page_title: West Ruislip station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: West Ruislip station / History
caption_attribution_description: Denham; Harrow, Neasden, Northolt &amp; Northolt Road RJD
context_page_description: West Ruislip is a station on Ickenham High Road on the borders of Ickenham and western Ruislip in the London Borough of Hillingdon in Greater London, formerly in Middlesex. It is served by London Underground and National Rail trains on independent platforms. It is the western terminus of the Central line's West Ruislip branch; Ruislip Gardens is the next Underground station towards central London. The Central line and Chiltern Railways platforms and ticket office hall are managed by LU. The closest station on the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines is Ickenham, 1.1 miles from West Ruislip Station.
context_section_description: The station was opened on 2 April 1906 as Ruislip & Ickenham by the Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway (GW&GCJR). The GW&GCJR connected London and the Midlands via High Wycombe and provided an alternative route to the Great Central Railway's (GCR's) main line through Aylesbury, Harrow and Wembley which shared its route with the Metropolitan Railway.
  Prior to the Second World War plans had been made for a number of extensions to the Central line. The London Passenger Transport Board's (LPTB's) 1935-40 New Works programme included the extension of the Central line to run alongside the Great Western Railway (GWR) tracks from North Acton to South Ruislip and the GW&GCJR tracks from there as far as Denham; the post-war introduction of the Metropolitan Green Belt caused the extension to be cut back to West Ruislip. Had the Central line extension been completed as planned, the next station would have been Harefield Road. Preparatory work on this section had started just before the war and a section of trackbed constructed for the extension can be seen to the west of the road overbridge, beyond the buffer stops of the Central line tracks alongside the National Rail line.
  The additional tracks were constructed by the GWR on behalf of the LPTB and on 30 June 1947, the first section of the western extension opened from North Acton to Greenford. On the same date the station name was changed to West Ruislip (for Ickenham).
  Central line services began running from West Ruislip on 21 November 1948.
  The station building was built by British Railways for London Underground and was not completed until the 1960s and at about the same time the sub-title was omitted from the station name. Some Central line stations with older signage still show the longer name on the line diagrams on their platforms.
  The station was transferred from the Western Region of British Rail to the London Midland Region on 24 March 1974.
  The London Borough of Hillingdon announced in June 2011 that it would be lobbying Transport for London to have the Central line extended from West Ruislip to Uxbridge. Such a project would require a business case approved by TfL and the completion of signal upgrade work on the Metropolitan line.
caption: A 1914 Railway Clearing House map of railways in the vicinity of West Ruislip (shown here as Ruislip & Ickenham)
exif: {"Image ExifOffset": "26"}