Southall station in West London has opened a new ticket hall with footbridge and step-free access as part of the preparations for the Elizabeth line.
The old station entrance was too small to cope with expected passenger demand, so they’ve built an entirely new station entrance slightly to the north of the railway, with a new footbridge linking with the four existing platforms.
New entrance (c) TfL
The footbridge also includes lifts, giving the station step-free access for the first time. Southall station is staffed at all times while trains are running with ramps available for those that need them to board trains. All TfL Rail stations operate a turn-up-and-go service for customers needing assistance.
The new station entrance is quite a sharp contrast with the small brick building it is replacing, with a double-height glass frontage and steel canopy. It has also been set back from the road, creating a wider pavement compared to the older entrance.
The station also has refreshed signage maintaining the bilingual information that was installed due to the large Punjabi community in the area – one of the few stations in England with bilingual signage.
As part of the upgrades to the station, to accommodate the longer Elizabeth line trains, they also had to extend the lengths of the four numbered platforms. Technically there’s a fifth unnumbered platform, but it’s currently only used for special events and wasn’t extended. There is though a lingering plan to reopen the Southall to Brentford railway, which could see the fifth platform brought back into use.
Station layout (c) Planning application
Now that the new entrance has opened, the plan is to close the old entrance, although the footbridge facilities will remain in place to provide a secondary exit should they ever be needed. The future for the old ticket hall building has not been decided yet.
The old entrance (c) Google Street View
Demolition of the old entrance to allow for the widening of the narrow pavement would be a very good long term idea, but that would depend on securing the funding.
View from the footbridge (c) TfL
Wonderful! Perhaps the morons in Notwork Fail might finally address the issue of the Merrick Road footbridge, that sits across the upside of Southall’s platforms, which was psuedo-replaced about 9 months ago when the span was lifted into place but they’ve since omitted to install the approach steps and ramps, rendering it completely useless. This follows them – in cahoots with the local council – having closed this mediaeval, public, right of way which predates the railway without any form of public consultation beforehand on spurious ‘safety’ grounds getting on for a decade ago now.
I would hope that when Ian Visits the installation – should it finally reopen – that his generally deferential and positive tone to all supposed NR ‘successes’ reflects the fact that local residents have been illegally deprived of on an historic access link which has inconvenienced them for far too long and for no good reason! NR are the worst corporate vandals in the country who seek to promote the few conservation projects they do undertake to disguise the desecration on a vast scale they promulgate. No doubt the fate of the remaining half of the Brunel-designed station building at Southall will soon follow the same destruction of the original Stonehouse Station building in Gloucestershire.
Your rant aside which in tone hardly engenders me to a polite debate, the fact is that I can find hardly any references to a footpath in that area, one shows up in the 1800s at the earliest, and there was no such thing as a medieval right of way, the footbridge is barely minutes from the main road, so while obviously somewhat inconvenient, I really struggle to understand the vehemence in your language about maybe 8 minutes of extra walking.
Hopefully once this all settles down, after the major works, the Southall Railcrash memorial garden will reopen. It’s tucked into the little corner there next to the original railway station entrance. It’s been closed for ages.
Southall train station has been transformed and looking good more modernised now looks good 👍 I’m pleased how it,s all worked out