The West London line is a short railway in inner West London that links in the south to Willesden Junction in the north. The line has always been an important cross-London link especially for freight services. Southern and London Overground provide regular passenger services; detailed below. History Origins The Birmingham, Bristol & Thames Junction Railway was authorised in 1836 to run from the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR), near the present Willesden Junction station, across the proposed route of the Great Western (GWR) on the level, to the Kensington Canal Basin. For about twelve years, the railway ran alongside the Kensington Canal, formerly Counter's Creek, a minor tributary of the Thames River until it was filled in, the water course turned into a sewer and the future District line built over it. Construction was delayed by engineering and financial problems. Renamed the West London Railway (WLR) the line officially opened on 27 May 1844, and regular services began on 10 June, but before that trials to demonstrate the potential of the atmospheric railway system had been held from 1840 to 1843 on a half-mile section of track adjacent to Wormwood Scrubs, leased to that system's promoters; The WLR used conventional power but was not a commercial success. After only six months it closed on 30 November 1844. An Act of 1845 authorised the GWR and the L&BR (which became part of the London and North Western Railway [LNWR] in 1846) to take a joint lease of the WLR. The line was used only to carry coal, and passenger service was not re-introduced. The lack of success of the line became such a regular target of Punch magazine that the line was called Punch's Railway. An Act in 1859 granted those two companies, with the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) and the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR), powers to construct the West London Extension Joint Railway on the filled-in canal south from the Kensington Basin to the bridge under the Kings Road, to bridge the Thames and to connect near Clapham Junction to railways south of the river. The existing line was doubled, and the flat crossing of the GWR main line, where a number of collisions had occurred, was replaced by a flyover. The new line opened on 2 March 1863 with a passenger station at Addison Road (now Kensington (Olympia)) slightly north of the original Kensington