station, and was then well used by various inner London services for the remainder of the nineteenth century. Operations to 1940 For a time, the West London line formed part of the GWR's Middle Circle route (1872-1905) which ran (clockwise) from to (originally Moorgate) via , Kensington Olympia, and . The West London line was also part of London Underground for a time and operated as a branch of the Metropolitan Railway between and Addison Road. The branch was eventually closed and the link between the West London line and today's Hammersmith & City line was dismantled in 1930. A branch was installed to allow trains from the former Southern Railway to access to the West Coast Main Line and vice versa: in summer the London Midland and Scottish Railway ran from as far north as Glasgow to the South Coast. Through trains in the steam era changed locomotives here. From the 1920s there was a United Dairies depot on the site of a former dairy farm here, which up until the late 1970s had regular milk train deliveries. The northern section of the line, from Willesden Junction to Kensington Olympia and on to Earls Court, was electrified by the LNWR in 1915. Decline after World War II After a period of popularity, passenger usage dwindled on the West London Railway. Competition from the new deep-level Underground railways and electric tramways took away custom by offering more direct routes into Central London. With the onset of World War II, the West London line was badly hit in some parts by enemy action during the Blitz and the demise of the line was hastened by wartime bombing. In 1940, LMS steam trains from to Kensington ceased on 20 October and the services to Willesden and Edgware Road Met electric services ceased on 3 and 20 October respectively. In 1948, the line became part of British Rail, following the nationalisation of the railways, but remained mostly in use as a freight route. For many years, limited passenger trains ran on workday mornings and evenings, to carry workers at the Post Office Savings Bank headquarters, Blythe House, near Olympia from Clapham Junction and back again, but these services were not publicly advertised. Kensington Olympia was used as late as the 1970s as a location for collecting milk tanks (for the west country) from various terminals in the London area such as Ilford. This