Willesden Junction station

Willesden Junction station is a Network Rail station in Harlesden, northwest London, UK. It is served by both London Overground and the Bakerloo line of the London Underground.

History


The station developed on three contiguous sites:


 * The West Coast Main Line (WCML) station was opened by the London & North Western Railway on 1 September 1866 to replace the London and Birmingham Railway's Willesden station of 1841 which was half a mile to the northwest. Passenger services ended in 1962 when the platforms were removed during electrification of the WCML to allow easing the curvature of the tracks. Later the bridges for the North London Line (NLL) were rebuilt but it might be possible to re-instate the WCML platforms should a new service pattern require them.


 * The High-Level station on the NLL was opened by the North London Railway in 1869 on a track crossing the WCML roughly at right angles.


 * The 'Willesden New Station' or Low-Level station on the "New Line" was opened in 1910 to the north of the main line with two outer through platforms and two inner bay platforms at the London end. The bay platforms were originally long enough for four-coach Bakerloo trains when such trains ran outside peak times, but were shortened in the 1960s when a new toilet block was installed.

The main-line platforms were numbered from the south side (including one or two on the Kensington route) followed by the high level platforms and then the DC line platforms which thus had the highest numbers. Later the surviving platforms were re-numbered.

Willesden Junction was depicted as 'Tenway Junction' the site of the suicide of Ferdinand Lopez in Anthony Trollope's novel The Prime Minister.

Motive Power Depot
The LNWR opened a large locomotive depot on a site on the south side of the main line to the west of the station, in 1873. This was enlarged in 1898. The London Midland and Scottish Railway opened an additional roundhouse on the site in 1929. Both buildings were demolished when the depot was closed in 1965 by British Railways and replaced by a Freightliner depot. It was replaced by the present Willesden TMD.

This depot had the shed code 1A and was a major depot for predominantly freight locomotives used on the West Coast Main Line and passenger suburban suburban services from Euston.

The station today

 * There are no platforms on the West Coast Main Line, which is separated from the low level station by the approach road to Willesden Depot which lies immediately south-east of the station.


 * The high-level station consists of an island platform rebuilt in 1956, with faces as platforms 4 and 5, which are at street level of the area to the north of the station, serving the NLL and the West London Line; trains on the latter reverse in a turnback siding on the NLL, to the east of the station, laid in the late 1990s to allow Royal Mail trains to reach the Royal Mail depot at Stonebridge Park.


 * The low-level station, at the level of the area to the south, is an Edwardian island platform, with outer faces as platforms 1 and 3 and one face of the east-facing two-platform bay as platform 2, the other face of the bay now has no track. Platforms 1 and 3 are used by the Bakerloo line services, which began on 10 May 1915. and London Overground services between Euston and Watford Junction. Until May 2008 north-bound Bakerloo line trains which were to reverse at depot (two stations further north) ran empty from Willesden Junction although the southbound service began at Stonebridge Park. This imbalance was as there were no London Underground staff beyond Willesden Junction to oversee passenger detrainment, but this changed after London Underground took over the staffing of stations on the line, including Stonebridge Park, from Silverlink in November 2007, and trains bound for Stonebridge Park depot now terminate at Stonebridge Park station .  Normally only the first and last NLL trains of the day, which start or terminate here, use the bay platform, though it is used for empty stock transfers between the depot and the North London and Gospel Oak to Barking lines.

Development
As part of a London Overground project to lengthen platforms on the North London line to permit 4-car trains, as of December 2009 the high-level platforms are being extended to the north east over the low-level Bakerloo line tracks, and an additional link path being added to the low-level platforms. The low-level bay platform is also being extended.

Services
Typical off-peak passenger trains per hour in each direction at this station are:

At low level platforms
 * 3: Overground Watford DC Line between Euston and Watford Junction
 * 9: Bakerloo line between and

At high level platforms
 * 4: Overground North London Line between and
 * 2: Overground West London Line to and from Clapham Junction

Transport links
London bus routes 220, 224, 487 and PR2.