff.
I have never been this early for a Geoff Marshall video, but I'm glad it's for a Least Used Station
Yay! I feature as an "extra" in a Geoff Marshall video. My life is complete!
Nearly 11,000 users each year seems like a lot of users to me. Of course when I were young in t'seventies, we had _real_ least used stations in London, like Lea Bridge - then basically a semi-derelict platform in the middle of a godforsaken post-industrial wilderness. No luxury namby-pamby half-hour service intervals for that one! You really had to work hard to find a train going there😁.
(Nowadays nearly half a million use it each year!)
I used to do the keep warm trick on Croydon trams quite a lot, also another trick was that often trams coming from Wimbledon in evening rush hour were jam packed and you might have to let several go to get a space so it was better to get a quiet tram going to Wimbledon to get a seat and then just stay on it to come back.
You inspired me to do a series on my channel about Denmarks least used stations, i wish we had the online stats the UK does about our stations and railways :P keep up the good work i can't get enough of these its so fun to just be in some weird off the grid station in the middle of nowhere, now i have tried it its like these videos makes more sense to me xD Love it Geoff, keep it real!
Another great video. The train that operates that 05:40 to Greenford comes from Reading on at 04:49. After arriving into Paddington at 22:15 it joins with a train from Oxford and then the 2 units then head back to Oxford at 00:32.
@@geofftech2 No problem. These services are also the only GWR services out of Paddington to be operated by the Class 165 DMUs. 5 a day
Is the train out of Paddington only on a Wednesday morning?
@Anthony Lloyd not just Wednesdays
@@anthonylloyd6094 It runs every day from Monday to Saturday if there are no strikes on. No Services to Greenford on Sundays
@@geofftech2 they also combine with another half, forming a 4 car, the amount of times I'm on that platform, waiting for the second half, staring at the Greenford half is... Annoyingly common 😂
Train comes out of the depot just west of Reading, if the new vivarail trains come into service, they’ll come from a depot in the middle of the triangle at west ealing
I had work ex at Paddington for 6 months Geoff, to open the Heathrow Express barriers with an Oyster card. You need at least £25 on it
@@geofftech2 Since you apparently did not have £25 on your card (given that you were denied access), how did you get through?
@@tobiasfeigenwinter3660 Maybe he had to ask a Human 😨
@@tobiasfeigenwinter3660 Is this seriously a question 🙄
For a least used station it seems to have a very nice shelter.
The moving of the West Ealing station entrance towards Drayton Green probably made a difference, just easier to walk through the green and to the left to catch the Liz. Saves you a zone too on your travelcard. Going to Greenford, maybe to catch onward Central Line services, seems to be an edge case at best from my experiences there. I used to do it from Castle Bar Park to get to the city, but wouldn't with the Liz in place.
My main use for it: jumping off and on the train to touch in when I couldn't remember if I had at CBP or not lol.
My goodness, the dedication! Can't get much worse than 5:53 on a December morning.
My local station is famous! The crossrail that they promised, from the next station upline West Ealing, didn't come, then didn't come, then didn't come, then it finally 'opened'. 😻
Drayton Park only has trains every 15 minutes - not a lot more than Drayton Green. At least a 15 minute service from Drayton Green would mean being able to connect with all Elizabeth line trains. But why are Eliz.line trains only every 15 minutes west of London? - in the east, both Eliz.line branches have double that frequency certainly good enough not to have to check timetables. I think the railways are as usual ignoring the lesson taught by the underground for nearly a century now: that frequent (at lest every 10 mins, mostly better) trains, plus a clear map and good signage at interchanges, bring many more passengers. For a recent example, when the Wimbledon-Croydon line had a half-hourly train service, loadings were low. The trams ran every 10 minutes and massively increased that, so they now run every 5 minutes! QED
Wow 🤩 you really reached 300K!! Well done Geoff!
A long but an excellent day indeed Geoff! Glad you managed to get the Last Parlimentary service from Chiltern despite the delays. Looking forward to the next video!
P.S. I apologise for the chaos I caused when I visited the Elizabeth Line two days before you filmed this video!
Gosh I love these videos. You're like the London friend all of us wished we had. Thank you for your passion and creativity!
Another interesting exploration! It's amazing that after years of modernisation, the Great Western Railway lower quadrant semaphore junction signal at Greenford is still there.
Good to see Station Gritted as our council has gritted bugger all !!
Love the dedication Geoff!
Interesting video. I grew up in Greenford in the 50s and I remember we used to get the train from Greenford to Ealing Broadway to go shopping. In those days it was a steam train and we called it the "push and pull ". It basically had the one steam engine which would push it one way and pull it the other way.
Your Londonist video on the service inspired my ride a few years ago. Not sure I'd go after dark, though
Hi Everyone, I use to live in Perivale for many years before moving to Hampshire. I rode to Greenford - Ealing Broadway a fair bit I remember many people called this service the Push & Pull. Merry Christmas One and All. Peter
Congrats on 300k Geoff!
Thank you for sharing the video Geoff that was very interesting and great information too.
Just noticed your subscribers have reached 300K! Congratulations!!
Early in the morning and late at night. Such dedication for your viewers.....Bravo.
Your videos are a delight and cheer any one up on these cold winter days
I salute you for all the effort and hardship when making these video's. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and all your love-ones
I went to school just down the road at Drayton Manor HS 1979-85 and was always fascinated by the station but in all that time I think I might have used it once or twice. I would have needed to have walked in largely the "wrong" direction to West Ealing, one stop then another 400m or so walk to school. For the runners amongst us, it is the nearest station to the 5 laps a mile adjacent running track of same name where did my Cub scouts Athletes badge :) That track has now been converted to more of a jogging circuit.
Congratulations on 300K subscribers!
I was excited for this video Geoff. Thanks for these excellent videos! Also, the last ghost train was sad but never expected it to be in this video :) Great Twist!
Excellent effort Geoff, really enjoyed that all encapsulating video
That was fantastic! It's marvellous to know there are enthusiasts like Geoff around. many thanks!
Excellent video Geoff, nice to see the intro to the least used stations series again!
Geoff, your relentless enthusiasm for whatever is the task in hand brightens any salt-strewn day. Have a merry and peaceful Christmas. Cheers.
Just what I needed before Xmas - a vintage least used Station Vlog. Geoff- u are certainly on a roll. Great viewing!!
i dont even live in the uk and i know more about the london trains thanks to this charismatic man than i do about how to use the godawful thing they call the VTA here.
Not only a record of history but a sign that your technique is forever evolving - love that you fade across missing portions of train exit from platform rather than speeding the footage, thank you \m/
In 2025 Geoff will fade footage of trains leaving the platform so seamlessly that it appears to be a half-carriage train.
@@hylje I'm here for that! \m/
Another great video Geoff. I'm not able to get out much due to a health issue so it's nice to see these you do. I live just up the road from Greenford. I love the area and station. It's got a great atmosphere around there.
Well done Geoff. I used to use the branch in the 60s to visit a friend at Castlebar Park. Even earlier, in the 50s, I used to live in Ealing and the school had a football ground right beside the line at South Greenford. There was a lot of freight train activity in those days and watching it took precedence over playing football! Brings back fond memories.
Great video as always and it was nice to meet you at West Ruislip!
Yes! Least used stations! Missed them those videos. Thank you Geoff!
I used to go through Drayton Green if I felt like taking an alternative route home from school. It's a shame the route is just a shuttle, I would love to see it become an extra branch of the Elizabeth Line
As you know Geoff, this very handy service was much busier and very much missed, now it doesn’t run through to Paddington…. Big shame as in the summer it was a very cool overground route into central London….
Thanks for all the fun this year Geoff!
you're very kind Arie, thank you!
@8:03 - is that a junction with a curve heading off to the West?
It's a shame that curve (if that's what it is) isn't used to connect that branch line with westbound services on the main line beyond West Ealing.
There might also be the possibility of running services direct from the branch line to Heathrow.
If we want to be really ambitious, we could even run trains through the branch line onwards to Heathrow from further up the former Parliamentary train route - South Ruislip, West Ruislip, even High Wycombe.
Alas, the more likely fate for the line is that it will be run down until the only service on it is a weekly Parliamentary train fro Greenford to West Ealing and back.
Cheers Geoff for giving me my next interesting London train journey, the 05.40 Paddington to Greenford direct . I was planning to visit Greenford anyway, the last station to have had wooden escalators
Great video, Geoff. It reminds me of the one that was made about the now closed 'Angel Lane' Station that was on the Great Anglia line on the east side of London. Little used lines like this are fascinating. This Greenford to West Ealing line is similar to the the Great Anglia Line that runs between Stratford and Tottenham Hale, and the Great Northern Line which runs from Moorgate to Alexandra Palace. 👍🏾🚉
Hi Geoff, wow it looks cold on those platforms! Never heard of Drayton Green so thanks for introducing it to myself and others. Hope you enjoyed a warm beverage after making this vlog :)
I used to live near Drayton Green years ago. I would get the train from there into Ealing and then a 65 but from outside Ealing Broadway to the college.
Series suggestion: I think that a London Underground most used station would be an interesting one as it is something I’m sure many people want to know
I think it’s Waterloo
@@GreatWesternTransportation I mean like most used station on every line
So mostly Waterloo, Stratford or King's Cross I'm guessing
Doesn’t Kings Cross St Pancras have an unholy amount of tube stations, along with folks coming in from Edinburgh, the North East, Yorkshire, Leicester, Peterborough, and parts of Mainland Europe? LKXSP is certainly a contender.
I’d be curious to see Euston’s standing. Avanti West Coast have been lovely, the few times I’ve dealt with them. Must push some decent custom to the south.
Used to live at Greenford 1989-90, would take this line to get all the way in to Paddington.
Thanks again for a brilliant channel love this new video of yours aswell keep the hard work up from Noah
I have lived in Greenford for 50 years Geoff and I've only ever seen 6 people in that time. The birds do a left turn at Eailing Broadway just to avoid it.
This is such a weird video. I can't stop watching. Please continue and never change! :)
Perfect way to cheer up after a awful week
Happy 300k subscribers!
Geoff, I admire your dedication to bringing such these videos. That must have been a killer of a day, cold early start and a late finish. Maybe you ought to include a still shot of the cafes that you use on these long days?
i went to Drayton manor school and the only time its ever busy is before school and by busy I mean like 30 ppl!
What I love about your videos, Geoff, is that they are so focused on things that, in reality, just escape our notice and aren't really that interesting for most of us… and then you make them absolutely fascinating and beautiful. Thanks, as always, for all you do.
We used to live between Hanwell and Drayton Green stations, which was useful coming home from Paddington as we could catch whichever train was the first one out. It was also the start of some fun days out at Bekonscot, going via Greenford, then central line to West Ruislip and then the Marylebone train out to Beaconsfield.
Ah memories! My grandparents lived 10 minutes walk from Drayton Green. Grandad was a postal worker at Mount Pleasant, so commuted every day from that station. (Just along Drayton Bridge Road is a recreation ground with a running track that Lillian Board, Olympic middle-distance runner, practised on.)
These little curios of train operations are fascinating. So starts from a siding in Oxford but doesnt get into service until Reading. Goes into Paddington. Spends all day shuttling back and forth before becoming a late night service back to Oxford ...and presumeably trundles back to a siding.
Crew must do a different pattern with a outbound back to signing on point lunchtimish
I used to travel there just to visit it as I felt sorry for its isolation and was worried the line would go the same way as Watford West. Castlebar Park is another.
As far as I can tell (i.e. what realtimetrains tells me) the Chiltern train actually ran Monday to Friday, but only took passengers on Wednesdays. I was in West Ealing in September on a Friday and saw it arrive and then leave again, but you couldn't get on.
How weird, why would they run a train which has no point in either direction? Keeping up drivers' route knowledge maybe? Ironically went I went to travel on it on the last-but-one Wednesday, it was cancelled with 20 minutes notice. :(
Busy day then. Thank you for sharing
On the same day you uploaded this video, I had just been to Upminster Bridge which is the least used station of my favourite Underground line
Congrats on 300k
Did the parliamentary train a few years back when it ran on a Friday around 11am from Paddington to West Ruislip
When I was 14 we moved to Copley Close, in-between West Drayton & Castle bar, I use to get the single carriage push & pull to Ealing Broadway, then a District line train to Acton Town Station. Great memories, I now live in Ireland (Wexford) it has a small concrete aera (use to be a wooden works) where fishing boats tie up and road next to it. They have shows and entertainment on it most of the year. Many thanks joe
My mind is going, it is called Wexford Quay
How very London that even before 6am at the least used station there is somewhere close by selling coffee.
its at least 10min walk haha
My favorite video of yours so far
I’ve taken that 0:30 train from Paddington quite a few times after nighttime events, many fond memories of arriving at Paddington at 23:45 with just enough time to pop into the Sainsbury’s before they closed at midnight, to pick up a few sandwiches and drinks for the long journey home! In the winter the driver would often let people board the train 30-45 minutes before departure so everyone could stay warm and get comfortable.
We should all go to this line. Tap out and in at every station. Blow the stats out the window.
Blimey! Well done, mate! That’s a loooooong drawn out day to bring us a great vid! 👍🏾
I like this update to the least used station. I’m here for the Stats and Maps.
A least used stations without a sidekick?? Love the least used series! thanks!
Geoff, you were luckier than I was. I went to West Ealing the previous Wednesday to travel on the penultimate parliamentary and Chiltern cancelled it with 20 minutes notice! Took the shuttle instead. Drayton Green is so close to West Ealing bay that the on-train announcement of stations got cut off, before it could even say DG, by "We are now approaching Drayton Green". No wonder few people use it - often quicker to walk from West Ealing.
I’m surprised by how much it moved up in the list of least used stations back from 2015 to 16 when it was the ninth least used
Very interesting video as usual, thanks. Noticed the semaphore signals in the background at Greenford. Would they be the closest examples of this tyoe of signal to London?
Such a sick station geoff
Brilliant video about a line which I have fond links too. Although I have never lived in the area, I know a lot about it because my dad grew up living in Manor Road - the road which the new entrance to West Ealing station is in, and which parallels the railway on the north side, where the bay platform is. I have visited a couple of times and taken photos from the footbridge (known locally by him as Jacob’s Ladder) which crosses the main line at the point the Greenford line branches off. He used to tell me about the milk dock at West Ealing station - the site now occupied by the bay platform.
Dad recounted that he saw film crews filming in Manor Road and around Jacob’s Ladder. I *think* that the steps for it feature in Carry On Constable.
There was an interesting article in the quarterly publication “London Railway Record” in October 2018 - LRR #97 - titled “The West Ealing Loop Halts” which ran to about 17 pages. I have a copy.
Thanks again for another great video.