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The Brentford Branch Line is a freight-only branch railway line in West London running south from the Great Western Main Line to "Brentford Dock]]
The line was built in west London, by the Great Western and Brentford Railway Company which was incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1855. The line was opened on 18 July 1859 and operated by the Great Western Railway (GWR) from the outset. The Brentford company was amalgamated into the GWR in February 1872.[1]
It was built from a down-facing connection with the Great Western Main Line at Southall to serve the company's new docks at Brentford which later catered for as much as ten percent of the country's imports. The company had also built most the Brentford Dock itself, at which the originally 7ft gauge line, would terminate at until 1970.[2] The capacity of the branch was augmented by a separate mixed gauge track with complete conversion to standard gauge in 1875.
The branch had only one passenger station, Brentford immediately north of the A315 (London Road/High Street) until the intermediate Trumpers Crossing Halte was opened in 1904. That closed for the second time in 1926. The passenger service was withdrawn in 1942. In 1964 the southern end from the docks to Brentford New Yard, some kilometre northeast of the station, closed. That yard closed in the 1970s but the line to just north of it is used by building aggregate services and a refuse transfer station. A kilometre from Southall there is Brunel's famous 'Three Bridges' where a road crosses the Grand Junction Canal with the railway in a cutting beneath the two.
The Three Bridges bridge crossing is a unique transport intersection, that was designed and built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It was to be his last project before he died on 15th September 1859 just two months after its completion. The correct name for it should be Windmill Bridge - named after the Southall Mill, which stood on the south-western side of the original canal bridge which was first built in the 1790's when the canal was cut. J.M.W. Turner painted this windmill in 1806. The Three Bridges has been designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by English Heritage.