Southhall

Southall is a railway station on the Great Western main line in Southall, London, England. It is in Travelcard Zone 4 and passenger services are provided by Great Western Railway from London Paddington and by TfL Rail to Heathrow Airport. It is 9 miles 6 chains (14.6 km) down the line from Paddington and is situated between Hanwell to the east and Hayes & Harlington to the west.

The station is managed by TfL Rail in preparation for Crossrail. In Autumn 2019, the TfL Rail service will be re-branded as the Elizabeth line and in December 2019 the Elizabeth line service will open to Reading and Heathrow Airport.

History
The Great Western Railway opened Southall railway station on 1 May 1839, nearly one year after it opened its first railway line on 4 June 1838, between London Paddington and Maidenhead Riverside (the latter now known as Taplow).[3] The Brentford Branch Line to Brentford Dock was opened for freight in 1859;[4] a passenger service ran on the branch from 1860 until 1942, using the unnumbered platform at the south of the station (the line serving this platform is now only used as a relief line). From 1 March 1883 to 30 September 1885 (when the service was discontinued as uneconomic) the District Railway ran trains between Mansion House and Windsorwhich called at the station.[5][6] The goods platforms opened as part of the original station; they were closed and dismantled in 1967.[7]

Southall station has bilingual station signage, owing to the large Punjabi community in the local area. Station signs on the platforms bear "Southall" and also "ਸਾਊਥਹਾਲ" in Gurmukhī, a script commonly used for the Punjabi language. In 2007, following issues raised by other ethnic groups in the area, First Great Western announced it would review the signage.[8] The bilingual signs were kept, and they are still displayed at the station.[9]It is one of the relatively few stations in England to have bilingual signage, others being Wallsend (Latin), Hereford (Welsh), and St Pancras International, Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International (all French).