Bridges and Tunnels

The railway, when I was growing up, was a huge physical and sensual entity which ran through the middle of Southall like a river. I've mentioned the division of the town into two by it: 'the other side' and 'new Southall', but the barrier had its crossings. The most obvious is Station Bridge, that great hump which rose, on metal stilts, from the Post Office and Glass House pub on one side, peaked at the station building and dropped to the shops on the Green. That's where the buses crossed and was the main road linking the two Southalls. There used to be a hostel there for railway workers, drivers and firemen, who often spent days away from home on trips, as did my own grandfather. It was a functional slab of a place, a load of regular steel window frames. But, as a boy, I also followed other routes across. There was the dingy foot tunnel, which ran under the shunting yard, 10 or 12 tracks wide, from White Street on one side to Spencer Street on the other, with metal obstacles at each end to stop cycling. The shunting yard itself was a noisy and busy place. Up until the early 1960s first steam engines then diesels moved lines of goods wagons forwards and backwards. There was lot of clanking and squealing, often into the night when noise carried on the wind into the surrounding area and it had vague industrial smell. Shunters used to hang onto the sides of the engines and jump off to hook and unhook bits of trains with poles.

The gasworks next to it had its own strange little engine, which used to move coal and coke wagons in and out of the works sidings. Not far away, another way to cross the tracks was along the canal, at the Hayes end of Southall. You could walk along the towpath, by the wall of the gasworks and under the tracks, to where two canals met and turn left back towards Western Road. The station these days is a somewhat sad and truncated version of what it used to be. then it had a grand booking hall, with a couple of hatches, off the bridge and three or four big staircases down to platforms. There used to be a machine on the platform where you could punch your name into a metal strip. As well as the booking office staff I remember there being porters with trolleys. Sometimes an engine would be stationed at a little platform to one side. There was the usual wooden planking across the sloped end of the platform where porters (and others) would cross the tracks and the usual sign telling passengers not to do it. Just beyond the platforms was was a signal box which still had the old brass levers. Between trains the signalman would lean out of the window and just beyond that was another way to cross the railway: the footbridge from Park Avenue to Bridge Road, the old Bachelor's factory and the Community Centre. The Villiers Road-Park Avenue part of town was slightly 'upmarket' private housing and the railway separated it from the factory area over the tracks. The bridge was a long, narrow wooden affair and in the days of steam trains it was exciting enough to stand on it as the big express engines came thundering underneath. It had steps in the middle which went down to Southall Engine Shed and you could see drivers and firemen in their blue denims, with their kit bags, going to and from work. There was a small building with a track running into it where post was delivered and there was a parcel depot. When I was quite young there were railway vans which delivered parcels from there to local houses and businesses. Beyond the engine shed, right by the edge of the old AEC works, was another tunnel. To get to it you went by the side of the park along Green Drive, more middle range private houses. It started with a narrow alley, with a high wall for the AEC works (and a small works entrance) on one side. Then it went under the railway and came out to Glade Lane, which went on to the canal. That part of town in the 1950s and early 1960s was quite cut off. The canal area had some hidden places and I remember catching things like grasshoppers and slow-worms there. There used to be an AEC equivalent of the gasworks engine as well, a strange little diesel engine, built in house, when AEC had its own siding off the railway which ran into the works. Near there was also the turntable for the engine shed where you could watch the engines and also a playing field where railway workers played football. My grandfather used to look after the pitch there. These tunnels and bridges were not built for the convenience of children of course, or even for people to shop or visit parks, they were there to allow people to go to and from their workplaces, which helps define what Southall was, from the 1930s onward: a centre of industry. I remember men in large numbers on bikes and walking, with an increasing number in cars through the 60s, going from one side to another, to the factories and works. In those days shifts started at 6am, so certain parts were always busy.