- The sun is out, what a lovely day.
Hello, I'm in west London at Three Bridges.
No, there's a Three Bridges in Sussex, but yeah
there's one here in Southall as well.
Over there behind me,
You've got a road followed by a canal,
followed by a railway.
And that's what we're going to follow today,
the line off of here from Southall
down to Brentford Dock.
(duck quacking)
So we're going to have an explore
along the Brentford spur.
That's a line built by GWR in 1895,
and it branched off at Southall
with stops at Trumpers Crossing and Brentford
as well as at goods yard Halt,
and then it went all the way down to the docks at Brentford.
Nowadays, only half the line is left,
but two trains a day still run in the very early morning,
removing waste from a local depot.
And there are loads of clues
that the line used to go further.
Let's go find them all,
starting at the magnificent Three Bridges structure.
So I'm standing on the top level.
This is the road.
And then down here, second level is the canal.
But look, do you see down there, third level is the railway.
Walk down to the canal side,
and there's a plaque marking Brunel's achievement
in creating this three-level masterpiece.
So officially, it's known as the Windmill bridge
because that's Windmill Road above me there right now.
You've got the railway down there in that direction
running toward Southall and then the railway line running
in that direction towards Brentford,
which is where we're heading.
And there's a great big whopping clue that the
line didn't always used to be single track.
Look, this empty arch with iron rails,
no longer going through it,
showing that there was a second track here.
Let's head to the location of an old station next,
Trumpers Crossing Halt.
The Halt used to have an "e" on the end of it.
hat's the French spelling,
but then it was dropped.
To get there, head to Trumpers Lane,
and walk down to the end.
And that brings you to here, a crossing over the line,
which is here, and it was a crossing,
it was called Trumpers Crossing Halt.
It was a little halt station, right here.
So we've come from that way.
And Brentford is that way.
So the branch was only ever lightly used
by passengers in its history.
It was always more successful as a freight line,
as it still is today.
The waste transfer facility
that we'll get to in a moment handles
hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste per year,
taken away to a landfill site
in another part of the country.
You can still ride this line as a passenger though,
as occasionally, there are rail tours
which take you on a trip down the branch.
So here's the modern day entrance to the waste depot,
it's on Transport Road.
And then it's off to find the GWR Brentford station
which is located on London Road
next to the junction of Commerce Road.
The Brentford Station that you know and love today
it just down there,
but there was another Brentford station here,
and it's now a car, vehicle repair workshop,
but you can see the arches and the red brick,
and the orange brick building here.
That is where the old Brentford Station used to be.
There's also this mighty fine abutment left over
from where the bridge used to cross the road.
And if that excites you, hold your horses,
because we've got two more coming right up.
The first one can be seen just two minutes' walk away,
if you go down the steps from Brentford high street
and go down by the waterside.
So London road, the bridge over the canal,
Grand Union is here,
I've come along because where we were just now,
Brentford Station, the line would have carried on
through where they'd built those new houses, over the canal.
So there would have been a bridge over the canal right here.
And you can tell, because look,
this old bridge abutment is all still in place.
I suspect this abutment tantalisingly
has rusty tracks still up there,
but there's no way to get access.
You can though, get to the other end of it
by going to a road called The Ham,
and sure enough, here it is complete
with a giveaway railway arch.
For my next trick, I've made it all dark.
I'm standing under a bridge,
probably by far the best bit that says
railway, railway, railway, screams railway.
If you come around from the Ham,
keep going, and you come run into Brent Way,
sure enough, there's an old railway bridge.
We can actually go up there.
That's Augustus Close,
which is the road that leads to Brentford dock.
But I just thought I'd come and show you the bridge.
Let's, let's go up there.
Sure enough, head on up, and around the corner
is Augustus Close,
and that's the road that leads to the railway bridge
that has now been turned into the road bridge
and access to Brentford dock,
which is now a housing area and marina.
There's a little sign over there.
It gives a nod to the fact
that it was a Brunel built bridge.
And so at the end,
is there anything left behind of the railway?
Maybe this.
And that brings us to the end, Brentford dock,
which is now this residential area.
Also bits of water, some boats.
In the distance over there,
there are some arches behind those boats,
which do look like they may have been railway building based,
but there was a loop of track that went around here.
The railways came down here, boats would come in,
unload their stuff onto trains.
Trains would unload their stuff, and go onto boats.
It was where railways met the docks.
That is the Brentford dock line,
and the stations and halts that we found along on it.
And that is the end.
I can think of no more London's lost railways.
If you can, I'm sure you can, leave me a note
in the comments, apart from that press subscribe.
Thanks for watching.
See you next time.