Heyes & Harlington

Hayes & Harlington is a railway station serving the west London districts Hayes and Harlington in the London Borough of Hillingdon. It is 10 miles 71 chains (17.5 km; 10.89 mi) down the line from London Paddington and is situated between Southall and West Drayton.

It has long operated as a minor stop on the Great Western main line and is at the start of a spur to Heathrow Airport, to and from which passenger trains operate since the early 21st-century building of the spur which benefits from a flyover junction.

The station is managed by TfL Rail in preparation for Crossrail. In December 2018 the Transport for London 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 station is on the Isambard Kingdom Brunel-designed Great Western Main Line landscaped and laid from London Paddington to major towns in central and west Berkshire, Bristol, South Wales and with later direct additions to Birmingham and Taunton. The line was opened piecemeal; its first guise terminated on 4 June 1838 at a temporary Maidenhead station in Taplow to allow completion of the single-span brick high-level sounding arch over the Thames just west of that temporary halt. The station at Hayes opened in 1868[3] or 1864[4].

From 1 March 1883, the station (then named Hayes) was served by District Railway services running between Mansion House and Windsor (central). The service was discontinued as uneconomic on 30 September 1885.[5][6]

The film Trains at Hayes Station, showing trains passing through the station with stereophonic sound, was filmed from the roof of the defunct Aeolian pianola factory just north of the station. The factory had been purchased by HMV when the pianola company had collapsed owing to fraud and technological obsolescence. The film is almost the first demonstration of stereophonic sound to accompany moving pictures, an invention of Alan Blumlein.