Ealing Broadway

Ealing Broadway is a major single-leveled interchange station in Ealing in London, England, in the London Borough of Ealing, West London and is served by the London Underground and also National Rail on the Great Western Main Line. On the Underground, it is one of three western termini of the District line, the next station being Ealing Common, and it is one of two western termini of the Central line, the next station being West Acton. On the National Rail networks, it is a through-station on the Great Western Main Line, 5 miles 56 chains (9.2 km) down the line from London Paddington and is situated between Acton Main Line and West Ealing.

The station is managed by TfL Rail in preparation of Crossrail. In December 2018 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 (GWR) opened its pioneering broad gauge tracks through Ealing Broadway between Paddington and Taplow on 6 April 1838, although Ealing Broadway station did not open until 1 December of that year. As the only station in the area when it opened, it was initially named 'Ealing',[4] but was renamed Ealing Broadway in 1875.[5]

District Railway (DR, now the District Line) services commenced on 1 July 1879, when the DR opened a branch from Turnham Green on its Richmond line. The DR built its own three-platform station to the north of the GWR one, although, following the installation of a connection between the two railways to the east of the stations, DR trains also served the GWR station from 1 March 1883 to 30 September 1885, on a short-lived service running to Windsor and Eton Central station, which was withdrawn as unremunerative.[6][7][8][9] It was also intended to use the connection for a service to Uxbridge Vine Street station (via West Drayton), but this was never introduced.[6]

Following electrification of the main District line route through Ealing Common to South Harrow in 1903, the section to Ealing Broadway was electrified in 1905, and the first electric trains ran to Ealing Broadway on 1 July 1905. The original brick-built DR station was replaced with a stone-faced building in 1910.[10]

Prior to World War I, plans were made by the GWR to construct a new, mainly freight, line between Ealing and Shepherd's Bush, to connect west-to-south with the West London Railway. The Central London Railway (CLR, now the Central Line) would use the line by extending its tracks the short distance north from its terminus at Wood Lane (now closed), to meet the new GWR tracks. CLR services to two new platforms at Ealing Broadway, built between the GWR and DR stations, started on 3 August 1920, with, initially, just one intermediate stop at East Acton. The line also carried GWR steam freight trains until 1938, when the links at Ealing Broadway and west of North Acton were removed, and the line was fully transferred to London Underground.

Originally separate companies, by 1920 the DR (by then known as the District Railway) and the CLR were both owned by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL). Despite this, the CLR services operated via the GWR station building, not the Underground one.

The GWR-built station was demolished in 1961[11] and replaced by a low concrete structure containing shops and a ticket hall, opened in 1965, with a high-rise office building above. The new station building serves all the lines, and the separate District Line station ticket hall was closed, although the building remains, and the original station facade is now the entrance for multiple shops.[12]

On Platform 9 (District line) there are some roundels of a style dating from  c. 1908, three of which are replicas made in 1992.