Oracle
In memoriam
RIP 2012
Writing is such sweet sorrow: like heck it is!
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Post by Oracle on May 17, 2006 18:52:19 GMT
I apologise for boring the pants off you lot but I had a special interest in the building of the line to Hatton X when I lived a few yards away from the new cut-and-cover in Bath Road. Interesting things included: a) the demolition of a lovely furniture business, Gibbins', that had been going since the war at least. My father knew Malcom Gibbins, the founder's son who with his brother ran the business. Malcolm told me that his corner shop and the next door Fox's sweet shop and barber's were compulsorily purchased for far less he thought than its value and of course there was a working business and loss of income. In the end Malcolm had a shop [called of course "Gibbins"] in the Bath Road parade next to Barclays Bank and literally a few feet away from the Picc under the service road. b) when the tracks were laid in the deviation towards Hatton X a temporary junction was laid with the remaining two terminal tracks at the bend (the third was absorbed by the works) and a battery loco was run onto the new layout and then isolated when the junction was removed. I did ask whether there was any official name for the short-lived junction! c) there was a rare item on the Underground, a lavatory roughly level with the headstock between P1 and 2. Few people ever knew it was there as it was between two sets of steps up. On P1 there was also along the platform a small hut type waiting room with a sign on it about trains stopping at Turnham Green in the manner of a finger board. When the platforms were filled in after the new service started, this waiting room remained, and was there for years afterwards and I think the sign was, only I noticed it falling off! No-one could get to it I suppose so it was never touched. Iam pretty certain that the lav remained open for customers and staff. This gives you some modern pix: www.pendar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Tube/Hounslow_West_station.html |
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Oracle
In memoriam
RIP 2012
Writing is such sweet sorrow: like heck it is!
Posts: 3,234
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Post by Oracle on May 17, 2006 18:58:54 GMT
I should also add that the lovely Passimeter building was used for a few hours each week on a Monday morning for the sale of Weekly seasons.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 17, 2006 19:55:54 GMT
Interesting photos there. Did the old terminus at Hounslow West have a Uxbridge style crossover layout, or a Stratford (Jubilee Line)/Morden style crossover layout? Also, were the tracks dead ends, or were there overruns?
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prjb
Advisor
LU move customers from A to B, they used to do it via 'C'.
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Post by prjb on May 17, 2006 20:41:26 GMT
Great photo's, really fascinating. I used to live on the Bath Road too up until about 4 years ago.
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Oracle
In memoriam
RIP 2012
Writing is such sweet sorrow: like heck it is!
Posts: 3,234
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Post by Oracle on May 17, 2006 21:10:27 GMT
I have been wracking my brains! There was as you know originally three platforms, although I cannot recall ever seeing three trains at once before P3, on the Vicarage Farm Road side (airport side) was closed and the area subsumed for the building of the new station box. Two was the maximum but there may have been a District in the peaks as well to occupy a third platform...apparently the last were in October 1964! From memory P1 ran what seemed like a long way after P3 was lost EB before a #-over to the EB proper so I am sure that there was no X arrangement...does this sound like Morden? What I can say is that there was NO overrun, and trains ran up to as close to the sand drag as possible. If the sand did not stop an errant train then there was a wall! See construction photos here: photos.ltmcollection.org/ and then in the box type in 'HOUNSLOW WEST'. Also see this photo....this is very much as it was until P3 was lopped off and then the station closed in July 1975. www.53a-pix.co.uk/picture/LTp1938-HW-1950.jpgNote the Car Park on the right side. The lav was behind the photographer and there was also I believe the station office as well. My pal who worked in the Signals Dept was responsible for any repairs. He explained how a driver could (illegally) get out without paying. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2006 0:32:04 GMT
Oracle:
Maybe my ageing memory is letting me down again, but wasn't that 'Gibbins'?
I certainly remember that little cross passage beyond the sand drags - and the unbelievably shiny polished brass door knobs etc on the lav doors! Never had the nerve to stand there when there was a train coming in, though...
Used to travel home from school on the 91 bus, in the late 50s, but occasionally splashed out instead on a trip on the tube all the way from Osterley to Hounslow West. I remember the first new 'silver' trains, which we used to wait for in preference to the old red ones (38 stock), or even - gasp! - those scary standard stock things with the noisy 'cage' at each end where the less patient guards used to threaten to 'make you little bl33ders ride'.
And as for travelling on those scruffy District trains which got in the way of the Piccadilly trains which really belonged on that stretch of line - certainly not! Funny how eleven-year-old minds work. Perhaps I'll grow out of it one day. (Sorry, Dave ;D)
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Post by mandgc on May 18, 2006 0:52:02 GMT
Photos of Holden's Hounslow West Building.
The Architectural Journals never showed that view of the station with the car park and corrugated iron shed. :-)
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Oracle
In memoriam
RIP 2012
Writing is such sweet sorrow: like heck it is!
Posts: 3,234
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Post by Oracle on May 18, 2006 7:14:45 GMT
Thanks for spotting the speeling mistook! Do you remember the 'NEXT TRAIN' describer? No-one in my day ever paid attention to it except when you started having the airport passengers off the A1 airport express...are there two trains? Yes. Which one has the green light to go but has no driver as he is still walking along the platform with his fag?
I used to love the 38TS because it always felt 'gentleman's club' inside, with the 56TS a sort of half-way house with the extra wood inside cf. the 59TS. There was also a truly excellent newsagents in the station and they sold a heck of a lot of stuff such as aircraft books which was remarkable. I also used the 91 in the end, and on the way home if I belted out of school at 3.40, ran along Ridgeway Road, then along the Great West Road to the stop I might just be able to grab the London Airport 91 if it was late, thus enabling me to get off at the Blue Star Garage Regent/Texaco petrol station one stop down from Hounslow West Station. Once I ran for the RT and grabbed the pole with one hand, the other holding my suitcase. I was towed along hanging on for dear life at 30 mph with feet on the rear of the platform!
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Oracle
In memoriam
RIP 2012
Writing is such sweet sorrow: like heck it is!
Posts: 3,234
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Post by Oracle on May 18, 2006 10:27:48 GMT
Did the old terminus at Hounslow West have a Uxbridge style crossover layout, or a Stratford (Jubilee Line)/Morden style crossover layout? I have been looking at the Uxbridge layout and believe that pre-1974ish when P3 was 'lost' that it was similar but 'flipped' vertically. It was not as per Morden I am certain but I would love to see a diagram! I take it that the surface stock detectors are still there even though SSL stock is banned west of Northfields now? I have read that they were. This was obviously simplified after the P3 road was removed. I just wish I could find a photo of the layout but there were no overbridges to take a pic from. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2006 10:44:11 GMT
It would make sense that the layout was Uxbridge style, as the Cockfosters crossover layout is also similar i.e scissors crossover, followed by each track diverging, with the inner branches converging into the centre track.
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Post by frankpick on May 23, 2006 18:18:11 GMT
Did the old terminus at Hounslow West have a Uxbridge style crossover layout, or a Stratford (Jubilee Line)/Morden style crossover layout? I have been looking at the Uxbridge layout and believe that pre-1974ish when P3 was 'lost' that it was similar but 'flipped' vertically. It was not as per Morden I am certain but I would love to see a diagram! I take it that the surface stock detectors are still there even though SSL stock is banned west of Northfields now? I have read that they were. Yes they are. They now don't contain mercury as in the original but simply a silvered inner. As far as I remember P3 was lost as the Heathrow externsion got underway. The signal box was at the end of P3 too. As far as I know and understand, they moved the frame from Bank into Hounslow West in a wooden shed halfway up on the right hand side of P1. This was obviously simplified after the P3 road was removed. I just wish I could find a photo of the layout but there were no overbridges to take a pic from. |
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Post by frankpick on May 23, 2006 18:18:46 GMT
Did the old terminus at Hounslow West have a Uxbridge style crossover layout, or a Stratford (Jubilee Line)/Morden style crossover layout? I have been looking at the Uxbridge layout and believe that pre-1974ish when P3 was 'lost' that it was similar but 'flipped' vertically. It was not as per Morden I am certain but I would love to see a diagram! I take it that the surface stock detectors are still there even though SSL stock is banned west of Northfields now? I have read that they were. Yes they are. They now don't contain mercury as in the original but simply a silvered inner. As far as I remember P3 was lost as the Heathrow externsion got underway. The signal box was at the end of P3 too. As far as I know and understand, they moved the frame from Bank into Hounslow West in a wooden shed halfway up on the right hand side of P1. This was obviously simplified after the P3 road was removed. I just wish I could find a photo of the layout but there were no overbridges to take a pic from. |
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Post by frankpick on May 23, 2006 18:20:07 GMT
I also used to get the 91 bus to school, from the Master Robert. Some days I would get the 91 to Hounslow West and catch the Picc to Boston Manor - happy days!
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