There has always been a smell just west of Southall. This usually smelt like a gas leak from the gas-holders. But now they seem to have large water sprays all along the track that smells like raw 'sh$t.' It even permeates the aircon units on the trains. WTF is is going on?
Do you mean beside the gasworks site? The usual reason for water sprays is to lay dust during demolition or construction, but the obvious process that would call for it - washing the top few metres of the site - happened a year ago. There were complaints of the smell then, though labelling it as tar-like. The fact that Southall has an asphalt factory (though the wind is not coming from that direction just now) was also part of
that story. But if construction itself has now started, which I've noticed these days often means moving big heaps of soil back and forth across the site for no obvious reason, that might be the reason for the sprays. Mind you, nice washed-clean soil ought not to smell.
