Since May, the new Crossrail stock is being live-trialled on the line between Paddington and Hayes & Harlington, stopping at Southall, Hanwell, West Ealing, Ealing Broadway and Acton Main Line along the way. Below: a westbound service for Hayes & Harlington calls in at West Ealing. Full-size trains will be making their way under London (hopefully from December), linking Paddington and Liverpool St stations.
Below: take a good look; get used to it; this rolling stock will no doubt still be in service in 50 years' time. (Today, I travelled on the Bakerloo line, on a train built in 1972).
Andy P. has travelled on the new trains from Ealing Broadway - here's how they look inside. The Tube-train like interior is the result of the Tube being more popular than Network Rail, on account of its greater reliability, he says. [Photo: Andy Picheta]
West Ealing - an important part of my childhood. For whether over Drayton Bridge, by the station entrance, or over Jacob's Ladder, a footbridge to the west of the platforms, I'd go this way with my mother to my nursery school on The Avenue. I still remember steam trains submerging the bridges with damp grey fog as they chuffed beneath. And below was the siding the served the Co-operative's milk service; this abandoned platform would be full of milk tanks.
And finally it arrives, perhaps one of the shortest (2.5 miles/4km) lines on British network rail - the shuttle from Greenford to West Ealing. Well do I remember this from my childhood and youth - slam-door diesel units (single-car or two-car sets) running backwards and forwards providing an alternative to buses and tube services between London's western suburbs and the city centre. Looking at the traffic on this line, I doubt if there's enough revenue coming in to cover its cost. Probably around 16-20 people used it today, peak time (17:36 departure); because it no longer starts at Paddington, and there's a long walk to cross the platforms, I guess many regulars will give up on it and will change at Ealing Broadway and catch a bus.
Below: looking down the line towards South Greenford (well, Perivale actually) and Greenford.
Well do I remember my very first visit here. The late winter or early spring of 1970; my father was just about to put down an offer on the property we moved into in May of that year. One foggy night, we walked from our house in Hanwell to look around Cleveland Road and surrounding area. We did so, and then walked on to Castlebar Park Halt, as it was then, to await a train to West Ealing. Back then, there were no trees, just a platform among the meadows than stretched across from the posher parts east of the line, and the council estate beyond the fields to the west of the line.
Below: imagine no trees, no fencing, no electronic information boards, no CCTV cameras, just a concrete platform. Here we stood, gazing down the line towards Greenford, until we could make out the lights of a single, green diesel railcar heading towards us. In the fog, we were an island, the train a ship to take us back to civilisation.
Below: I remember when this was all fields - then the fields were built over - and now those buildings have been demolished. In the distance, the well-built 1950s council estate; in the foreground an estate that didn't stand the test of time. Out of shot to the right, the Old Bill - a flat-roofed pub known for fisticuffs and drugs raids, closed in 2006. This was not a good area.
The Lizzy Line is holding property prices in its catchment area relatively stable; once full operational, West Ealing will be half an hour away from the City of London, shaving 40 minutes off the day's commute. That's over three hours a week. I dare say that was once an area known for scuzzy accommodation for ne'er-do-wells (brick courtyards full of broken plastic toys) might become a sought-after location for future financial elites - but then there's Brexit.
This time last year:
Trump flies into Warsaw
This time four years ago:
Making Poland's railways safer
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