Location Greenford Station code GFD 2009 3.495 million Address Greenford, United Kingdom Owner Transport for London | Managed by London Underground Fare zone 4 2012 4.05 million Opened 1904 Number of platforms 3 | |
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Similar London Underground, Perivale tube station, Grange Hill tube station, North Acton tube station, Newbury Park tube station | ||
Incline lift at greenford station
Greenford is a London Underground and National Rail station in Greenford, Greater London, and is owned and managed by London Underground. It is the terminus of the National Rail Greenford Branch Line. On the Central line, it is between Perivale and Northolt stations while on National Rail, the next station to the south on the branch is South Greenford. The station is in Travelcard Zone 4.
Contents
Greenford station contrasts
History
The original Greenford station was opened by the Great Western Railway on 1 October 1904 on the joint New North Main Line.
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. It was completed by Frederick Francis Charles Curtis and opened on 30 June 1947 after delay due to World War II. 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 to London Transport with effect from 13 November 1967.
The site of old station for the New North Main Line can still be seen through the window of a Central line train.
The station today
Greenford station is above ground level with an island platform for the Central line. A bay platform facing south-east between the Underground platforms serves the Greenford branch service operated by Great Western Railway. The branch line then continues south and joins the Great Western Main Line at West Ealing.
Platform 1 is for London Underground trains away from London, usually to West Ruislip, and platform 3 for trains towards central London and beyond as far as Epping, where platform 2 serves the Paddington branch line.
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 line between Greenford and West Ealing carries infrequent freight services from Paddington New Yard and sand traffic for Park Royal and is used by occasional diverted passenger services.
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 an innovative glass incline lift, was later restarted, and the incline lift opened on 20 October 2015.
Signalling
One of the few remaining semaphore signalling installations in London is on the adjacent New North Main Line which Greenford East signal box controls along with the Greenford branch as far as South Greenford. Great Western type lower quadrant signals are still in use.
British Rail plans from the early 1990s to do away with Greenford East signal box and its semaphore signals, with upgraded signalling controlled by Slough and Marylebone signalling centres, were postponed indefinitely as the decline of rail traffic controlled by Greenford East did not justify the cost.
London Underground
The typical off-peak service in trains per hour (tph) is:
National Rail
Greenford branch trains (National Rail) ran to Paddington every 30 minutes Mon-Sat; there is no Sunday service. From January 2017, these services were truncated to terminate at West Ealing.
Connections
London Buses routes 92, 105, 395 and E6 serve the station.