Willesden Logistics Hub is a freight

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

situated adjacent to the

West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...

Willesden Willesden () is an area of north-west London, situated 5 miles (8 km) north-west of Charing Cross. It is historically a parish in the county of Middlesex that was incorporated as the Municipal Borough of Willesden in 1933; it has formed ...

, England.

History

The site was rebuilt to handle container freight through the

Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (), sometimes referred to by the Portmanteau, portmanteau Chunnel, is a undersea railway tunnel, opened in 1994, that connects Folkestone (Kent, England) with Coquelles (Pas-de-Calais, France) beneath the English Channel at ...

and was known as Willesden Euro Terminal, one of nine such facilities constructed. Prior to this, it was already in use as a freight handling yard. The first train departed for the tunnel on 27 June 1994. However, the site did not see as much use as hoped due to declining levels of freight trains using the Channel Tunnel. As a result, the customs facilities were de-staffed, and eventually the site stopped handling international trains. It continued to be used for domestic railfreight purposes. The site was identified by

High Speed 2 High Speed 2 (HS2) is a high-speed railway which has been under construction in England since 2019. The line's planned route is between Handsacre – in southern Staffordshire – and London, with a Spur line, branch to Birmingham. HS2 is to ...

(HS2) as a candidate for use as a construction compound. Work started in 2018 to dismantle the disused cranes at the site. This was completed in March 2019. The first train ran from the refurbished facility on 2 July 2021.

Usage

The facility is expected to handle up to eight freight trains per day during the construction of HS2.

References

Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1994 Railway stations in the London Borough of Brent Rail freight transport in Great Britain High Speed 2 {{London-railstation-stub