< View previous picture - View next picture > Photographer / Copyright James Mair Images should not be reused without permission. View vehicle details Location Link/s Wood Lane Date added to site 12/04/2021 Printer-friendly version of this page

Details: White City Depot and Wood Lane have always been listed on LTSV as two separate locations, based on various official documents. However, although the two served different purposes at times, I believe that they were both the same location, or at least adjacent to each other. In more recent times both of the locations have moved and are now distinct. White City Depot is underneath the Westfield Shopping Centre, while Wood Lane Control Centre is at the western side, closer to Shepherds Bush Green. This photo, taken by James in about 1990, shows what must have been the northern end of the original site, and I have marked it as being Wood Lane. That said, I now see that I have marked another of James' photos taken in the same area as being White City Depot!. The large building on the left still stands, having had a preservation order applied. Originally the power station for the Central London Railway (which became the Central Line), it was later used by a firm called Dimco (hence is referred to as the Dimco Building). More recently it has been repurposed again. The western half (the set-back part on the left of this photo) now contains an electrical substation, while the eastern half has had large openings made in each end and serves as a unique covered bus parking area for the new bus station built nearby. In this photo, White City Depot would be off-frame on the right, with the tracks running left to right just beyond the small red van in the distance. That van is most likely an LT service vehicle, as are the six Ford Transit vans parked at the left. The Transits all seem to be mid-height Mk3s (note the long rear overhang - the rear axle was moved further back with the Mk4 introduced in 1991). Five of the vans are in red livery, the sixth in white. Overall white (and overall blue) vans were briefly common in the late 1980s, before the introduction of LUL's new white/blue livery in 1990.

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