On Tue, 5 Feb 2008, Tom Anderson wrote:

On Mon, 4 Feb 2008, Paul Scott wrote:

wrote:
On Feb 4, 7:00 pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

There appears to be a disused trackbed in the Perivale Area which
passes under the Central Line West Ruislip branch in the Rydal
Crescent area.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

Anyone know any more about it?

I think you might be looking at the mostly singled section of the
old GW route up from Paddington to South Ruislip and on towards High
Wycombe, but it would count as lightly used, rather than disused.

No thie route I was looking at is now grassland and fenced off and
passes under the Central and NR lines via a brick arch.

Checking www.old-maps.co.uk for the area (1935 map) seems to suggests a
route for a water main or something?

With a valve house a couple of hundred yards east of Thirlemere Ave, and a
line of posts heading off to the SW, and then down past Greenford and
through Southall, passing pretty near various 'works' in the general
direction of Staines...

That's it! Staines!

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=21...8036,-0.404753

Bugger it, that was supposed to be

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=21...7933,-0.404373

Which works much more dramatically.

Also, apologies for changing the subject line on my previous post - i had
focus somewhere i wasn't expecting it to be while typing, and failed to
notice before i sent.

Why there, you ask?

Zoom out.

Bonus fact - that's the new pumping station (probably), but a little way
to the south is the old one:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...5875,-0.404831

Which is now a museum, housing the world's largest working steam engine:

http://www.kemptonsteam.org/

How good is that?

The page on the history of the site mentions that the water was pumped to
Cricklewood, so it seems my route-following in the other direction was
right. And, bugger it, there is an absolutely blatant continuation of the
route past the Chiltern line:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...5868,-0.245551

And oh look, a covered reservoir and a pumping station:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...8276,-0.227773

And there it is in writing:

http://www.bhphousing.co.uk/news.nsf...9?OpenDocument

That'd be a good pub quiz question - "what links Cricklewood and Kempton
Park?". Answer: "thirteen and a half miles of pipe"!

This guy was evidently as fascinated by this whole secret pipe business as
me:

http://middlesexcountycouncil.org.uk...16&Itemi d=27

And he uses the word 'omphalos', so my ley-line theory is also vindicated.

Aaaaaand finally, i bet you weren't expecting this: getting back on topic,
there was a narrow-gauge railway at Kempton Park to bring coal to the
boiler house that fed the pumping engines:

http://railways-of-britain.com/mwb.html

tom

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