"Southall is a railway station on the Great Western main line in Southall, London, England. It is in Travelcard Zone 4 and passenger services are provided by Great Western Railway from London Paddington and by TfL Rail to Heathrow Airport. It is 9 miles 6 chains (14.6 km) down the line from Paddington and is situated between Hanwell to the east and Hayes & Harlington to the west.
The station is managed by TfL Rail in preparation for Crossrail. In Autumn 2019, the TfL Rail service will be re-branded as the Elizabeth line and in December 2019 the Elizabeth line service will open to Reading and Heathrow Airport.
The Great Western Railway opened Southall railway station on 1 May 1839, nearly one year after it opened its first railway line on 4 June 1838, between London Paddington and Maidenhead Riverside (the latter now known as Taplow). The Brentford Branch Line to Brentford Dock was opened for freight in 1859; a passenger service ran on the branch from 1860 until 1942, using the unnumbered platform at the south of the station (the line serving this platform is now only used as a relief line). From 1 March 1883 to 30 September 1885 (when the service was discontinued as uneconomic) the District Railway ran trains between Mansion House and Windsor which called at the station. The goods platforms opened as part of the original station; they were closed and dismantled in 1967.
Southall railway station has five platforms, one of which is unnumbered and used only for freight and special events. Access to all platforms is only by stairs. In normal circumstances, platforms 1 and 2, on the fast lines, and the unnumbered platform are not used by passengers; platforms 3 and 4 are used by all trains serving the station. The station building, above the fast lines, has a ticket office and a newsagent's shop. A footbridge gives access to platforms 3 and 4, while gates prevents access to the other three, under normal circumstances.
Oyster "pay as you go" has been available since October 2008 for journeys to or from Southall. Although Southall is a busy station, automatic ticket barriers have not replaced manual ticket checks and standalone card readers, making the station vulnerable to fare evasion.
London Buses routes 105, 120, 195, 482, E5 and H32 serve the station.
On 19 September 1997, a Great Western Trains passenger train from Swansea to London Paddington failed to stop at a red signal and collided with a freight train, killing 7 people and injuring 139 others. The train driver, Larry Harrison, was charged with manslaughter, but the case against him was dropped. Great Western Trains was fined £1.5 million for the crash. Following this accident and the more serious Ladbroke Grove Rail Crash some miles east, First Great Western requires all its trains to have their ATP switched on at all times. If the equipment is faulty, the train is stored out of use.
In 2007, analysis by First Great Western after several deaths at Southall station found that a third of the suicides on English and Welsh railways occurred on the line between Slough and Paddington."