One place with seven stations: Acton

Thursday 1st January 2026

A Happy New Year to all readers and before we lose sight of 2025 completely I wanted to follow up the abortive arrangement I’d made with my friend Ray back in April to pay a visit to all of Acton’s seven stations (three National Rail and four London Underground).

So, welcome to a new series featuring ‘places with seven stations’. It’s a short series as there’s just the one place. Acton.

Welcome to Acton’s Action Stations.

Readers may recall April’s planned expedition was a complete decoy to lure the unsuspecting Ray out of his office-come-home to nearby Askew Road in Shepherd’s Bush so he could be ambushed by an open-top bus full of friends who’d gathered to mark his 75th birthday.

Finally, at the beginning of last month, along with colleague Michal from Best Impressions, Ray and I spent a fascinating couple of hours comparing and contrasting Acton’s roll call of seven stations.

This is what we found.

1. West Acton

We began at West Acton, a short bus ride on route 218 from Askew Road, although Ray and I still associate that number as a long standing route linking Kingston and Staines.

West Acton is the penultimate station on the Ealing Broadway branch of the Central line. It was built by the Great Western Railway and opened in November 1923. The line through to Ealing Broadway had seen freight trains since 1917 with Central London Railway trains using the line from 1920. Although the current station looks almost Holden-ish in design it was in fact designed by GWR’s architect, Brian Lewis, being completed in November 1940.

The entrance area is characterised by the large glass ‘Oakwood/Acton Town style’ projection above making for an airy space full of daylight streaming through the numerous glass window panes.

There’s a coffee stall immediately outside…

… and down on the platforms another Holden-ish touch being the waiting shelters with their rounded ends…

… and rather nice curved wooden bench seat inside.

But, as you can see the station and facilities could do with some much needed repainting and a general spruce up, but as with everything to do with the Central line, there doesn’t seem to be any budget for care and maintenance.

What could have been a wonderful station looks sadly dowdy and down at heel.

We jumped on the next Central line train for one stop to our next station on the tour…

2. North Acton

Sadly North Acton was even more dowdy than West Acton.

There are three platforms here with an island platform used for terminating trains from the east with both tracks leading to a siding between the running tracks.

First impressions after alighting from the train were not good with a very uninviting waiting room on the island platform…

… which has seen better days.

Part of the western end of the waiting room was partitioned off behind a locked door as though it was for staff but merely consisted of a seat surrounded by very dirty windows.

The stairs to the footbridge…

…carry a dire “Travel information” warning but only once you reach the top of the stairs…

… and the footbridge itself could do with brightening up.

The gateline area is squeezed into a very confined space, and is divided into two…

… while the outside entrance to the building is very much understated…

…especially compared to the extensive developments that have taken place around it over the last few years.

We weren’t impressed so jumped back on the next train to take us one stop further east to our third station….

3 East Acton

Alighting from the train you immediately become underwhelmed at East Acton’s eastbound platform which must be one of the narrowest on the network.

Although there is room for some wooden slated seats at the western end….

… and towards the exit at the eastern end is a well protected brick building…

… which must contain some electrical installation, followed by a rather quaint looking waiting room….

… with rather rudimentary seating…

… which reminded me of the kind of shelters you see preserved in museums of times gone by.

The exit/entrance to the platforms are at the extreme eastern end and are rather dowdy looking…

… with a number of A4 printed warning notices …

… stuck to the dirty glass (plastic?) panels as you approach the stairs…

… which are indeed rather steep.

Suffice to say, this station, like the previous two, is not accessible. The gateline is another in a rather confined space…

…while the subway under the tracks is at least fairly brightly painted and lit.

The westbound platform has a similar waiting shelter to that on the eastbound with the same bench seating.

We didn’t stay long as there wasn’t anything more to see, so left the ticket office…

… and made our way to catch a bus on route 70 over to our fourth and final Underground station, Acton Town.

4. Acton Town

Acton Town is an interchange station on the District and Piccadilly lines with the latter missing out the following four stations eastbound giving a non stop run to Hammersmith (ignoring the exception of Turnham Green at certain times of the day) (towards Cockfosters) with westbound trains continuing to Heathrow or Uxbridge. District Line trains head west to Ealing Broadway and east to Upminster.

The station opened in 1879 initially as a terminus for its first four years and originally called Mill Hill Park, being reconstructed and renamed Acton Town in 1910 and rebuilt again in 1931/2 with a typical design by Charles Holden.

The station has four platforms either side of two islands but used to have a fifth platform to the north of the eastbound island platform for the short branch line to South Acton from where a single car train shuttled up and down. It closed in 1959 and the remnants of the platform are still visible today with a variety of trees in planters.

Back at gateline/street level there are toilets either side of a glassed office for staff to keep an eye on things and somewhere to site the small Christmas tree.

… and a small book library on the other side of this area which has a side access.

There’s a minicab office…

… and a small kiosk either side of the main entrance/exit.

Beyond the gateline there’s a large landing area…

… with stairs down to the two island platforms…

…and a connecting bridge between the two…

… and all adorned with historic images from the London Transport Museum which has its Acton depot on the other side of the road alongside the London Underground depot.

DIstrict line trains only use platforms 1 (westbound) and 4 (eastbound)…

… but Piccadilly line trains can use all four but generally use platforms 2 (westbound) and 3 (eastbound).

At the eastern end of the platforms there’s quite a complex and secure footbridge for staff to use to reach the facilities and offices either side of the tracks.

The Risk Assessment people have definitely been all over that structure. There’s a small kiosk selling “eats and bits” on the westbound island platform…

… and both platforms have bench seats.

It’s a typical busy Holden designed station with plenty of nods to its heritage, which is nice to see.

After a short refreshment break we then made our way on foot the short distance along Bollo Lane… admiring what remains of the old branch line between Acton Town and South Acton…

… where a bridge took the track across the road…

… then we passed over the two level crossings…

… taking, firstly, the freight only connecting line towards Kew and the SWR lines…

… and secondly the MIldmay line to where it meets the District line towards Gunnersbury and Richmond to the first of Acton’s three rail stations at South Acton.

5. South Acton

South Acton is on the former North London line, then Overground and now branded as the Mildmay line.

It’s a traditional two platform affair connected with a footbridge but with level access either side…

… from the surrounding roads.

It’s a station with fairly narrow platforms but the staff have made room for some planters alongside the seats…

… and managed to keep it all very much on brand.

There’s a ticket office…

… alongside a ticket machine and Oyster readers.

On the southbound platform there’s an interesting looking enclosed waiting area…

… and various offices on the northbound (eastbound?) platform.

A pleasant station indeed, but we didn’t stay too long as the next train soon arrived and took us one stop north to Acton Central.

6. Acton Central

A more substantial affair than its nearby southern neighbour, it sees roughly double the number of passengers mainly due to its more central location, as its name implies.

The station sits alongside a busy level crossing in Churchfield Road at its eastern end…

… and again comprises two very typical platforms of a bygone era when substantial offices and covered waiting areas were provided as standard.

There’s an original building alongside the station entrance called ‘The Station House’ now a popular pub…

… alongside access to the northbound platform containing the ticket office…

… gateline…

… book library and photo display.

There’s also a gateline on the soutbound platform with level access from Churchfield Road.

Like South Acton, the platforms have some rather nice plants to admire…

…and you’ll notice in the above photo the pantograph has been raised as from here to Stratford trains are powered by overhead electric current rather than the third rail down to Richmond.

The station canopy roof could usefully be painted in the upcoming months…

… and the staff obviously take pride in their station with interesting historic displays…

… of photographs…

… and a map to enjoy…

… which we did, before moving on and the short walk to our next and final station. Acton Main Line.

7. Acton Main Line

As its name implies, Acton’s seventh station is on the Great Western Main Line linking Paddington with Reading, the West Country and South Wales. It’s a busy station with passing trains on the fast lines, as well as the two slow lines which see Elizabeth line trains heading west to Heathrow and Reading and east to Stratford and Abbey Wood and freight and marshalling lines alongside too as can be seen in the photo below looking westwards.

However the station only sees a small proportion of all those passing trains stopping and that makes for a daytime 15 minute frequency service to Heathrow Terminal 4 (west) and Abbey Wood (east).

The station was completely rebuilt for the Elizabeth line opening and the new building makes for an interesting comparison to the rather primitive facilities which passengers used to endure and can still be seen.

The new arrangements are far superior and include full accessible arrangements…

… a much larger ticket office…

… a toilet….

… and gateline…

… and even departure boards showing buses from nearby bus stops.

It’s truly transformational compared to the old arrangements and typifies the step change (fully accessible step change) London’s transport has seen with the Elizabeth line, including, of course, Acton.

And after a two hour wander around that completed our tour. I voted Acton Central as my favourite with West Acton a strong contender if only it could be given a lick of paint and some TLC – perhaps it will in 2026.

Finally, for completeness, there is one more station called Acton Bridge but it’s 200 miles north of the London suburb with the same name in Cheshire West.

The station sits on the line to Runcorn and Liverpool and is served by London Northwestern as I found when I visited in September 2023 and also got stranded there in May 2024 checking out the itravel DRT scheme (now abandoned).

It’s a rather desolate place and won’t win any prizes for being a noteworthy station named Acton.

Roger French

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