Greenford is a

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or as the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The Undergro ...

and

National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, a group representing passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the passenger services previously provided by ...

station in

Greenford Greenford () is a large town in the London Borough of Ealing in West London, Greater London, London, England, lying west from Charing Cross. It has a population of 46,787 inhabitants. Greenford is served by Greenford station, Greenford Stati ...

, Greater London, and is owned and managed by London Underground. It is the terminus of the National Rail Greenford branch line, down the line from and measured from . On the Central line, it is between

Perivale Perivale () is a mainly residential suburban town of Greater London, west of Charing Cross. It is the smallest of the seven towns which make up the London Borough of Ealing. Perivale is predominately residential, with a library, community ce ...

and

Northolt Northolt is a town in North West London, England, spread across both sides of the A40 trunk road. It is west-northwest of Charing Cross and is one of the seven major towns that make up the London Borough of Ealing and a smaller part in th ...

stations while on National Rail, the next station to the south on the branch is . Greenford station is in Travelcard Zone 4.

History

The original Greenford station was opened by the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, ...

on 1 October 1904 on the joint "New North Main Line" (present-day

Acton–Northolt line The Acton–Northolt line (ANL), otherwise known as the New North Main Line (NNML), is a railway line in West London (sub-region), West London, England. Built between 1903 and 1906, it runs from the Great Western Main Line at Old Oak Common TMD ...

). The present station, adjacent to the original, was designed by Brian Lewis and built in the Central line extension of the 1935-40 New Works Programme of the

London Passenger Transport Board The London Passenger Transport Board was the organisation responsible for local public transport in London and its environs from 1933 to 1948. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and brand was Londo ...

. It was completed by Frederick Francis Charles Curtis and opened on 30 June 1947 after delay due to

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Service at the original ("main-line") station was gradually reduced and it was closed in 1963. Operational responsibility for the station transferred from

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

to London Transport with effect from 13 November 1967. The site of the old station for the New North Main Line can still be seen from inside Central line trains.

The station today

Greenford station is above ground level with an island platform for the Central line. A

bay platform In the United Kingdom and in Australia, a bay platform is a dead-end railway platform at a railway station that has through lines. It is normal for bay platforms to be shorter than their associated through platforms. They must have a buffer stop ...

facing south-east between the Underground platforms serves the Greenford branch service operated by

. The branch line then continues south and joins the

Great Western Main Line The Great Western Main Line (GWML) is a main line railway in England that runs between London Paddington and . It connects to other main lines such as those from Reading to Penzance and Swindon to Swansea. The GWML is presently a part of t ...

at . Platform 1 is for westbound Central line trains, and platform 3 for eastbound trains. The access to the platform via escalators takes passengers to the front of the train for westbound service, and the rear for eastbound service. Going up wooden escalator at Greenford 16-06-06

Going up wooden escalator at Greenford 16-06-06

Greenford was the first London Underground station to have an escalator up to platforms above street level. Until 2014 it remained the final London Underground station with a wooden-treaded escalator in service; all other such escalators were previously converted to fully metal treads, or removed altogether from sub-surface Underground stations in the wake of the fatal 1987

King's Cross fire The King's Cross fire occurred in 1987 at King's Cross St Pancras tube station in London, England, causing 31 fatalities. It began under a wooden escalator before spreading into the ticket hall in a flashover. The fire began at approximately ...

. In addition to the shuttle train, the line between Greenford and West Ealing carries freight services including containerised domestic waste from near Brentford, sand and gravel traffic as well as occasional special passenger services and a daily Chiltern Railways "parliamentary ghost train" from West Ruislip to West Ealing that returns non-stop to High Wycombe. In 2009, because of financial constraints, TfL decided to stop work on a project to provide step-free access at Greenford and five other stations, on the grounds that these were relatively quiet stations and some were already one or two stops away from an existing step-free station. £3.9 million was spent on Greenford before the project was halted. The step-free access project, consisting of a glass incline lift, was later restarted, opening on 20 October 2015.UK’s First Incline Lift Coming To Improve Disabled Access At Greenford Underground… But 8 Crossrail Stations Won’t Have Step-Free Access
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Services

London Underground

The typical off-peak service in trains per hour (tph) is: *9 tph westbound to West Ruislip *3 tph westbound to

*9 tph eastbound to Epping *3 tph eastbound to

Loughton Loughton () is a suburban town and civil parish in the Epping Forest District of Essex. The town borders Waltham Abbey, Theydon Bois, Chigwell, Chingford, and Buckhurst Hill, and lies north-east of Charing Cross. For statistical purposes ...

National Rail

Great Western Railway operates a shuttle service to West Ealing every 30 minutes except on Sundays. Services call at , , and and the journey time is just over 10 minutes. The final service of the day runs through to London Paddington, as well as the first terminating service. Until January 2017, all services used to run to and from , however, after the construction of a new bay platform at West Ealing and the introduction of

Elizabeth line The Elizabeth line is a railway line that runs across Greater London and nearby towns, operating similarly to the Réseau Express Régional, RER in Paris and the S-Bahn systems of German-speaking countries. It runs services on dedicated infras ...

services from London Paddington to , it was then reduced to a shuttle running to and from West Ealing.

Connections

London Buses London Buses is the subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL) that manages most bus services in London, England. It was formed following the Greater London Authority Act 1999 that transferred control of London Regional Transport (LRT) bus s ...

routes 92,

105 105 may refer to: *105 (number), the number * AD 105, a year in the 2nd century AD * 105 BC, a year in the 2nd century BC * 105 (telephone number), the emergency telephone number in Mongolia * 105 (MBTA bus), a Massachusetts Bay Transport Authority ...

, 395 and E6 serve the station.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenford Station Central line (London Underground) stations Railway stations in the London Borough of Ealing Tube stations in the London Borough of Ealing Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1904 Railway stations served by Great Western Railway