There's a stretch of railway passing north out of
Acton Main Line, crosses the Bakerloo just east
of Harlesden, and ends up in Cricklewood. Does it
serve any purpose? According to the National Rail
journey planner, if I wanted to go to Cricklewood
from Acton I need to go via Farringdon.

Cor blimey!

Hooray Henry wrote:
There's a stretch of railway passing north out of
Acton Main Line, crosses the Bakerloo just east
of Harlesden, and ends up in Cricklewood. Does it
serve any purpose? According to the National Rail
journey planner, if I wanted to go to Cricklewood
from Acton I need to go via Farringdon.

The line that climbs away from the Great Western Main Line east of Acton
Main Line is a vital freight link. It leads to Acton Wells Junction
where it joins the North London Line (NLL) which carries (apart from
Silverlink Metro trains) freight trains to and from the south-west via
Hounslow and the South-east via Barnes. Then it immediately divides
into effectively four branches, one to the south-east via Kensington
Olympia, one to the north-east and east via the NLL, one to the
north-west via Wembley and the West Coast Main Line, and one to the
Midlands via Cricklewood.

Acton Wells Junction has to cope with 4 NLL trains per hour in each
direction plus typically at least 50 freight trains per day during the
normal passenger day plus more at night. So, yes, it does serve a
purpose!

You should use the TfL Journey Planner for journeys in London. I asked
for a route from Acton Main Line to Cricklewood, and it recommended the
266 bus with a journey time of around 45-50 minutes, about the same time
as the more complicated rail/tube route via Farringdon.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On 30-Sep-2006, "Richard J." wrote:

The line that climbs away from....

Thanks. Interesting.

This was the route the Heathrow-London stopping service was going to
use (to St Pancras) - before it became Heathrow Connect and went to
Paddington just like Heathrow Express.

Hooray Henry wrote:
On 30-Sep-2006, "Richard J." wrote:

The line that climbs away from....

Thanks. Interesting.

On 1-Oct-2006, wrote:

This was the route the Heathrow-London stopping service was going to
use (to St Pancras) - before it became Heathrow Connect and went to
Paddington just like Heathrow Express.

Also interesting! Thanks.

Hooray Henry wrote:
On 1-Oct-2006, wrote:

This was the route the Heathrow-London stopping service was going to
use (to St Pancras) - before it became Heathrow Connect and went to
Paddington just like Heathrow Express.

Also interesting! Thanks.

If you want to search for articles about the line, Google for "Dudding
Hill".

John Rowland wrote:

Hooray Henry wrote:
On 1-Oct-2006, wrote:

This was the route the Heathrow-London stopping service was going to
use (to St Pancras) - before it became Heathrow Connect and went to
Paddington just like Heathrow Express.

Also interesting! Thanks.

If you want to search for articles about the line, Google for "Dudding
Hill".

....or "Dudden Hill" - I don't know the area near Gladstone Park well so
I don't know if locals actually call the area Dudden/Dudding Hill, but
the road that leads down from Neasden to Willesden - under which the
aforementioned railway line passes - is called 'Dudden Hill Lane'.

It would seem probably that either spelling was used in the past but
the railway uses the "Dudding Hill" spelling - which can be confirmed
by this shot of the signal box:

http://james.welhams.train.pics.foto...p27694675.html

There were passenger services on this line a long while ago - I can't
remember the details but if you search using Google Groups you'll find
past discussions concerning this line. SubBrit has a page on Dudden
Hill station, though the accompanying information is a bit sparse:

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/s...ll/index.shtml

As far as I'm aware, apart from the Heathrow airport link proposals,
there haven't been any other plans to reinstate this line for passenger
services.

wrote:

This was the route the Heathrow-London stopping service was going to
use (to St Pancras) - before it became Heathrow Connect and went to
Paddington just like Heathrow Express.

I thought the idea was that the Heathrow Express service itself would
go to St Pancras via the Dudding Hill line?