Hello! I'm peering through this fence here
on the slightly noisy Wiggenhall Road in Watford.
watching that Overground train, just leave Watford High Street
and head South that's where I've come to today.
to investigate the old line between
Watford to Croxley Green.
In this next episode of London's Lost Railways.
And yes, I'm acutely aware
that Watford is not in London.
(Birds chirping)
This line opened in 1912, and trains ran
from Watford junction to Croxley Green.
On the branch, there was initially
one intermediate station, Watford West.
But the line never attrached that many passengers and really struggled to compete.
When the Underground also opened its nearby branch
of the Metropolitan line in 1925.
A new station was built later though.
Watford Stadium - to serve those coming
to football matches as we'll see later.
The line's demise though came about
when a new road was built in 1996.
With a section of the line being demolished
and a temporary replacement bus service was put in place
But temporary became permanent.
And in the early 2000's, the line simply fell
into decay and it's been entirely disused ever since.
Watford is in Hertfordshire
but the London Underground does serve this area.
And an extension of the Tube
known as the Croxley link almost happened recently.
We'll discuss that more later, too.
So by the junction near Cardiff Road is this bridge.
And if you look down the Overground tracks curve
off to the right they're heading South, but the branch to Croxley
went off to the left and then under the bridge
let's go and find the three stations that it called at.
So walking the back streets of Watford.
w e'll go and try and find
the three abandoned stations that there are.
I've actually got some footage back from 2015
when i was here before, and they were clearing the line
in preparation for the Metropolitan line extension
which then never happened, which we will touch on later
So it'll be interesting to compare
what it's like then, with what it's like now.
And also, because this is a bonus episode
we're having a little bit of fun.
I've got my London's Lost Railways bingo sheet
which you can download.
We haven't had a video yet where you've been able to call 'House'
Grab a copy of the bingo sheet and see
if you can tick off all of the words on it.
When I say them at any point in the video.
it's just a bit of fun
that you can play along with this video
and all the other previous videos in the series.
Walk past Watford football clubs, stadium.
This is Vicarage Road.
We're heading to the abandoned station here
that was built as late as 1982.
That's because it was only constructed when
Watford got promoted to the top division
and there will be an increased number of fans travelling here
And so the station was only ever open on match days.
I can see the hump in the road ahead
which to me means road going over a railway.
And as I approach, Oh this is good.
I can already see there's a platform
there's tracks, there's old lights.
It's still all there.
The platforms are still there.
The tracks are still there.
Even the red painted Network SouthEast coloured lampposts
are all still there.
It's a little overgrown
but certainly not as much as I expected.
You can simply peek over the edge of the bridge for an excellent view
And if you look over the other side of the bridge
the alignment is even more clearly visible.
It looks actually as if someone is maintaining it to stop it from being overgrown
The next station is on Tolpits Lane.
There's another bridge here where the road goes
over the railway at what was Watford West Station.
Are there any remains here?
or is there nothing left to see?
Well, you can peer through the fence that was once
the entrance and all the steps are all overgrown
but the view from the bridge
shows the platform still in place down below.
I was definitely stood here
five, six years ago, looking down at this angle
I feel like I can do some comparison shots
between how overgrown it was then
as opposed to how overgrown it is now
The old footage from 2015 clearly
shows the work had been done
in preparation of clearing it all back
for the Croxley link, which never happened.
It makes me wonder how much longer you'll be
able to see the platform here.
i f nature keeps doing its thing and growing to the point
where everything is obscured again.
And if you look West from Watford West
you can see straight down the track
tracks are still there, irons down there, slightly overgrown.
And in the distance is bridges
and rivers and Croxley Green.
which we'll get to in a minute before then
I actually found online
and printed out an old Watford Junction
to Croxley Green timetable.
to give you an idea of what the service was like.
This was from the 1980's
and there were just one, two, three
six trains in the morning.
And then six trains in the evening.
It was a peak hour service
It used to have many more trains
like 20, 30 trains a day.
and in the peaks
they used to go through the curve
like the South curve, by Watford High Street.
and down into Euston or some to Broad Street.
And then in the nineties, before it was withdrawn
I think there was just like one train a day
like one in the morning peak to take you
to Watford Junction and change and then one in the evening
so it was really sparse and then
then they reduced it down to a bus service.
At Ascot Road, there's very much a bridge still in place
that the trains used to rumble across over on.
But right next to that is a dual carriageway.
This is what severed Croxley Green station
and brought about the introduction of the bus service.
It was here that the bridge was obliterated and never rebuilt
but the embankment still survives.
There is another bridge near here though.
and an impressive one too.
Take a walk down Beggars Bush lane to get there.
No, it's not an alleyway.
it's a wide pedestrian only road ... pathway?
Look at the bridge.
Oh, that's fabulous.
So there's two stretches of water here that the bridge is crossing
There's the Grand Union canal.
And then right next to it is the River Gade.
And this glorious structure spans both of them.
It's fantastic to see this lattice bridge still in place
And onto the terminus, Croxley Green station
which is right by the roundabout.
It's bizarre to think that there were the British Rail double arrow symbol here
and Network SouthEast colours too
which survived for many years,
but nowadays there is a fence.
meaning that there's no access to see the old rails
which are still up there in place, rusting away.
This used to be the entrance
to Croxley Green Station.
The steps are there.
Interestingly, this bit of the old line wouldn't have been used
had the Croxley Met extension gone ahead.
There would have been a new bridge over there instead.
Let's talk about what
that would have been and why it's not happening.
The Croxley rail link was an ambitious plan to extend the
Metropolitan line and reuse the old alignment
so that after leaving Croxley trains would have turned
and headed East with two stations on the branch
and would connect up and also call at Watford high street
and Watford junction.
Oddly, it would have meant
that Watford Tube station would have been closed
and no longer served,
but now it's no longer happening.
It's a long story that I can't do justice in this short video
Which is why you should read this incredibly comprehensive article
on the London reconnection site.
Which has the complete story.
So with that not happening.
sorry, I'm just admiring the red network Southeast lamppost.
that's just slowly being reclaimed
by nature with that, not happening.
this his line will never be reused.
It's just going to sit there.
Right? Right.
And that is the end of this bit of the abandoned railway
except there's still one more bit to do.
That's because there's another three and a and a half mile walk in this area here
that you can do along another old railway line.
This is the old Watford and Rickmansworth Railway
That's now been turned into the Ebury Way.
This line opened in 1862 and closed in 1952.
And there's a lovely walk that you can now take.
This is it i'm on it now this is Ebury Way
it's part of the national cycle network
It's just a track, It's a path there's not loads to see,
but I couldn't come to Watford and not do it.
The are just a couple of quick things though.
I can point out.
There's this bridge on Tolpits Lane.
yes, the same road we saw earlier at Watford West station
And this bridge,
which I love where it crosses the river Colne.
And as you near the centre of Watford
you can see some old bridges
followed by something that really amused me.
The brand new Tom Sawyer way.
That's a new road that opened in 2016 with a bridge over the
old alignment where it was expected to go
over the Metropolitan Line, and the new Croxley link
which now isn't happening.
So, they've built a modern day bridge over nothing.
All right, I've come to the end of Ebury Way.
I'm sat in Riverside park, lovely day, sun is now out
That's just a quick look at that old abandoned line.
If you're ever in the Watford area, come and walk that too as well, it's lovely
We didn't see any trains, but we could hear some
like the rumble of the Met line in the distance like a ghost train that was fantastic
So that is the end of this episode
of London's Lost Railways, still aware that Watford's not in London
click on the playlist watch all the other episodes, press subscribe
all that good stuff, and it's just occured to me that
in the whole of this episode, we didn't see a single ...
allotment.
- House!
- I must've missed one.
- You must've done
- We didn't see a single allotment.
- Allotments!
- We didn't see a single allotment.
- Allotments? Allotments!
- We didn't see a single allotment.
- A single allotment.
- He said it! Bella, Geoff said allotment, that's all of them
Bingo!
- A single allotment.
- Allotment!!
- A single allotment.
- Huh, I probably should have seen that coming
You think by now, I'll be better at squares!
(piano fanfare)
- We didn't see a single allotment
- Oooh! Allotment!
Mine just says castles ... ?!?
* Sigh *