The Times reported that "the canal runs from the Thames, near the Battersea-bridge, directly north two miles and a quarter, terminating close to the great Western road.

[4] As the calls on shares became due some of the shareholders defaulted and arrears soon amounted to £28,000: the company was unable to pay current bills.

On 23 July 1840 statutory authority to raise a further £75,000 was obtained in the Birmingham, Bristol and Thames Junction Railway Act 1840 (3 & 4 Vict.

c. cv), and the opportunity provided by this second application to Parliament was used to change the name to the West London Railway Company.

[2] In 1839 Samuel Clegg and Jacob Samuda, approached the company for permission to use its uncompleted line for trials of their atmospheric system, with stationary engines exhausting air from a pipe laid between the rails; a carriage on the train carried a piston inside the pipe and the air pressure provided tractive force.

[6] Part of the trackbed for about a half mile south from the GWR crossing was allocated to them, and they started demonstrations on 11 June 1840, having laid their own track.

[2] The line finally opened on Whit Monday 27 May 1844, and for two days a 30-minute interval passenger service operated between Wormwood Scrubs and Kensington.

[2] The Kensington station was immediately to the north of Counter's Bridge, and the goods connection to the canal basin was on the south side.

[4] MacDermot gives a diagram for the "West London Crossing" in 1844; the WLR crosses under the Grand Junction Canal (sometimes referred to as the Paddington Canal) in a short tunnel; there is a "turntable for the exchange of traffic" to the east of the WLR and south of the GWR, with a siding connection from each line to the turntable but no other connection.

[3] The line was used only to carry coal—the LNWR used it for a considerable traffic to Shepherd's Bush and Warwick Road Basin, Kensington, which was the original canal terminal.

The through line to and from Willesden had previously passed under the Paddington Canal, with a 1-in-36 gradient to get down to the low level; it now crossed it by a bridge, the new alignment displaced a little to the west.

Simultaneously they started running trains from Kensington to and from Camden (Chalk Farm), where there were connections for Fenchurch Street over the North London Railway.

[2] The development of the suburbs meant that the time was now right to extend the line southwards to join railways on the south side of the River Thames.

At the southern end of the new line, it divided to give through running in several directions: Clapham Junction station was opened on the same day as the WLER and had plenty of accommodation for each of the railways.

Addison Road became the focus of a complex pattern of services to the Cities of London and Westminster, encouraging residential housing for businessmen.

As well as the GWR service from Southall to Victoria, there was from 1 July 1864 a broad gauge service to and from the Hammersmith and City Railway via a new connection at Latimer Road; in 1872 this developed into the Middle Circle between Moorgate and Mansion House, via Baker Street, Addison Road and Earl's Court (Metropolitan District Railway).

In September 1867 the LNWR started a 30-minute interval service from Broad Street to Kensington, later extended to the LBSCR Victoria station, and later still to Mansion House, forming the Outer Circle.

[13] In the nineteenth century there had been a demand for through trains from Kensington and Chelsea to all parts of the business districts; some of these routes were exceptionally circuitous and slow, and in many cases infrequent.

With the rise of tube railways in the first decades of the twentieth century, frequent and more direct services became available, and changing lines was acceptable because of the frequency.

The onset of the Second World War brought this decline to a head, and the LMS (as successor to the LNWR) electric services from Willesden ceased on 3 October 1940.

On 19 December 1946 Addison Road was renamed Kensington (Olympia) and supported a special London Transport service when public exhibitions were in progress.

All electric train operation ceased in 1940 due to enemy action, and only the Earls Court to Kensington (Olympia) service was resumed afterwards, in 1946.

Cobb's Atlas[14] shows an east curve at North Pole Junction, apparently enabling through running from Kensington towards Paddington.

[17][18][19] Arthur William à Beckett, son of one of Punch's first writers, Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, wrote in his autobiography, describing his childhood at a time when his father lived in Kensington: Portland House, North End, Fulham, half a century ago, had some very fine pleasure grounds.

In its front are a number of railway lines, as it is not two hundred yards distant from the Addison Road Station, Kensington.

According to Punch, there was so little traffic that the station-master was wont to grow cabbages between the sleepers, and train vegetable marrows along the rails.

If I have not been misinformed, that mile of railway in front of Portland House is leased by some of the leading English hues, and pays a dividend of enormous proportions on the original stock.

My father made up his mind to give up his house, and removed further East, taking up his residence in ... Hyde Park Gate.