Greenford

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Greenford station is a Central line London Underground and National Rail station in Greenford, Ealing, and is owned/managed by LUL. Greenford is the terminus of National Rail’s Greenford Branch Line, and is in Travelcard Zone 4.

The original Greenford station was main line only and opened by the Great Western Railway on 1 October 1904. The present station, next door, and built as part of the extension to the Central Line carried out under the LPTB’s 1935-40 New Works plan, was only completed after the Second World War. It opened on 30 June 1947, allowing the GWR station to be closed.

The London Underground platforms are served by trains on the Central Line, on which it is located between Perivale and Northolt stations. Greenford station is above ground level and has an island platform layout, with access up from the booking hall to the platforms. It is unique on the London Underground in that it has the last remaining wooden stepped escalator in service on the network. Such escalators were converted to fully metal steps, or removed altogether from sub-surface Underground stations in the wake of the fatal 1987 King’s Cross fire.

Between the Underground platforms a third, central bay platform facing south-east serves the Greenford branch service, which is operated by the First Great Western train operating company. The next station on this line is South Greenford and the line joins the Great Western Main Line at West Ealing. Trains on the Greenford branch run through to and from Paddington. However, there is no Sunday service.

The line between Greenford and West Ealing also carries infrequent freight services from Paddington New Yard and sand traffic for Park Royal (these can be observed from the Tube platforms). The route was also used for occasional passenger services on diversion, though this practice was finally withdrawn in 2005. In addition, also visible is one of the few remaining semaphore signalling installations in London; this is part of the unmodernised signalling on the adjacent line eastbound from Northolt Junction towards Old Oak Common West Junction, with Greenford East signal box controlling the main line approaches and the Greenford branch as far as South Greenford, and it still uses the Great Western type of lower quadrant signals.

Plans were drawn up at the start of the 1990s under British Rail to demolish Greenford East signal box and replace its semaphore signals, and share the upgraded signalling between the newly built Slough IECC and the forthcoming Marylebone IECC. These plans however were subsequently shelved indefinitely, as the declining frequency of rail traffic controlled by Greenford East simply did not justify the huge financial cost of such an upgrade. This situation might change in the future though, if the often-proposed Crossrail project is finally realised.