Crossrail – Timetabling

4 trains an hour from Heathrow to London
4 trains an hour from Maidenhead to London
2 trains an hour from West Drayton to London
Ten trains an hour from Southall !?!?!
(Could we not have at least those 2 extra trains an hour from West Drayton right now, serving Hayes, Southall, Hanwell, West Ealing, Ealing Broadway, Acton Main Line and Paddington ? Only a short stretch of line from Hayes to West Drayton needs to be put under the wire.)

Crossrail will provide a 24-trains an hour service at peak times in each direction between Whitechapel and Paddington. Trains will then run across or connect with the National Rail network on three branches. The detailed timetable for Crossrail will be determined nearer to when services are scheduled to begin. Currently planned peak services are expected to be:

Great Western Corridor

This service will run 4 trains per hour in each direction between central London and Heathrow Airport in addition to the current 4 trains per hour Heathrow Express service. There will also be 4 trains per hour in each direction between Maidenhead and central London and 2 further trains between central London and West Drayton.

Central Area (Paddington to Whitechapel)

24 trains per hour will run in each direction, 14 starting or ending at Paddington.

Great Eastern Corridor

The service will run 12 trains per hour at peak times in each direction between central London and Shenfield, replacing 10 of the 16 trains per hour currently provided by National Express East Anglia. The remaining 6 National Express trains would continue serving Liverpool Street.

Abbey Wood Corridor

There will be 12 trains per hour in each direction between Whitechapel and Abbey Wood serving the Isle of Dogs, Custom House and Woolwich. .

The Southall Activist – Train services between Southall and Paddington

First Great Western Train to Paddington
at an icy Southall station last winter 

There are a maximum of seven trains an hour from Southall to Paddington, most of the day there are only four.

Most of the time there is a train every five minutes from the total of nine Piccadilly Line stations in the London Borough of Hounslow and in the London Borough of Ealing.

The trains on the Hounslow Loop offer four trains in both directions at regular intervals of about 15 minutes.

Southall – Paddington : Rush hour Monday to Friday

1. Departure 07.00 – Arrival 07.17 Heathrow Connect
   6 minutes interval
2. Departure 07.06 – Arrival 07.24 First
   9 minutes interval
3. Departure 07.15 – Arrival 07.33 First
   12 minutes interval
4. Departure 07.27 – Arrival 07.44 First
   9 minutes interval
5. Departure 07.36 – Arrival 07.54 Heathrow Connect
   8 minutes interval
6. Departure 07.44 – Arrival 08.02 First
   13 minutes interval
7. Departure 07.57 – Arrival 08.14 First
   9 minutes interval to 08.06 train 

An ideal time table would have 7 trains coming at exactly at 8½ minutes intervals, but the above is quite acceptable.

Southall – Paddington : Outside rush hour Monday to Friday, all day Saturday

1. Departure 10.06 – Arrival 10.24 HC
   7 minutes interval
2. Departure 10.13 – Arrival 10.31 First
   23 minutes interval
3. Departure 10.36 – Arrival 10.54 HC
   7 minutes interval
4. Departure 10.43 – Arrival 11.01 First
   23 minutes interval to 11.06 train

Southall – Paddington : Sunday

1. Departure 10.02 – Arrival 10.17 First
   4 minutes interval
2. Departure 10.06 – Arrival 10.20 HC
   25 minutes interval
3. Departure 10.31 – Arrival 10.47 First
   5 minutes interval
4. Departure 10.36 – Arrival 10.50 HC
   26 minutes interval

On Sundays there is no train service at all to/from Hanwell, West Ealing, Acton Main Line and on the Greenford Line

Is it any wonder that the 207, 427 and 607 buses from Southall are carrying more passengers than the trains ?

A serious Sunday service and at least 6 trains throughout the day Monday till Saturday are badly needed. Why do we have to wait till  the blessings of Crossrail arrive ?

More on the buses on my next Southall Activist posting. 

Heathrow Connect Train to Paddington
at an icy Southall station last winter

The Southall Activist – New (H29?) Bus from Syon Lane to Havelock Road

During the last Norwood Ward meeting somebody suggested that there should be a bus connection from Norwood Green to the Osterley Tesco. Although I am not a great lover of Tesco’s it made me think, and I expanded on the idea.

I thought about the unreliable bus connections between Hounslow and Southall (120, H32, 482) which are overcrowded or stuck in traffic or both. The new bus service should connect the buses on the London Road (235, 237, 267), Syon Lane station, the H91 on the Great West Road and Tesco’s to Norwood Green, Old Southall and Southall Station.

The bus would start from (and have its terminus) near the junction of Syon Lane and the London Road, go past Syon Lane Station, cross the Great West Road at Gillette Corner, and continue via Windmill Lane and Tentelow Lane to Norwood Green, from there via Norwood Road, Merrick Road and  The Green (where it will not stop) to Havelock Road, where it will have its terminus before or after the present E5 bus stop near Victoria Road.

In Southall on the Merrick Road the bus will use the existing bus stops used during Nagar Kirtans. After leaving Havelock Road on the way to Isleworth the bus will turn left into Merrick Road again, will stop at the Green and King Street and turn left into Norwood Road. After Syon Lane station the bus will use The Spur to Busch Corner, turn left into the London Road and left into Syon Lane to its terminus.

Harjinder Singh
Southall

The Southall Activist – The Southall Community Centre

The Southall Community Centre
20 Merrick Road
Southall UB2 4AU

The Southall Community Centre was sold (as far as I know) by the London Borough of Ealing to Gurmail Singh (former owner of the Monsoon Banquetting Hall, still owner of GB Windows). The building is still there, I think it is still being used. It also still does look quite dilapidated from the outside and although I have not been inside for about a year, I have seen no sign of any work carried out to improve the interior of the building.

I think, but I might be wrong, that there was an understanding or maybe even a deal, between Gurmail Singh and Ealing that the building would continue to be used as a community centre and that the building would be maintained and/or improved.

Questions :

• Do we need a community centre in Southall ?
• Is this building worth keeping on preservation grounds, would it be nice to look at if it was restored ?
• Would it not be better to knock the ugly quasi classical yoke down, and build a new, modern, easy to maintain building ?
• Any other questions ?

Harjinder Singh
Man in Blue   

 

The Southall Activist – Rubbish, Rubbish everywhere

Next to 1 Portland Road, just off the Osterley Park Road are these garages. Rubbish keeps being dumped here, and it is not removed by the council. The dumping is clearly not done by the council, and I want to appeal to everybody to only leave rubbish on collection days, and if you have bigger items contact the council and ask for advise. If you dump your rubbish people like me are going to ask the council to remove it. That cost money and will either lead to higher council tax or cuts in other services.

Nice people in the civic centre, please send the men/women to remove the rubbish ! 

You cannot drive up the footpath/cycle path along the Merrick Road, so there is not too much dumping !

Not too bad, but the place would look better without it.

Do not be a litterbug !

The Southall Activist – Norwood Road to Southall Police Station III

Opposite the footbridge across the railway line begins the footpath leading to High Street

The footpath is to the right (east) of the Avenue Road

Progress is hindered by bushes taking over the path

Progress is hindered by dodgy supports of dodgy fences

Progress is hindered by vehicles parked on the footpath.

At least there is decent lighting !   

High Street : West bound bus stop for bus 195, 207, 427 and 607

High Street : East bound bus stop for bus 195, 207, 427 and 607

Summing up what I think is needed

1. Repair, Upgrade or whatever is needed to reopen the footbridge across the railway line
2. Clean, patrol the pedestrian tunnel near Southall station
3. Trim overgrowth and clearly mark the footpath along Avenue Road

We want people to use their cars less, so please make it easier and more attractive for people on foot or cycling to get from a to b. Better signage would help too !

The Southall Activist – Norwood Road to Southall Police Station II

In the first article we walked from the Norwood Road to Sunrise Radio along the well maintained footpath to the left of the Merrick Road. We found that the footbridge across the railway line was closed and turned left to use the pedestrian tunnel to get to the Southall Station bridge.

The tunnel which is a very popular place to have a pee in !

Some work of cleaning and painting has gone on, but seems to have been abandoned before being finished.

Do Not Pee in the Tunnel !

The north side of the tunnel and the stairs leading to busstop and train station

As you can see the workers left some of their gear behind, and the drain at the bottom of the stairs is not properly covered

Ealing Council, can the tunnel not be regularly cleaned using something like ammonia, to counteract the stink of urine ?

Safer Neighbourhood Team, as your offices are round the corner, can you not send your patrols through the tunnel ? 

Footbridge across the railway line seen from Park Avenue

 Can we have our right of way back please !

To be continued

 

The Southall Activist – Norwood Road to Southall Police Station I

View from the roundabout at the junction of Merrick Road and Norwood Road
Note the nice tulips and the beginning of the footpath to the west of the Merrick Road

A close-up of the footpath 
The footpath is still a handy way to walk along the Merrick Road, connecting Norwood Road, Havelock Road, Church Road, Windsor Road, Osterley Park Road, and from there to the Southall Station. You also could go across the railway line on a footbridge to the east of the station, and then straight on to the busstops near the Southall Police Station.

This is a really nice path, well paved and sheltered from the Merrick Road by trees and bushes

This was the access to the footbridge, now well barred
There might be a good reason for preventing pedestrians from using it, it might be unsafe, but something could be done about this, couldn’t it … ?  This was an excellent route to the Park Avenue and the Guru Granth Gurdwara, to the Southall Park, to the Villiers School and to the busy busstops (207, 427, 607) on the High Street.

So instead of crossing the Merrick Road,
we’ll turn left along the Community Centre (watch this space) and then to the pedestrian tunnel, about which more in our next issue !

Will Be Continued 

     

 

 

The Southall Activist – News 19/04/2009

Norwood Green Ward Forum
17-04-09
St Mary’s Church Hall
Norwood Green Road, Southall UB2 4LA

I live in the centre of Old Southall, in between the Green, Merrick Road and Havelock Road. This part of Southall belongs politically to  the Norwood Green Ward, which also includes the Havelock and Toplocks area east of Merrick Road,  Norwood Green / Tentelow Lane, the Wind Mill estate next to Ealing Hospital and a triangle in between Uxbridge Road, Green Drive and Park Avenue.

The ward councillors are Mohammad Aslam, Rajinder Mann and Virendra Sharma.

The ward forums are an attempt to bring voters closer to the councillors and are useful, but they are only attended by a handful of people compared with the thousands of voters living in the ward. The good news was that most of the areas of the ward were represented, and that those present were not shy to speak their mind.

I am a Liberal Democrat and was very active politically when I lived in Heston, trying to break the Labour monopoly in Heston & Cranford and trying to represent the interest of the voters in that area. We gave the Labour Councillors a scare, but did not get any Lib Dem Councillors elected.

We did achieve good results working together with local activists, like the pedestrian crossing of the A4 near Springwell Road, stopping the construction of a bridge across the Grand Union Canal in between Bulls Bridge and Southall Lane, right across the houseboat moorings there and stopping a waste distribution point near Heston services, which would have brought many lorries laden with waste on the roads of Heston.      

From what I heard during the forum, from the paper work supplied and from my own observations I want to highlight the following issues in my part of Southall.

• The pedestrian tunnel leading from The Green to Southall Station
  See the 2nd and the 3rd of the three Norwood Road to Southall Police Station articles
• The pedestrian bridge across the railway tracks east of the station
  See the 2nd and the 3rd of the three Norwood Road to Southall Police Station articles
• Rubbish, rubbish everywhere, especially on Osterley Park Road & Portland Road
• Proposed bus service from Southall to Osterley
• Our gridlocked roads and the buses stuck in traffic

More detail and illustrating pictures will follow !

Give us your opinion, send an email to :
harjinder.singh.amritsar@googlemail.com