The Station Today
Greenford station is above ground level with an island platform for the Central line, where it is between Perivale and Northolt stations. A bay platform facing south-east between the Underground platforms serves the Greenford branch service operated by First Great Western, the next station on the branch is South Greenford and the line joins the Great Western Main Line at West Ealing.
Greenford was the first London Underground station to have an escalator up to platforms above street level. It remains as of 2006 the only London Underground station with a wooden-treaded escalator in service; all other such escalators were converted to fully metal treads, or removed altogether from sub-surface Underground stations in the wake of the fatal 1987 King's Cross fire.
Greenford branch trains (National Rail) run to Paddington but there is no Sunday service.
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. 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.
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 are relatively quiet stations and some are already one or two stops away from an existing step-free station. However there is no station with step-free access which is close to Greenford. £3.9 million was spent on Greenford before the project was halted.
| Preceding station | London Underground | Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northolt towards West Ruislip | Central line |
Perivale
towards Epping, Hainault or Woodford (via Hainault) |
||
| National Rail | ||||
| Terminus | First Great Western |
South Greenford | ||
| Disused railways | ||||
| Northolt | Great Western Railway |
Perivale Halt | ||
Greenford station is on London bus routes 92, 105, 395 and E6.
Read more about this topic: Greenford Station
Famous quotes containing the words station and/or today:
“How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)
“The late Président de Montesquieu told me that he knew how to be blind—he had been so for such a long time—but I swear that I do not know how to be deaf: I cannot get used to it, and I am as humiliated and distressed by it today as I was during the first week. No philosophy in the world can palliate deafness.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)