West Ealing station goes step-free as part of Crossrail upgrades
West Ealing station, which is one stop beyond Ealing Broadway has an entirely new entrance and has gone step-free for the first time.
Worked carried out by Network Rail has seen a new station entrance built on a side-road next to the station which will replace the small 1980s brick entrance that sits above the railway on a road bridge.
The new much larger entrance is slightly higher than the railway, so has steps down to the London bound platforms, and up to the new footbridge, and lifts connecting the two platforms. A new cycle rack was added on a paved area next to the station, and an accessible toilet included inside the station on the paid side of the ticket barriers.
The two platform station also gained a platform 5, after a new bay platform for Greenford Branch trains was created by widening Platform 4, and reopening some disused goods loading railway tracks.
If that’s confusing, it’s because Platform 1 and 2 which would have served what are today the high-speed lines were demolished in the 1960s and 1990s respectively. However, the signalling still refers to the older platform numbers, so it’s now a station with Platforms 3,4 & 5.
Apart from the station upgrade, the arrival of TfL Rail services means that the station also gained a Sunday service where before it had always been closed.
This looks like a vast improvement. While it’s been built because of Crossrail, it fixes a problem that’s been around for years (it’s been a while since this was my local station). Will be great when I next visit not to end up queuing endlessly on the stairs to get out while everyone negotiates a single door and card reader.
I guess it’s useful if you have a TARDIS and travel back in time from any London station, the platform numbers will be the same even if you end up with no platform 1 like Tottenham Hale, Caledonian Road and Barnsbury, Twickenham … and West Ealing!
You could hardly get inside this station before, the improvements here are massive!
Transport for London have done amazing work at TfL Rail stations in West London and East London as part of the Crossrail project. With new station buildings being built and easy step-free accessibility.
Those are Network Rail upgrades, not TfL.
Making West Ealing accessible now provides an accessible route to Greenford Station which has the distinction of having the first ascending lift in London. There are two other stations on this branch that have step free access but lack of staffing by GWR makes them useless for most of the time so perhaps it’s time for this branch to be transferred to TFL with either GWR operation on behalf of TFL or direct operation by TFL thus making these two additional stations accessible by TFL staffing.
Operated properly this line could be the equivalent of the DLR in east London providing a local service and if remaining Station was made accessible it could become fully accessible.
I noticed that Greenford Station has two further tracks that are only used by freight trains but given the recent keenness to introduce passenger services to freight lines could this branch be extended to cover more of west London but without copying the Central Line.
You mean the New North Main Line? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acton%E2%80%93Northolt_line
Chiltern are possibly going to the the freight lines to access a second London terminal at Old Oak Common.
West Ealing looking like one of the bigger winners from Crossrail, with nice new station and huge reductions in current journey times when it comes in. Train per hour number will also have to rise with all the development taking place.
I’ve looked at the track layout on the Greenford Branch and I think with minor modifications, it might be possible to run four trains per hour.
But I suspect it would need too many trains and staff.
But then we have several of these shuttle services, so perhaps we need to design an automated shuttle train, that goes between the two terminals until the driver says stop.
Has the work on Ealing Broadway station been completed yet? I haven’t seen anything about it, but each time I visited it was a building site and a nightmare to negotiate with heavy bags as there is/was no escalator or lift.
It’s still a building site with all passengers now having to use the far end stairs on platform 4 to reach platform 3 and obviously vice versa on leaving platform 3. No indication of when those works will be completed.
Nice work and in good time – this was pretty much a hole in the ground 18 months ago. I do wonder if they have added any platform seating back?
How lovely to read this, the night before I use the station for the first time this year as I’m off work tomorrow to take the train into the city to go to my salon! West Ealing is my local station and I cycled past it today to ‘prepare’ for my train journey tomorrow. I’m really pleased with how it looks – so spacious and not just a *single* door on a bridge road which was a Covid social distancing nightmare! I look forward to experiencing my new station tomorrow.
Good work Crossrail and Railtrack, now as local residents of West-Ealing we at LONG last have a railway station fit for purpose. I am wondering what “useful” purpose could the old useless station be put to?
We’ve seen the station. But the public realm plans are as far as I can tell hidden. This is the important aspect of station design…that of an interchange between foot passengers, those arriving by cycle or car and those arriving by bus. Ealing pretends that cars don’t exist and ain’t keen on the disabled either. At our last meeting with Ealing’s design team they were not prepared to countenance a drop-off and pick-up bay for the disabled as prescribed by a British Standard adjacent to the station entrance. Now their plans are hidden (did they work for the CIA) what are they going to do.