Vine Street Station 1950''s

A Memory of Uxbridge.

At the end of Villiers Street and on the opposite side of Whitehall Road was an iron footbridge that crossed the railway line. There was a mechanical signal just below the bridge. In these days when private cars were a rarity, I occasionally toddled off to the bridge from our home in Elthorne Road to peer though the iron railings at the station platform in the distance. If I was lucky there was a train, panting and gurgling quietly to itself, waiting to depart. The signal would fall with a clank. The little tank engine would give a toot on its whistle and with a few heavy blasts of steam came chuffing up the incline with its two carriages and the guards van. As it passed under the bridge I was enveloped in a makebelieve world of steam. My mother of course was having fits looking for me! Later on, my father ocassionally took me to London. The line was run by The Great Western and the carriages I think were quite ancient. The had individual compartments with runningboards outside and the windows were raised and lowered by leather straps. The branch line joined the main line to Paddington at West Drayton. And goodness the thrill of seeing the great snorting monster of an engine after our tame little puffer! Vine street station was never any pearl of railway architecture. Built in what I think is called London Stock Brick, it always looked rather forlorn and stumpy with a surprising number of chimney stacks. I have since seen photographs of the station front C1910 and see that the original decorative entrance canopy had been removed by the 50's... and which removal ruined any pretentions to proportion that it may earlier have had. The street entrance was flanked on either side by a ladies hair salon (the name of which escapes me) and a coal merchant which, if I remember rightly, rejoiced in the name of Muckley and Co. Further down and opposite the churchyard there was a row of 4 or 5 three-storey villas approached by steep steps and built in the same unpreposessing brickwork. I suppose these were built at the same time as the station and designated as homes for railway officials. Demolished in the 60's. The block of flats named Cochrane House now stands on the site. My father always used this branchline to get to the city as it was much faster than the electric Metropolitan line. I think Vine St to Paddington could be achieved in about half an hour. It was much used and there were vociferous protests against the closure in the 70's. Amusing to read about the new Crossrail scheme. If only they had let the old branch lines alone we would today have had the worlds best railway network. Also if the Vine Street branch had not been closed and the rails ripped up there would have been no land available for the ghastly motorway that demolished Cross St, cut Windsor St in two and isolated the old churchyard as a forlorn traffic island surrounded by noise and exhaust fumes.