A Great Western Mystery

[Pacific231G]

I thought i knew the railways in my part of London but while exploring the maps.nls.uk site of the National Library of Scotland (a fantastic resource) I found somethihg completely new, at least to me.

This is on the OS Six Inch map from sometime between 1883 and 1913. I think it's early in that period as Old Oak Common is still farmland, with Old Oak Farm on it, and the GWR loco shed for Paddington appears to be at Mitre Bridge Junction.

 

About 300m East of Acton Station (now Acton Main Line) at Friars Place Green, just where the A40 crosses the GW Main Line (51 31 02 N 0 15 53 W), are the earthworks of a junction that would have faced the line towards Paddington for a single track branch that swings away from the main line roughly opposite where the Acton Wells branch rises to join the N&SW Junction Railway. It then curves fairly tightly (about 250M radius) to the right till it crosses  over the N&SWJ Ry. on a roughly SE heading. The route then curves far more gently to the north side of East Acton Lane by whcih point it is heading almost due south. There it stops and there is nothing beyond that point . There's no sign of it beyond that point. The whole thing is about 900m long and running across what was then farmland. Though the earthworks and a bridge over the NASWJ Ry appear complete it's marked as Railway (Abandoned).

 

There is absolutely no trace of this route on modern maps either in earthworks or street lines and I'm assuming it is a branch that began construction but was never completed. If its line is extended it would have crossed The Vale (A4020) and possibly joined the N&SWJ's short Hammersmith branch which had a terminus at Hammersmith & Chiswick Station. This was almost underneath the L&SWR Kensington and Richmond line (now the District and Picadilly lines) about 500m east of Turnham Green Station on the north side of Chiswick High Road just to the west of Prebend Gardens.  That station was in an already well developed area and its site was still very evident from District Line trains when I first lived in West London in the mid 1970s. Though the station site has now been redeveloped the route of the rest of this long dismantled line is still very clear from modern boundaries and building lines. 

 

Does anyone know anything more about the uncompleted branch off the Paddington main line line which looks like it could be the basis of an interesting "might have been" urban branch.

Edited January 16, 2017 by Pacific231G

[Rugd1022]

Interesting.... sounds to me like it might have been a connectioning chord from the Wood Lane line to the GW mainline.

[phil_sutters]

While this doesn't seem to answer the mystery, it may help to put the location in context. It is from a gazetteer dated, from its railway era, at about 1884. This is a section of a map showing the railways of London and its then suburbs.

 

addendum!

 

Edited January 16, 2017 by phil_sutters

[The Stationmaster]

It might be something to do with the abortive 1847/48 GWR plan to construct a branchline from Acton to Staines and Egham which would have included branches to Brentford, Isleworth, and Twickenham.  

 

However that didn't get Parliamentary powers but powers were granted for branch from Acton to join the West London Railway thence to the L&SWR at Vauxhall with a branch to Hammersmith.  The route of the earthworks suggests to me that they were most likely for that line which would have had an easy cross open country route to the WLL and probably a similar sort of route to Hammersmith.  The line of the earthworks is very much in the Hammersmith direction while the width of the cutting just after leaving the GWML could potentially leave room for a second junction towards the WLL.  The project foundered in the general economic collapse of 1848/49.

[chrisf]

 

 

About 300m East of Acton Station (now Acton Town) at Friars Place Green, just where the A40 Westway crosses the GW Main Line (51 31 02 N 0 15 53 W), are the earthworks of a junction that would have faced the line towards Paddington for a single track branch that swings away from the main line roughly opposite where the Acton Wells branch rises to join the N&SW Junction Railway. It then curves fairly tightly (about 250M radius) to the right till it crosses  over the N&SWJ Ry. on a roughly SE heading. The route then curves far more gently to the north side of East Acton Lane by whih point it is heading almost due south. There it stops and there is nothing beyon that point . There's no sign of it beyond that point. The whole thing is about 900m long and running across what was then farmland. Though the earthworks and a bridge over the NASWJ Ry appear complete it's marked as Railway (Abandoned).

 

 

 

I think you mean Acton Main Line [where I did most of my early spotting!] and A40 Western Avenue - Westway is the continuation of Western Avenue beyond Western Circus and heads east, parallel to Ducane Road.

 

Chris

[Christopher125]

Does anyone know anything more about the uncompleted branch off the Paddington main line line which looks like it could be the basis of an interesting "might have been" urban branch.

Isn't this the 'Latimer Road and Acton Railway'? I was fascinated by this a few years back, even looking for remnants in old aerial photos (with limited success IIRC).

[Pacific231G]

I think you mean Acton Main Line [where I did most of my early spotting!] and A40 Western Avenue - Westway is the continuation of Western Avenue beyond Western Circus and heads east, parallel to Ducane Road.

 

Chris

Yes, thanks Chris, I've corrected the OP accordingly.

It's frustrating to only find incomplete snippets of references to the Latimer Road and Acton. suggesting it was going to be worked jointly by the Metropolitan and the GWR.

 

Though the Latimer Road and Acton Rly seems to make most sense in term of a project I can't square that with the line of what was actually built. However, there are odd snippets about Wood Lane and there is an intriguingly curved strip of land just behind the east side of Frithville Gardens. (that would have passed the SW corner of the Television Centre site). That would suggest a route using the H&C from Hammersmith then branching off it  just north of Uxbridge Road towards a junction with the GWR east of Acton Station (Acton ML) It is a peculiarly shaped route but less so than a junction at Latimer Road station would be and in any case that would be a meaningless line as it would simply be a loop from the GWR running through the fields to the south skirting north of Hammersmith before rejoining the GWR at Westbourne Park via the H&C. A line enabling traffic from the West to reach Hammersmith without going via Paddinton would make some sense (though a  triangle at Westbourne Park woulfd make even more sense) However, I've produced a composite of the old map and the line of the mystery railway still seems to point to the Hammersmith and Chiswick terminus of the N&SW Junction Rlys. Hammersmith Branch on the Chiswick High Road (the station is really a bit to the west of Hammersmith)

Edited January 16, 2017 by Pacific231G

[chrisf]

At the risk of appearing facetious, we are dangerously close to "Clarendon" territory. The builders of this fine P4 layout have set it in the environs of Wormwood Scrubs, which might well have been crossed by the Latimer Rod and Acton.

 

A fuller account of what really happened and did not happen may be found in "London's Local Railways" by Alan A Jackson.

 

Chris

[The Stationmaster]

Yes I've corrected the OP accordingly.

It's frustrating to only find incomplete snippets of references to the Latimer Road and Acton. suggesting it was going to be worked jointly by the Metropolitan and the GWR.

 

Though the Latimer Road and Acton Rly seems to make most sense in term of a project I can't square that with the line of what was actually built. However, there are odd snippets about Wood Lane and there is an intriguingly curved strip of land just behind the east side of Frithville Gardens. (that would have passed the SW corner of the Television Centre site). That would suggest a route using the H&C from Hammersmith then branching off it  just north of Uxbridge Road towards a junction with the GWR east of Acton Station (Acton ML) It is a peculiarly shaped route but less so than a junction at Latimer Road station would be and in any case that would be a meaningless line as it would simply be a loop from the GWR running through the fields to the south skirting north of Hammersmith before rejoining the GWR at Westbourne Park via the H&C. A line enabling traffic from the West to reach Hammersmith without going via Paddinton would make some sense (though a  triangle at Westbourne Park woulfd make even more sense) However, I've produced a composite of the old map and the line of the mystery railway still seems to point to the Hammersmith and Chiswick terminus of the N&SW Junction Rlys. Hammersmith Branch on the Chiswick High Road (the station is really a bit to the west of Hammersmith)

 

I wonder if the Frithville Road curve was anything to do with the Ealing and Sheperds Bush Railway?  The E&SB was authorised under the GWR Act of 1905 and was originally - it appears - authorised to a junction with the Central London at Shepherds Bush, which would more or less align through a curve with the second identified parcel of land the Frithville Curve joins and which extends on the relevant OS maps for a short distance from a boundary at the H&C Line to Old Oak Farm.  The agreement between the GWR and CLR was not made until 1911 by which time the CLR had extended to White City and which would have rendered the original boundary at Shepherd Bush superfluous. requiring a different route at the south end of the ES &B.

 

The E&SB was a long time in gestation not opening for freight until 1917 while it didn't open to passenger traffic until 1920 although construction appears to have started in 1908 (as far as the south end was concerned).  If nothing else it would be interesting to know if the route of the ES&B was altered after the original Act was passed.

[Pacific231G]

At the risk of appearing facetious, we are dangerously close to "Clarendon" territory. The builders of this fine P4 layout have set it in the environs of Wormwood Scrubs, which might well have been crossed by the Latimer Rod and Acton.

 

A fuller account of what really happened and did not happen may be found in "London's Local Railways" by Alan A Jackson.

 

Chris

I'll know more when I get the copy of this book that I've just ordered; thanks for alerting me to it.

 

Phil, I've taken the liberty of marking the route of earthworks marked "abandoned railway" on your gazetter map along with the "Frithville Gardens Curve", the position of Latimer Road and a speculative route from the end of the earthworks at East Acton via the other possible parcel of land passing old Oak Farm to the WLR at Uxbridge Road (slightly south of the present Shepherds Bush overground station) with a connection to the H&C via the Frithville Curve.

 

This does seem the likeliest explanation, as Stationmaster says, given that it agrees with the powers granted to the GWR but the route of the earthworks still don't make a lot of sense. Why end up heading due south then having to make a fairly sharp turn to the east when a more direct south easterly line would only have had to cross open fields?

If that is true and the Hammersmith terminus of the H&C had also been a terminus for trains coming from the west on the GW mainline I wonder what sort of station it would have developed into. Definitely in Clarendon territory (a layout that I also like very much)

 

 

Thank you all for trying to help me solve this little mystery. If I turn up anything else I'll let you all know.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Pacific231G

[The Stationmaster]

I'll know more when I get the copy of this book that I've just ordered; thanks for alerting me to it.

 

Phil, I've taken the liberty of marking the route of earthworks marked "abandoned railway" on your gazetter map along with the "Frithville Gardens Curve", the position of Latimer Road and a speculative route from the end of the earthworks at East Acton via the other possible parcel of land passing old Oak Farm to the WLR at Uxbridge Road (slightly south of the present Shepherds Bush overground station) with a connection to the H&C via the Frithville Curve.

1884 gazeteer marked.jpg

 

This does seem the likeliest explanation, as Stationmaster says, given that it agrees with the powers granted to the GWR but the route of the earthworks still don't make a lot of sense. Why end up heading due south then having to make a fairly sharp turn to the east when a more direct south easterly line would only have had to cross open fields?

If that is true and the Hammersmith terminus of the H&C had also been a terminus for trains coming from the west on the GW mainline I wonder what sort of station it would have developed into. Definitely in Clarendon territory (a layout that I also like very much)

 

 

Thank you all for trying to help me solve this little mystery. If I turn up anything else I'll let you all know. 

 

II wonder if you've added 2 + 2 and got 5.  The reason I say that is that the H&C didn't get its Act until 1861 and didn't open until 1864 so the direct southward earthworks you originally came across would make much more sense of an 1847/8 branch towards Hammersmith although a line off that might well have followed the sort of route you identify towards the West London Railway.

 

The real answer will of course lurk within the GWR land transfer and ownership plans which referenced all the transactions under which the Company acquired or sold land along its routes (and which it had purchased for various schemes which subsequently became abortive.  Unfortunately the big problem would be in tracing the relevant sections - assuming they still exist - as some (if not all) went into private ownership with the sold off civil engineers organisations and were often subsequently dumped or sold off piecemeal in order to save storage space - finding any, let alone the right ones, now would be a matter of luck.  What might be worth a search is to see if there is any evidence of the route of the E&SB being altered between the original act and start of construction -the original Act was the GWR (New Railways) Act of  11 June 1905, Section 5 and the agreement with the Central London Railway was GWR print number 704 of 23 August 1911.  However any change - if there was one at all - would have been a bit earlier as vconstruction access to the site was created at Viaduct Jcn in 1908

[chrisf]

According to Jackson the Latimer Road and Acton was promoted in 1881 and got the first of its many Acts in 1882.

 

Chris

[The Stationmaster]

According to Jackson the Latimer Road and Acton was promoted in 1881 and got the first of its many Acts in 1882.

 

Chris

 

Any hint if it actually bought any land or did any work on the ground?

[Andy Kirkham]

It's worth looking at the Old Maps site (although it's not very friendly to non-subscribers) e.g. https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/520881/181190/12/100907. 

 

It seem to show that the earthworks are not there on the 1:2500 plan of 1871, but they had appeared by 1896.

 

By 1915 the bridge over the North & South Western Junction line was still there, but the earthworks seem to have been levelled to make a golf course and an athletics ground. A curved property boundary still revealed the old course.

 

BY 1935 there seems to be not a trace.

[chrisf]

Any hint if it actually bought any land or did any work on the ground?

 

"Enough cash was raised or promised to permit a start on construction in 1883 at the Acton end.  A house standing on the site of the proposed Acton station near Friar's Place was demolished and an iron bridge erected over the N&SWJR near the present motorway [ie Western Avenue] bridge.  This activity ceased when the money ran out; neither the GWR nor the Metropolitan were prepared to come to the rescue ...*

 

If I quote any more of Jackson's book the OP will be cursing me for wasting his money!

 

Chris

[Pacific231G]

II wonder if you've added 2 + 2 and got 5.  The reason I say that is that the H&C didn't get its Act until 1861 and didn't open until 1864 so the direct southward earthworks you originally came across would make much more sense of an 1847/8 branch towards Hammersmith although a line off that might well have followed the sort of route you identify towards the West London Railway.

 

The real answer will of course lurk within the GWR land transfer and ownership plans which referenced all the transactions under which the Company acquired or sold land along its routes (and which it had purchased for various schemes which subsequently became abortive.  Unfortunately the big problem would be in tracing the relevant sections - assuming they still exist - as some (if not all) went into private ownership with the sold off civil engineers organisations and were often subsequently dumped or sold off piecemeal in order to save storage space - finding any, let alone the right ones, now would be a matter of luck.  What might be worth a search is to see if there is any evidence of the route of the E&SB being altered between the original act and start of construction -the original Act was the GWR (New Railways) Act of  11 June 1905, Section 5 and the agreement with the Central London Railway was GWR print number 704 of 23 August 1911.  However any change - if there was one at all - would have been a bit earlier as vconstruction access to the site was created at Viaduct Jcn in 1908

The route I've sketched in is speculative and I'm not convinced of it so more a question of " possibly 2+x+ maybe 1 + y = z  where 2 is the abandoned railway, 1 is the Frithville Gardens curve and x,y & z are all unknowns.

 

The date of the OS map showing the abandoned railway can be bracketed between the opening of Olympia in 1886 which is on the map (It had a different name until soon after it opened) and the GWR's New Northen Main Line from Old Oak Common to Rusilip built in 1903-1906 of which there is not yet a hint. That doesn't though tell us for how long the railway works for the line in question had been abandoned. Given that the bridge over the N & SW Junction Rly. appears to be in place the answer is maybe not that long though if there were still plans to build it I don't think it would have been marked as abandoned.

Remember that the "Hammersmith" the south pointing end of the route appears to be aiming at is the N&SWJ's Hammersmith Branch terminus which was between Hammersmith and Chiswick (it's later more honest name) 

Edited January 17, 2017 by Pacific231G

[Pacific231G]

"Enough cash was raised or promised to permit a start on construction in 1883 at the Acton end.  A house standing on the site of the proposed Acton station near Friar's Place was demolished and an iron bridge erected over the N&SWJR near the present motorway [ie Western Avenue] bridge.  This activity ceased when the money ran out; neither the GWR nor the Metropolitan were prepared to come to the rescue ...*

 

If I quote any more of Jackson's book the OP will be cursing me for wasting his money!

 

Chris

Not at all Chris, including postage it only cost a fiver.

 

Thanks for this and it does seem to settle it that it was the Latimer Road and Acton though it'll be interesting to know where it was actually going to join the H&C and in which direction. 

[ejstubbs]

Just been doing some casual Googling...

 

According to this RCHS paper: "the never-completed Latimer Road and Acton Railway of 1882 left some traces — a bridge over the West London and another over the North & South West Junction were visible for many years. The alignment was close to that of Western Avenue."  The bridge over the N&SWJR is fairly clear to see on old OS maps, as noted higher up the thread.  It's not clear to me where the bridge over the WLL was.  However, if a bridge existed over the WLL, that would seem to suggest that the plans for the LR&AR maybe did not include a junction with the WLL.

 

This notice in the London Gazette of 26th November 1886 seems to go in to quite a lot of detail about the LR&AR, though most of it is lost on me as I am not at all familiar with that area.

Edited January 17, 2017 by ejstubbs

[Pacific231G]

Just been doing some casual Googling...

 

According to this RCHS paper: "the never-completed Latimer Road and Acton Railway of 1882 left some traces — a bridge over the West London and another over the North & South West Junction were visible for many years. The alignment was close to that of Western Avenue."  The bridge over the N&SWJR is fairly clear to see on old OS maps, as noted higher up the thread.  It's not clear to me where the bridge over the WLL was.  However, if a bridge existed over the WLL, that would seem to suggest that the plans for the LR&AR maybe did not include a junction with the WLL.

 

This notice in the London Gazette of 26th November 1886 seems to go in to quite a lot of detail about the LR&AR, though most of it is lost on me as I am not at all familiar with that area.

Thanks. Your Googling seems to have been more fruitful than mine.

The RCHS comment about the LR&A is interesting but if that did closely follow the alignment of Western Avenue and did make a junction with the H&C near that railway's Latimer Road station then what the heck is the line heading due south doing as that would then be a different railway.  The thick plottens!! 

The London Gazette page should be particularly useful once I can get my head round the locations and should enable the route to be traced at least in general. In that notice, Mill Hill Park station is Acton Town on the Picadilly and District; Addison Road station is Kensington Olympia; the "road or lane leading from Gunnersbury Park to Ealing Common" is Gunnersbury Avenue on the North Cicular.  I haven't traced it yet but this appears to be a very different railway using some of the route of the now abandoned but still authorised LR&A original more or less different railway effecively connecting the H&C near Latimer Road with what is now the Picadilly Line's Heathrow branch as well as what is now the District Line's Ealing Broadway Branch. I can't see what traffic it could have hoped to gather and it wouldn't appear to any longer be directly associated with the GWR.  

Edited January 18, 2017 by Pacific231G

[The Stationmaster]

Just been doing some casual Googling...

 

According to this RCHS paper: "the never-completed Latimer Road and Acton Railway of 1882 left some traces — a bridge over the West London and another over the North & South West Junction were visible for many years. The alignment was close to that of Western Avenue."  The bridge over the N&SWJR is fairly clear to see on old OS maps, as noted higher up the thread.  It's not clear to me where the bridge over the WLL was.  However, if a bridge existed over the WLL, that would seem to suggest that the plans for the LR&AR maybe did not include a junction with the WLL.

 

This notice in the London Gazette of 26th November 1886 seems to go in to quite a lot of detail about the LR&AR, though most of it is lost on me as I am not at all familiar with that area.

 

So duly solved it would seem - certainly the section the Frithville Road curve comes off (lying to the west of the H&C) is part of the area covered by Railway No.5.

 

Mind you the bit of earthworks towards the GWML doesn't make much sense unless that was an earlier plan which they ditched and then headed for the Metropolitan and District Line to Ealing Broadway instead and kept south of the GWML until joining the Met & District line.

Edited January 17, 2017 by The Stationmaster

[Pacific231G]

So duly solved it would seem - certainly the section the Frithville Road curve comes off (lying to the west of the H&C) is part of the area covered by Railway No.5.

 

Mind you the bit of earthworks towards the GWML doesn't make much sense unless that was an earlier plan which they ditched and then headed for the Metropolitan and District Line to Ealing Broadway instead and kept south of the GWML until joining the Met & District line.

It also seems as if they ended up contemplating a roughly east-west line from Mill Hill Park  to the West London Line with connections at its eastern end to the H&C (in both directions) and the WLL. At the western end they presumably abandoned the idea of a direct connection to the GWML at Acton M-L, possibly after the District Railway built its connecting line from Turnham Green to its own station at Ealing Broadway in 1879, in favour of a somewhat longer line connecting with  the District Railways lines to and from Ealing Broadway and to Hounslow. Possibly what had originally been conceived of as a connecting line between the GWML and the WLL was more seen as a line to tap the anticipated expansion of the the suburbs roughly along the Uxbridge Road.

There is I suppose a bit of a gap, at least in west-east lines, between the GWML and what is now the District Line. That gap was to some extent filled by the electric tramway that once ran along the Uxbridge Road and it's interesting that this was to be the route of one of London's recent proposed new tram lines though local opposition pretty well killed off that idea. .

[The Stationmaster]

It also seems as if they ended up contemplating a roughly east-west line from Mill Hill Park  to the West London Line with connections at its eastern end to the H&C (in both directions) and the WLL. At the western end they presumably abandoned the idea of a direct connection to the GWML at Acton M-L, possibly after the District Railway built its connecting line from Turnham Green to its own station at Ealing Broadway in 1879, in favour of a somewhat longer line connecting with  the District Railways lines to and from Ealing Broadway and to Hounslow. Possibly what had originally been conceived of as a connecting line between the GWML and the WLL was more seen as a line to tap the anticipated expansion of the the suburbs roughly along the Uxbridge Road.

There is I suppose a bit of a gap, at least in west-east lines, between the GWML and what is now the District Line. That gap was to some extent filled by the electric tramway that once ran along the Uxbridge Road and it's interesting that this was to be the route of one of London's recent proposed new tram lines though local opposition pretty well killed off that idea. .

 

And later of course the Ealing & Shepherds Bush brought in a route north of the GWML but ending south of it on a similar heading to the route you postulated in Post No.10 but further north and making an end on junction with the CLR instead of joining the H&C or heading for Addison Road.   And of course this one did join the WLR - at Viaduct Jcn.

[bigP]

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Edited January 31, 2021 by bigP
Deleted

[bigP]

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Edited January 31, 2021 by bigP
Deleted

[chrisf]

And why spend money on a line that links the GW to the WLL as in (orange on that map) when you've already built a link at North Pole Jnc that connects thew GW & WLL in the same way???

 

According to Alan Jackson the link was proposed not to the West London line but to the Hammersmith and City in the vicinity of the bridge carrying it over Wood Lane.

 

Chris