Lanes Group completes repairs at Listed Tube Station

Lanes Group has completed significant repairs at a Grade II Listed underground station in West London.

West Acton station on London Underground’s Central Line is dominated by a 25 metre high window with 20 reinforced concrete pillars.

Lanes Group’s Rail Division has repaired the concrete pillars, restoring the impressive window to how it looked when the station was built in 1940.

Trevor Osborne, civils project supervisor for Lanes Rail, said: “The window had undergone many minor repairs over the years, but this was the first time it had been fully restored.

“Staff at the station had reported that small bits of concrete had fallen from the window. There was a concern about maintaining the fabric of an important building and for the safety of passengers and staff.

“London Underground has been very impressed with the work we’ve done, saying it’s one of the best repair jobs of its kind they have seen in a number of years, which is good to hear.”

Concrete needs regular maintenance, especially when it is used in large windows like the one at West Action tube station.

The constant action of rain water, pollution and changing temperatures causes the concrete to degrade and break apart – and the internal steel reinforcement to rust.

Lanes Rail deployed an eight person team working night shifts for four weeks to do the work – using scaffolding and powered access platforms to safety reach the areas needing to be repaired.

Loose and degraded concrete was cut out, and exposed steelwork cleaned and treated with rust-proof primer.

A tough concrete filler was then applied to the numerous patches created, and the window was given fresh coats of white paint.

Trevor Osborne said: “Our teams had to work with great care and precision because the glass panels in the window could not be removed.

“They’d become highly brittle, so they could have easily been broken if a chisel or power tool had slipped. The fact that not one panel was damaged says a lot about the skill and attention to detail of our maintenance teams.”

West Action Station, which is in Ealing, was built by Great Western Railway (GWR), on behalf of London Transport, as part of a programme to extend the Central Line.

The station was designed by Brian Lewis, GWR’s chief architect. It was first listed in 2011, because of its “dainty modernist style” which later characterised the Festival of Britain, in 1951, and because it was built to original designs.

Seventy-seven of London Underground’s 270 stations have listed building status.