Hounslow West tube station

Hounslow West is a London Underground station in Hounslow of the London Borough of Hounslow, West London. It is located on Bath Road (A3006) about 600m from its junction with A4 Great West Road and Great South West Road (A30). The station is on the Heathrow branch of the Piccadilly line, between Hatton Cross and Hounslow Central stations and is in Travelcard Zone 5.[5]

Hounslow West
Hounslow West
Location of Hounslow West in Greater London
LocationHounslow
Local authorityHounslow
Managed byLondon Underground
Number of platforms2
AccessibleYes (wheelchair users only)[1]
Fare zone5
London Underground annual entry and exit
2014 3.61 million[2]
2015 3.55 million[2]
2016 3.55 million[2]
2017 3.52 million[2]
2018 3.45 million[3]
Railway companies
Original companyDistrict Railway
Key dates
21 July 1884Opened as Hounslow Barracks; terminus of line
1 December 1925Renamed Hounslow West
13 March 1933Piccadilly line service introduced
9 October 1964District line service ceased
14 July 1975Relocated
19 July 1975Line extended to Hatton Cross
Listed status
Listing gradeII
Entry number1241237[4]
Added to list23 September 1998
Other information
External links
WGS8451.47361°N 0.38556°W / 51.47361; -0.38556
 London transport portal

The station has an island platform reached by stairs. There is step-free access via a stairlift for manual wheelchair users only.[1]

History

The station was opened by the District Railway (DR, now the District line) on 21 July 1884.[6] The station was originally named Hounslow Barracks in reference to the Cavalry Barracks, Hounslow south of the station on Beavers Lane.[6] The station was the terminus of a single track branch line extension from the DR's existing route to Hounslow Town station (now closed) on Hounslow High Street.

The original station building in the early 1900s.

The branch line diverged from the main route about 300m east of Hounslow East station, although Hounslow East was not opened until later, and when the branch opened there were no intermediate stations between Hounslow Barracks and Osterley & Spring Grove (now Osterley).[6]

In My Early Life, Winston Churchill recalls travelling on the Underground Railway to Hounslow Barracks two or three times a week whilst living at his mother's house in Knightsbridge around 1896.[7]

The DR's tracks were electrified between 1903 and 1905 with electric trains replacing steam trains on the Hounslow branch from 13 June 1905.[8] On 1 December 1925 Hounslow West, Hounslow Central and Hounslow East stations received their current names.[6]

The current Hounslow West station building, which was retained when the platforms were resited underground.

During 1930 and 1931 a new station building was constructed facing on to Bath Road to replace the original building which was parallel with the tracks and set back at an angle from the road. The new building, by the Underground's architect Stanley Heaps in conjunction with Charles Holden in a style reminiscent of Holden's designs for the 1926 Morden extension of the City and South London Railway (now part of the Northern line),[9] was constructed in Portland stone and features a tall heptagonal ticket hall with glazed screens to all sides. The original building was gradually demolished as the new one was built and the new building opened on 5 July 1931. The building is very similar to the reconstructed station at Ealing Common built at the same time, also by Heaps and Holden.[9] Basil Ionides designed the interior of the ticket hall at Hounslow West tube station.[10]

Piccadilly line services, which had been running as far as Northfields since January 1933, were extended to Hounslow West on 13 March 1933.[6] From that date, the branch was operated jointly by both lines, but District line services (which had more capacious higher carriages) were progressively reduced to just rush-hour services in the late 1950s and withdrawn on 9 October 1964.[6]

Heathrow extension
Indicative layout of Hounslow West station

In the early 1970s work began on extending the Piccadilly line from Hounslow West to Heathrow Airport. The original alignment of the tracks and platforms at Hounslow West was SW/NE. If the tracks had been extended directly on that alignment towards the airport, much of residential west Hounslow would have had to be demolished. Instead, a route needing little demolition was found by following the Bath Road and Great South West Road in a cut and cover tunnel in a trench alongside the road which passed the Traveller's Friend junction around 1971. The line surfaces briefly over the River Crane before descending towards Hatton Cross and under Heathrow. Extending the District line to Hounslow West again is still a possibility which has recently been re-evaluated,[11] although it cannot continue to Heathrow as the extension was only built to tube line standards. The first phase of the extension works was to build two new platforms at Hounslow West in a covered trench with a more westerly alignment to reach the chosen route. The new platforms were adjacent to and to the north of the existing three platforms, and the access from the 1930s station building was extended to reach them. The new platforms were brought into use on 14 July 1975 and the line was opened as far as Hatton Cross five days later on 19 July 1975.[12]

Services and connections

Train frequencies vary throughout the day, but generally operate every 3–7 minutes between 06:01 and 00:01 in both directions.[13][14]

London Bus routes 81, 203, 222, 482, H28, H32, H91 and H98 and night route N9 serve the station.[15][16]

gollark: I, personally, blame Macron.
gollark: This is interesting! I'm testing ways to improve the performance/memory use of the Minoteaur inevitable semantic search thing, and it turns out that using a dimensionality reduction thing on the embedding vectors makes some searches turn out identically, and some using rare keywords like "apioform" turn out poorly.
gollark: Obviously minoteaur will include "counter" capabilities.
gollark: Well, your perception of it can be changed, and it might be beelike perception.
gollark: Oh BEE, this only captures 66% of variance in the data!

See also
  • Map showing operational dates for lines and stations in Hounslow

References
  1. "Step free Tube Guide" (PDF). Transport for London. May 2020. Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 August 2020.
  2. "Multi-year station entry-and-exit figures (2007-2017)" (XLSX). London Underground station passenger usage data. Transport for London. January 2018. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
  3. "Station Usage Data" (CSV). Usage Statistics for London Stations, 2018. Transport for London. 21 August 2019. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  4. Historic England. "Hounslow West Underground Station (1241237)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 28 July 2013.
  5. Standard Tube Map (PDF) (Map). Not to scale. Transport for London. May 2020. Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 July 2020.
  6. Rose, Douglas (1999). The London Underground, A Diagrammatic History. Douglas Rose/Capital Transport. ISBN 1-85414-219-4.
  7. Churchill, Winston (11 May 2010). My Early Life: 1874-1904. ISBN 9781439125069.
  8. Day, John R; Reed, John (2008) [1963]. The Story of London's Underground. Capital Transport. p. 66. ISBN 978-1-85414-316-7.
  9. Day, John R; Reed, John (2008) [1963]. The Story of London's Underground. Capital Transport. p. 99. ISBN 978-1-85414-316-7.
  10. Historic England. "Hounslow West Station (509368)". PastScape. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
  11. "Ken Livingstone Mulls District Line Extension". Londonist. 14 April 2011. Archived from the original on 17 April 2011.
  12. Day, John R; Reed, John (2008) [1963]. The Story of London's Underground. Capital Transport. p. 178. ISBN 978-1-85414-316-7.
  13. "Piccadilly line timetable: From Hounslow West Underground Station to Hounslow Central Underground Station". Transport for London. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  14. "Piccadilly line timetable: From Hounslow West Underground Station to Hatton Cross Underground Station". Transport for London. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  15. "Buses from Hounslow West" (PDF). Transport for London. 25 February 2012. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  16. Hounslow West Underground Station - Bus
Preceding station   London Underground   Following station
Piccadilly line
towards Cockfosters
  Former services  
Preceding station   London Underground   Following station
TerminusDistrict line
Hounslow branch
(1884-86)
towards Whitechapel
District line
Hounslow branch
(1886-1964)
towards Upminster
Piccadilly line
Hounslow branch
(1933-75)
towards Cockfosters
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