"Hayes & Harlington is a railway station serving the west London districts Hayes and Harlington in the London Borough of Hillingdon. It is 10 miles 71 chains (17.5 km; 10.89 mi) down the line from London Paddington and is situated between Southall and West Drayton.
It has long operated as a minor stop on the Great Western main line and is at the start of a spur to Heathrow Airport, to and from which passenger trains operate since the early 21st-century building of the spur which benefits from a flyover junction.
The station is managed by TfL Rail in preparation for Crossrail. The Transport for London rail service will be re-branded as the Elizabeth line and the Elizabeth line service will open to Reading and Heathrow Airport (dates not yet confirmed).
The station is on the Isambard Kingdom Brunel-designed Great Western Main Line landscaped and laid from London Paddington to major towns in central and west Berkshire, Bristol, South Wales and with later direct additions to Birmingham and Taunton. The line was opened piecemeal; its first guise terminated on 4 June 1838 at a temporary Maidenhead station in Taplow to allow completion of the single-span brick high-level sounding arch over the Thames just west of that temporary halt. The station at Hayes opened in 1868 or 1864.
From 1 March 1883, the station (then named Hayes) was served by District Railway services running between Mansion House and Windsor (central). The service was discontinued as uneconomic on 30 September 1885.
The film Trains at Hayes Station, showing trains passing through the station with stereophonic sound, was filmed from the roof of the defunct Aeolian pianola factory just north of the station. The factory had been purchased by HMV when the pianola company had collapsed owing to fraud and technological obsolescence. The film is almost the first demonstration of stereophonic sound to accompany moving pictures, an invention of Alan Blumlein.
The station has five platforms, four being through platforms and one being a terminus bay platform. Platforms 1 and 2 are only used during certain engineering works; 3 and 4 are for services (which are stopping services) to and from London, Heathrow Airport, Reading and Oxford; platform 5 is a bay terminus platform, which is used for half-hourly shuttle services to Paddington. Platform 5 is capable of holding an eight-car train; platforms 2, 3 and 4 can hold seven-car trains and platform 1 can hold five-car trains. Platforms 3 and 4 are currently being extended in preparation for Crossrail services that will begin operating from 2019. All lines at Hayes & Harlington are electrified. On platform 5 an alternative entrance exists leading to High Point Hayes which has Oyster Pay and Go readers, platforms 3 and 4 are connected by a bridge towards the west end to the functionalist triple-kiosk northern booking hall.
The station is a connection to a main east-west rail network for Greater London and north Surrey districts and an interchange for nearby stations and bus routes for Heathrow. The passenger halls have no ticket barriers accordingly ticket checks take place on a daily basis.
Airport junction adjoins the station the junction of the short Heathrow Airport branch. For this reason, the lines through the station are electrified with 25 kilovolt A.C. overhead power from London Paddington to the airport — the main line to Reading is being electrified by c. early 2018 as part of a project to modernise the main line.
The junction itself, west of the station, consists of two high-speed turnouts from the main lines, the 'down' (away from London) line curving away to the left towards the Airport and the 'up' (towards London) line passing over a concrete flyover to clear (flyover) the up and down main lines. The construction permits London-bound electric trains to join the main line at the same time as westbound expresses serve the down main line.
Hayes & Harlington will be served by Crossrail trains using new twin-bore main line diameter tunnels underneath central London which will surface west of Paddington station. Although beyond the core tunnel section, Hayes & Harlington will be provided with a frequent metro service across the capital to Docklands and Abbey Wood, replacing the current Great Western Railway service. The project also includes electrification of the slow lines along the Thames Valley as far as Reading, Crossrail's planned terminus.
Buses serving the station are numbers 90, 140, 195, 350, E6, H98, U4, U5 and school buses 696, 698. The letter abbreviations are for Ealing, Hounslow and Uxbridge."