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.
I presume that you have probably already viewed the Modern Railways presentation by Adrian Shooter regarding the state of play at Vivarail. Some of his comments could be relevant to this posting.
if not he link is here,
https://www.keymodernrailways.com/article/vivarail-zero-emission-trains-video
Comment by Fenline Scouser | October 12, 2020 |
Thanks!
Comment by AnonW | October 12, 2020 |
I’m not really sure why you even think this branch needs a 4 tph service when it barely needs the half hourly service it currently has.
I think you need to spend less time speculating and more time justifying.
Comment by Andrew Bruton | October 13, 2020 |
In one post, I said that Crossrail will have 10 tph at West Ealing. That will get a lot of moans if people have to wait 30 minutes for a train.
I was at Willesden today going to Dalston. We had to wait 20 minutes for a train and people were not happy.
Comment by AnonW | October 13, 2020 |
Speculation, AD – isn’t that the very reason many of us come to this site! Especially me, who doesn’t have the time, inclination or background to read in depth on transport or energy issues; details of which I am unlikely to find in the mainstream media.
Justification – everyone will show some sort of bias in conversation or articles, bit of optimistic crayonista in us all.
Spec and Just – often two sides of the same coin really.
I find, with my unexpert eye, that overall these are well thought out articles/comments, some go over my head, and even I have to say on occasion – ‘wishful thinking’ on that one James. But that does not detract from the reading of them.
Comment by Dave | October 13, 2020 |
Thanks for that. I try to show what is possible. I have had some messages from very surprising places, who have found what I said was useful. I also know that several people have chosen, where to live or the location of a business because of things I’ve written on this site.
Comment by AnonW | October 13, 2020 |