West Ealing Station – 12th October 2020
These pictures show the current state of West Ealing station.
A few of my thoughts.
The Size Of The Station
It is not small!
Will The Current Entrance Be Retained?
From the outside the original entrance looks to be in good condition.
Will it be retained?
I think it won’t be as the stairs are a bit of an accident waiting to happen.
Electrification Of The Greenford Branch
If the Greenford Branch is going to be electrified, the last picture shows that gantries and headspan wires are in place over the Western end of Platform 5.
The electrification could be fixed to the new station building, if it were to be electrified.
Power would not be a problem, as a main sub-station for Crossrail and the Great Western Main Line is nearby.
In Could Class 165 HyDrive Trains Be The Solution To The Greenford Branch?, I showed that a train with better acceleration could provide four trains per hour (tph) on the Greenford Branch.
I feel that a pair of powerful two-car battery electric trains could provide four tph on the branch.
- They would charge using a short length of 25 KVAC overhead electrification in Platform 5 at West Ealing station.
- The route is only 2.5 miles.
- Recharging time wouldn’t be very long, as the battery wouldn’t be enormous.
In Special Train Offers A Strong Case For Reopening Fawley Line, the Managing Director of South Western Railway; Mark Hopwood is quoted as saying, that their Class 456 trains could be converted to two-car battery trains. Converting Class 456 Trains Into Two-Car Battery Electric Trains discusses this conversion in detail.
A two-car Class 456 train equipped with batteries and the ability to use 25 KVAC overhead electrification, would be ideal for the branch and could probably provide four tph.
Conclusion
This station is starting to look like a quality station for Crossrail.
The Anonymous Widower 