Two freights and a Festive steam express at Bollo Lane (Kew Line) Level Crossing, Greater London

Borough: London Borough of Ealing

Date filmed: Friday the 15th of December 2023
Videos filmed at: 12:02 | 12:16 | 12:40

Route: South Acton to Kew Bridge branch Line
Closest timing point: South Acton Junction (on Real Time Trains)

Crossing type: Manually Controlled Barrier crossing with CCTV (MCB-CCTV)

Location: Bollo Lane, South Acton
Trains featured:
Intro - 0:00
-
378 206 (London Overground) (Richmond Line Crossing) - 0:38
2N27 Richmond ➡ Stratford London | On-time
-
Lowering 1 (1:13):
66 746 (GBRf Belmond Royal Scotsman) - 2:25
6M54 Watford London Concrete GBRf ➡ Bardon Hill GBRf | 1 minute late
-
Lowering 2 (3:17):
66 186 (DB Cargo UK) - 4:28
6M95 Cliffe Brett Marine ➡ Cricklewood Aggregates DBC | 13 minutes early
-
Lowering 3 (5:17):
L.M.S. Stanier 'Black 5' 45231 "The Sherwood Forester" (British Railways) - 6:28
Trailed by: 47810 / D1924 "Crewe Diesel Depot"
1Z32 London Victoria ➡ London Victoria (Via Acton & Willesden) "The Santa Steam Express" | 17 minutes late
-
End-of-video picture showcase: 7:26

Part 2 of my festive trio of videos for this year comes from this level crossing on Bollo Lane, one of only a small handful of places where you can see two level crossings directly opposite each other on the same road so close together! Here, after a pair of freights are seen using the crossing, the L.M.S. Stanier "Black 5" 45231 "The Sherwood Forester" can be seen marching on past onto this small freight-only chord, connecting the North London Line with the Hounslow Loop Line, hauling the Late Morning installation of the festive "Santa Steam Express" - a London Victoria circular reversing at Willesden and returning via Acton and Barnes which ran four times a day on three dates in the run up to Christmas. It was diesel-hauled by the green Class 47 locomotive out of London Victoria and then through Kensington Olympia, and then Steam-hauled on its return back to London Victoria.

These two level crossings on Bollo Lane (South Acton) see very different levels of usage; this one on this small freight-only line gets only a handful of trains a day (the ones that tend to run often seem to come in chunks every few hours), while the other on the North London Line towards Gunnersbury and onto Richmond sees frequent London Overground services at roughly 10-15 minute intervals in each direction. One is seen passing it in this video, and a full video of that crossing is due soon. Both alarms here work, although one of which is barely audible, and one of the wigwags / road traffic lights here has an unusually large bracket (it even has a tension chord of its own!). Various tube trains can also be seen in the background as the Piccadilly and District Lines both use the flyover between Chiswick Park and Acton Town.

The first freight you can see in this video was looping through Kensington, Barnes, and Acton to get towards the Midland Main Line from the West Coast Main Line, and passed with a very, very loud two-tone horn! The second was running to Cricklewood from Cliffe in Kent and was allowed to run straight through the area 13 minutes early, rather than being held to time as the North London Line was clear at the time it passed, and this only had to get to Acton Wells Junction the other side of Acton Central before leaving the North London Line again, so it's a stroke of luck I managed to catch the lowering in whole as I anticipated it to run early. Overall, I was actually pretty lucky to get as many as a trio of lowerings within the space of about 40 minutes here. Enjoy!

Train details sourced from:
Real Time Trains: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/sear...
Open Train Times: https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps
Traksy: https://traksy.uk/live

Filmed on: Panasonic HC-VX1 in 4K 25fps

Thanks for watching!