please empty your brain below

What made you think the train came from Hull.
There is definetely a small screen on the platforms at Greenford which shows you the times of the next gwr services. It's not a huge DMI like wot the tube has though, admittedly. But it is there.
The Hull trains are maintained at Old Oak Common, so empty stock runs through Acton Main Line twice, having gone via the Greenford loop to reach the North London Line, they do this instead of just reversing at Acton Main Line which I assume eats up capacity - its also used for turning HSTs if they end up the wrong way round (First Class at the other end).

There used to be a turn back siding at Ealing Broadway as the trains used to shuttle between Greenford and Ealing Broadway, I think it was during the Network Southeast era that trains were extended to Paddington.
Just remembered that the junction for the line to Greenford/West Ruislip is next to Old Oak Common, so Hull trains only go through Acton Main Line once, not twice to reach the North London Line (normally reach Bounds Green via Gospel Oak, but with that closed for electrification now Camden Road to ECML).
Just along the road from W. Ealing station is the Drayton Court Hotel.

This establishment once employed Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh in its kitchens in 1914.

Worth a visit for its Victorian architecture.
Castle Bar is a 'Interesting' area, as a London Broncos supporter, playing at Trailfinders, I've wandered around the area, as you say a fair few boarded up properties (strange given W London property prices) and a network of footpaths with little linkage to anywhere. The estate above the railway was a suprise to me as I was trying to find a way to cycle from one side of the track to the other. There did look like a lot of large Victorian buildings in the area too. Perhaps as might explore more next season.
This was an important line for me when at school. Our games field was at South Greenford. We went by coach from Ealing but we had to make our own way home. In the winter we would use the old "push'n'pull" to Ealing Broadway. In the summer we would use a bus changing at Greenford Broadway so we could buy one of those pyramidical "Jubblys" to cool us down. I suspect the locals knew to avoid the train at about 3.45 as 90 boisterous teenagers would be boarding.
I always enjoy watching the semaphores on the "main" line at Greenford. It's such an island of archaism, especially because they're lower-quadrant signals. I presume the main reason it's not been modernized is that it's always been the preferred corridor for HS2.

A diagram of the current signalling is in Figure 2 of this document: [pdf]
Thanks for the write up DG, I find your blogs always interesting and inspiring.

Pity I didn't know about this closure earlier, it would have been nice to have traveled on the full service.
A quick google and: Apparently the boarded up flats ("76 dwellings") and other sundry buildings are being demolished and being replaced by "204 dwellings"

49 new builds will be for council rent (30 less than previous), 38 affordable rent, 10 shared ownership and the rest private

[planning document]

[newsletter download]
I think calling West Ealing a backwater is a bit harsh. Okay, Ealing Broadway has all the glamour and excitement, but West Ealing's got quite a big shopping street as well as a Sainsburys and a Waitrose. It also had a BHS until the chain's demise, and until the early 2000s it had a Marks and Spencer.

Rubbish train station though.
Had completely forgotten until I read this this morning, that today would be my last journey on the 0846 Paddington-Greenford, which has been - all things being equal - the last leg of my journey to work for the past 18 months, albeit only on the mainline section to Ealing Broadway. I'll miss the two-car anachronisms creeping in among Paddington's 'proper' sized trains, pausing for just a few moments as though embarrassed to be there, before darting back out again. Ah well, from January we'll have a shiny new Electrostar heading to Hayes & Harlington at 0845 instead. Though annoying for the handful of Greenford passengers.

There's still an aspiration locally - including on the part of Ealing Council - to get a positive from the curtailment and run the residual West Ealing-Greenford section three times an hour, hopefully growing passenger numbers as a result. This could be done with the same rolling stock/staff requirements as the current Paddington-Greenford service (i.e. two trains), but GWR have cooled on this, so it's staying at just two trains an hour for now, requiring just one train to run the entire service. Hopefully, there will be scope for this to be re-examined once Crossrail is open, though the delays to wider electrification make it likely GWR will be pretty short of diesel units by then, so don't hold your breath.

The boarded up flats next to Castle Bar Park station are likely to be part of the Copley Close estate regeneration scheme, running from 2012 to 2019, which refurbishes 550 existing homes and builds around 200 new ones.

Incidentally - if you ignore the first and last trains - I think the curtailment of the Greenford branch makes it only the second regular national rail service in London which operates entirely within one borough, alongside the Romford-Upminster Overground route. Micro-devolution time? ;-)
@Political Animal.

Possibly not the second in history, (although I can't come up with any examples) but I think you're right that the Emerson line is the only other one in London. The Bromley North line doesn't count, as Grove Park is in LB Lewisham
I was going to suggest the erstwhile Addiscombe shuttle, but I checked a map and Elmers End is just the wrong side of the Croydon/Bromley border.
The Stratford - North Woolwich route was one, after its cutting back from Tottenham Hale and before its extension to Camden Road (and later Richmond)

I thought of Addiscombe, until I checked.
The branches to Uxbridge Vine Street, Stanmore Village and the District Line's South Acton shuttle all fell entirely within the boundaries of modern London boroughs, but they all closed before 1965, when they were still in Middlesex.
I never even knew it existed. And no sooner had it come to my attention than I can forget about it again. Truly, it was as if it was never there.
@Julian: couldn't have put it better myself.
I'm surprised it still says British Rail at Greenford.










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