Hi, good morning.
I am one stop out of Paddington,
this morning on a purple train.
Always good to get a bit of purple in your life
as we get around to finally doing
the least used station on TfL Rail.
Acton Main Line was opened
by the Great Western Railway Company in 1868
and was simply known as Acton at the time.
It wasn't renamed to Acton Main Line until 1949.
Nowadays, fast GWR trains whizz through
without stopping on the main lines,
with the stopping services calling
at platforms three and four on the relief lines.
*PA* please have your tickets read for the automatic ticket barriers.
I don't think there are any barriers.
Mind the gap between the train
and the platform.
Well that's one of the things we're gonna find out.
'Cause it's got a new ticket office slash building.
(beeping) (door whizzing)
Cement works right next door.
Trouble is, whenever I see the word Hanson,
it just makes me think of.
♪ You have so many relationships in this life ♪
Which means that's going to be stuck in my head all day now.
♪ Gone so fast ♪
And yours.
A quick climb up the stairs
at the eastern end of the station
and I found myself looking at a map
of rail services in London.
(train chugging)
When this part of TfL Rail was introduced to the tube map,
it meant that there were now seven stations
with the word Acton in their name.
Those being, Acton Town, West Acton, North Acton,
East Acton, South Acton, Acton Central,
and now Acton Mainline, TfL Rail's least used station.
Now, this is the very busy Horn Lane.
There's actually some road works taking place
over here at the moment,
and I'd like to think that Ealing Borough Council,
I'm in Ealing?
In a nod to the new railway
have actually, the roadworks barriers they've put up,
are coloured like, light purple.
It's more lilac, but we'll call it purple
because purple trains are stopping here.
And from Sunday, December the 15th,
even more purple trains are gonna stop here.
And it's worth noting though that at the moment,
what they're doing,
the big thing is that they're getting it ready
for full crossPurpEliz services in the future.
All stations on the purple train line
will be step free with lifts
and they're building a new footbridge at the moment.
So this building behind me here,
this will go, and the entrance here
where the man there is in his orange high vis,
that will be bricked off, that will be no more.
And there's a new ticket office entrance being built
down the side, which we'll go and look at now.
Even the bins are purple at Acton Main Line.
So I was hoping that we'd be able to get down the side,
but this is actually as close as we can get.
You can see the construction site here, this will lead,
there's a lot of road down by the side
of Acton Main Line Station.
It's on that side road, it will be a new entrance.
So the Oyster validators will go,
an actual proper ticket barrier gate line
and a brand new ticket office
at the station building will appear
and that will lead onto the foot footbridge,
which has got lifts or will have, eventually,
because at the moment, the lift shaft is just empty.
And there will be step free access
and a brand new way into Acton Main Line Station.
In terms of services, by the timetable board
outside the front.
But it's fun to see that, well, for a start,
you get the name of the operator, like SE for South Eastern.
And then the timetable board here,
the operator is XR, Crossrail.
Then I've just seen, there's one called GW in there,
which does indicate that the occasional GWR train
does stop there.
But, I feel like I need to come back and check
after Sunday, the 15th of December,
to see if those GWR trains still stop there.
But generally speaking, it's in half an hour,
two trains an hour service, in both directions on TfL Rail.
So, facilities wise, it has a waiting shelter and benches.
There are litter bins,
dot matrix indicators on both platforms
and a ticket machine.
There's even a ticket office,
although it's only open in the morning.
And it's worth noting that the platforms
have recently been extended
so that nine-car purple trains can call here,
at the moment though,
the trains are only seven carriages in length.
(train whirring)
I'm slightly disappointed that the blue hoardings
that you get when works are going on, aren't purple.
Come on TfL, make some purple hoardings.
(train chugging)
At Acton Main Line, and all the other TfL Rail stations,
even the benches are purple, which I love.
It's turned into some stats.
It is the least used TfL rail station,
and that is including,
for a while now they've been running from Liverpool Street
out to Shenfield and including Paddington,
within it came in Paddington down to Hayes.
And a little bit, Heathrow.
And even now going out to Reading,
Acton Main Line is still the least used TfL Rail station.
0.264 million, that's 264,000 passengers a year,
divide by 365 for an approximate daily figure,
is 723 people.
I have also for you,
a list of amazing facts about Acton Main Line.
And when I say amazing facts,
what I mean is is that I struggled last night to find,
when doing my research,
some more things to tell you about Acton Main Line.
It is the first stage now at Paddington.
Did you know that Westbourne Park on the London Underground
used to be a local station
for trains coming out of Paddington?
And when that went, Acton Main Line
then became the first stop out of Paddington.
Hanson Ready-Mixed Concrete Works-
♪ Doo wop ♪
As we know is just over there.
And also because of the stopping pattern,
you can't get a train between here, Acton Main Line
and Hanwell, or Hanwell and Acton Main Line,
you have to change, normally, at Ealing Broadway.
Yeah.
♪ Yeah yeah ♪
It's kind of it for the facts about Acton Main Line.
(train chugging)
So the new entrance is there, being built.
If you want to climb up the steps they're at the end,
come and do it now, it might be your last chance.
Overall in summary,
I'd say that it does have this kind of slightly desolate,
definitely industrial, with the concrete works,
obviously adds to that feel to it.
And yet, it's in a very Acton,
it's in a very built up, urban area.
So it's not like it's quiet out in the road.
There's traffic and streets and people.
And look for trains passing through
and the occasional one that stops.
So it's odd, because a lot of least-used stations
are in quiet areas, but this feels like a least-used station
in a non-quiet area.
(train chugging) (breaks squealing)
So time to get back on the train and leave.
And as we do, a quick look as to how Acton Main Line
compares with the other stations in this series.
At 263,000 passengers per year,
it's second from the bottom,
in between Avenue Road on the trams
and Emerson Park on the Overground.
(uplifting piano music)
So that's your least used TfL Rail station in London.
We've still got a couple more to go.
We can do least used to riverboat pier
and least used bus route.
Next time.
(uplifting piano music)