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The Uxbridge (Vine Street) Branch Line was a railway line between West Drayton and Uxbridge. The line branched from the Great Western Main Line at West Drayton and ran two miles north to Uxbridge Vine Street.
Construction of the single track broad gauge line began in 1854, and it opened to passengers in 1856. The track was relaid as standard gauge in 1871 and doubled in 1880. The one intermediate station at Cowley opened in 1904. The line was closed to passengers in 1962 and to freight in 1964, and the track was lifted except for a short stretch to the Middlesex Oil Works, which stayed open until 1979, and the section for freight access to the truncated Staines & West Drayton Railway[1]
The stretch of land alongside Brunel University where the track ran was sold by the local council upon the line's closure to the college as it was at the time, for £65,000.[2]
Otherwise a short piece of track at Cowley is one of the few remaining traces of the railway .[3]