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.

Ah right - looking at Google Earth, is that the grassed bit that crosses
Rydal Crescent at the bend at the east end, then passes the south end of
Thirlemere Ave; running sort of east/west at that point?

If so - that's a good question - can't see any reference to a railway in
either of my usually accurate London Rail references...

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

I F*CKING TOLD YOU SO!! Am i good, or what?

Well, okay, i said a sewer, but maybe it's a water main. That does make a
lot of sense - i was wondering where the sewage could be heading to, but
if it's a water main, it's a question of where the water could be coming
from, which is a question with a lot more answers in this part of the
world.

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!

Okay, now the western continuation of the route is clear - i was caught up
with the idea of it having been obliterated by the A40, but that's
rubbish; a couple of hundred metres west of the last point i could see,
it's plain as day again:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...2722,-0.331593

And even before that, you can trace it in the line of the edge of an
estate:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...3328,-0.326833

It's a conspicuous ridge across Perivale Park:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...30493,-0.33968

Turns a corner at an estate:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...7716,-0.349358

Does duty as a playground, tennis courts, patch of grass, yards, zebra
crossing (!), carpark, and the ubiquitous oblong empty patch:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...23456,-0.35282

More carpark, gardens, crosses a road, resurfaces as an abandoned railway
lookalike:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...9499,-0.355731

Which turns into the gardens of some naff tower blocks, and then
disappears into a golf course. Here, we're somewhere called Dormers Wells,
so this could be a source of the water.

No, hang on, found it again masquerading as a street with a pleasantly
grassy median:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...9664,-0.361583

Which goes through a dead-giveaway tunnel under the GWML and emerges as
another green strip through an industrial estate:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...6859,-0.361379

It's just about visible as a change in the shade of the grass in this ...
place, whatever it is:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...4211,-0.361583

Ducks under the canal to become an alarmingly straight alley round the
back of the houses:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...0749,-0.362066

Crosses loads of fields, again visible by tone, most strikingly he

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...3695,-0.364024

Does duty as a linear park once again:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...1142,-0.369716

Passes under the Great West Road, and attempts to shake off the
inattentive observer by turning west a little under Harris Close, but the
eye of an expert detects it again as another alignment of path and garden:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...5219,-0.374874

It crosses a road and another sports ground, again barely visible by
colour, and then slices through an estate where a dazzle-camouflage scheme
of garden division has been applied to conceal it; you really need a ruler
on your screen to follow it:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...9054,-0.383652

It becomes a proper street, Corporation Avenue, and then another bit of
railway lookalike:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...3837,-0.389543

Crosses a field, becomes something new - a path through a wood:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...8613,-0.391753

Another bit of McTrackbed that winds up hitting the Windsor line:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...0679,-0.394703

And again almost vanishing; you can just about trace its path across some
scrubland to a couple of fragments of people's gardens:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...7645,-0.395527

Across a sports ground to a point where it turns west again, and cuts
through a strip of housing:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...4009,-0.396795

Provides a nice, wide verge:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...9935,-0.402433

It gets a bit hard to follow here. I think it curves south:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...3718,-0.405872

Runs past some allotments, crosses a road, and then provides a lovely line
of modestly-sized trees:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...1877,-0.405757

And runs into a carpark alongside a row of little concrete island
thingies:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...0001,-0.404686

And straight into a big white building, which i understand is Jobs's
Dairy. On the other side of that, it reappears very briefly:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&z=19...2928,-0.403935

Before disappearing under the A316. The furthest i can extrapolate it is
to the middle of that road:

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

Why there, you ask?

Zoom out.

tom

--
Hier gaan over het tij, de wind, de maan en wij.

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

--
Hier gaan over het tij, de wind, de maan en wij.

Tom Anderson wrote:

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

I have raised this issue before, presumably before your time here.

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....7d17e9460caab3

10/10 for getting it to the pumping station in Kempton Park... I was only
able to follow it to Hounslow Heath, but this was using the London
Photographic Atlas, since Google Earth and free satellite photography on the
web did not yet exist. It's funny to think how primitive things were for us
land use enthusiasts only 7 years ago.

The other end of the pipe is not Cricklewood: it can easily be followed to
Fortis Green Pumping Station in Woodside Avenue N10.
http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&ie=U...9978&z=17&om=0

On Tue, 5 Feb 2008, John Rowland wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:

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

I have raised this issue before, presumably before your time here.

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....7d17e9460caab3

Curses! Yes, i think that was before my time. I only moved to London in
about 2003.

10/10 for getting it to the pumping station in Kempton Park... I was
only able to follow it to Hounslow Heath, but this was using the London
Photographic Atlas, since Google Earth and free satellite photography on
the web did not yet exist. It's funny to think how primitive things were
for us land use enthusiasts only 7 years ago.

Yes, and all that gravel you had to eat for breakfast!

Interesting that you identify this is as the province of land use loonies;
i was following the route in my capacity as an underground structure
loony.

The other end of the pipe is not Cricklewood: it can easily be followed to
Fortis Green Pumping Station in Woodside Avenue N10.
http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&ie=U...9978&z=17&om=0

Perhaps arguable; i think that's a different pipe which also connects to
Cricklewood. Although that's really a matter of semantics.

We should do a map of all underground features in London that are
identifiable from the air. In fact, of all hidden structures that are
visible from the air all over the UK - i'm also a fan of finding disused
WW2 airfields that way.

tom

--
Mathematics is the door and the key to the sciences. -- Roger Bacon

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
h.li...
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.

Ah right - looking at Google Earth, is that the grassed bit that crosses
Rydal Crescent at the bend at the east end, then passes the south end of
Thirlemere Ave; running sort of east/west at that point?

If so - that's a good question - can't see any reference to a railway in
either of my usually accurate London Rail references...

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

I F*CKING TOLD YOU SO!! Am i good, or what?

Well, okay, i said a sewer, but maybe it's a water main. That does make a
lot of sense - i was wondering where the sewage could be heading to, but
if it's a water main, it's a question of where the water could be coming
from, which is a question with a lot more answers in this part of the
world.


Snipped impressive googling...

If you had posted your results earlier, it could have saved me a while
checking the old maps - often the best way of finding obliterated
railways...

Paul S...

Thanks for solving the mystery. I'd assumed it was an old industrial
or agricultural private siding which was still extant at the time the
GWR doubled the line in the 30s to accomodate the future Central Line.

Tom Anderson wrote:

The other end of the pipe is not Cricklewood: it can easily be
followed to Fortis Green Pumping Station in Woodside Avenue N10.

Perhaps arguable; i think that's a different pipe which also connects
to Cricklewood. Although that's really a matter of semantics.

Not really: it was either built as one project or two. Since the pipe is
practically a straight line[1] from Fortis Green to the Hoover Building
forecourt, and the Cricklewood pumping station is a little off to one side,
it is a single pipe.

We should do a map of all underground features in London that are
identifiable from the air.

There already is one - it's called Google Earth ;-)

[1] It goes a bit mental around Woodheyes Rd and Mulgrave Rd. It's almost as
if they had already built most of the alignment from Hanworth to Forts Green
before their plan to demolish some houses in this area was scrapped.

On Feb 5, 1:36*am, Tom Anderson wrote:
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.

Checkingwww.old-maps.co.ukfor 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...25663c006c7944...

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...om_content&tas...

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

--
Hier gaan over het tij, de wind, de maan en wij.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hi - thought I'd ley you know, I'm the guy who writes the
middlesexcountycouncil website. The green lane you describe is a 42
and 48 inch watermain built early in the 20th Century to link the new
river water company with the Hampton system. It does run east beyond
Cricklewood. If you go to

http://middlesexcountycouncil.org.uk...d=17&Itemid=35

and scroll down there are 4 or 5 pages describing the route stage by
stage from the viewpoint of a walker.

Cheers.

wrote:

Hi - thought I'd ley you know, I'm the guy who writes the
middlesexcountycouncil website. The green lane you describe is a 42
and 48 inch watermain built early in the 20th Century to link the new
river water company with the Hampton system. It does run east beyond
Cricklewood. If you go to

http://middlesexcountycouncil.org.uk...d=17&Itemid=35

and scroll down there are 4 or 5 pages describing the route stage by
stage from the viewpoint of a walker.

He mentions a reservoir in Golders Green... where is it?

Also one in West Hampstead.... is that the thing inside Gondar Gardens?

On Feb 19, 3:34*am, "John Rowland"
wrote:
wrote:

Hi - thought I'd ley you know, I'm the guy who writes the
middlesexcountycouncil website. The green lane you describe is a 42
and 48 inch watermain built early in the 20th Century to link the new
river water company with the Hampton system. It does run east beyond
Cricklewood. If you go to

http://middlesexcountycouncil.org.uk...om_content&tas....

and scroll down there are 4 or 5 pages describing the route stage by
stage from the viewpoint of a walker.

He mentions a reservoir in Golders Green... where is it?

Also one in West Hampstead.... is that the thing inside Gondar Gardens?

The reservoir is at the top of The Vale, close to Golders Green
Finchley Road. There is a video I made featuring this (and other parts
of the water main) at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnW1XDo7usI