Crossposted to uk.transport.london...

"Grendel" wrote in message
ry.com...

Poking around my local area on the Old Maps site
(http://www.old-maps.co.uk, damn interesting),
I noticed that there was once a short link line
from just past Mortlake station on the London-Reading
line to the Hounslow loop. Does anyone know when this
link was lifted? Must've been early 20thC, I assume,
as that's when a lot of the houses over the path of the line
must have been built.

John Rowland wrote:
Crossposted to uk.transport.london...

"Grendel" wrote in message
ry.com...

Poking around my local area on the Old Maps site
(http://www.old-maps.co.uk, damn interesting),
I noticed that there was once a short link line
from just past Mortlake station on the London-Reading
line to the Hounslow loop. Does anyone know when this
link was lifted? Must've been early 20thC, I assume,
as that's when a lot of the houses over the path of the line
must have been built.

This was part of the North London Railway's service between Willesden and
Richmond before the South Acton-Gunnersbury-Richmond line was built.
Actually the original service in 1853 was even more inconvenient:

Willesden - Brentford via Old Kew Junction, reverse to Barnes along the
Hounslow loop, reverse agin to Richmond.

The double reversing was eliminated in 1862 by building the links from
South Acton to New Kew Junction (the site of Kew Bridge station) and the
Barnes Bridge - Mortlake link. The more direct route to Richmond via
Gunnersbury was opened in 1869 "after which NLR trains ran alternately to
Richmond over the new line and to Kew Bridge only. The Barnes curve was
abandoned."[1] This suggests that closure was soon after 1869.

[1] H.P.White: A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain, Vol. 3
Greater London, 1963.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

"John Rowland" wrote in message
...
Crossposted to uk.transport.london...

"Grendel" wrote in message
ry.com...

Poking around my local area on the Old Maps site
(http://www.old-maps.co.uk, damn interesting),
I noticed that there was once a short link line
from just past Mortlake station on the London-Reading
line to the Hounslow loop. Does anyone know when this
link was lifted? Must've been early 20thC, I assume,
as that's when a lot of the houses over the path of the line
must have been built.



It opened on 1st February 1862 and closed from 1st January 1869

per "Chronology of London Railways" compiled by H.V.Borley, published by
RCHS 1982, ISBN 0-901461-33-4