Watford and Edgware Railway

Watford and Edgware Railway

The Watford and Edgware Railway (W&ER) was a railway company established in the 1860s that intended to build a railway that would run between Edgware and Watford, via Bushey. Nothing substantial was ever constructed.

History

The W&ER had several proposed routes and stations during its extended conception but was generally intended to branch from the now closed Edgware, Highgate and London Railway (EH&LR) tracks just before Edgware station and take a northerly route, with stations suggested at various times for Stanmore (London Road), Elstree (for Brockley Hill), Caldecott Hill (for Bushey Heath), Old Bushey, Heathbourne Road, and Watford Market. One of the proposals for the railway over the years had it make a junction with, and then extend, the Watford and Rickmansworth Railway from Rickmansworth in the direction of High Wycombe.

The company's continuing failure to raise the capital needed to construct its line may have been partly due to the competition that it would have offered to existing services had the convenient connections it proposed been made to the existing railways. Opposition came from the London and North Western Railway to a junction at Watford and from the Midland Railway to a junction at Mill Hill Broadway. Eventually the Great Northern Railway (purchasers of the EH&LR before its opening) bought out the W&ER and continued to develop proposals although nothing was built.

In 1922 the London Electric Railway (forerunner of most of the London Underground) purchased the W&ER with the intention of using its right-of-way to continue the extension of the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR, now part of the Northern Line) that it was then building north from Golders Green to Edgware. Various plans were made but, again, no construction took place due to other projects taking precedence.

Work on the route finally started in 1935 as part of "Northern Heights" Project through which London Underground was to take over the EH&LR lines (by then part of the London and North Eastern Railway) and join them with the Northern Line.

This extension adopted much of the W&ER's concept, including the location of the junction with the existing railway between Edgware and Mill Hill, the location of the station at Edgware, and the route from Edgware to Old Bushey. The planned extension was to terminate at Bushey Heath due to funding limitations, but provision was made in the design of the station for a further extension to Old Bushey. Earthworks were underway and the tunnel near Elstree South station and the viaduct for Brockley Hill station had been partly constructed when the start of World War II caused works to cease.

Work did not restart immediately after the war as there were stronger demands on funds for works elsewhere including the reconstruction of many damaged stations and the extensions of the Central Line. After the introduction of Green Belt legislation saw the Elstree and Bushey areas protected against development, the need for new stations to serve new residential developments in the area disappeared and the Project was cancelled in 1950.

Analysis

The railway would have been a boon to the areas of Bushey and Bushey Heath, which, close as they are to several major population centres, have no rail link of their own; the nearest being Bushey (formerly Bushey and Oxhey), located approximately a mile away from Bushey (3 miles from Bushey Heath) in Oxhey on the south-eastern outskirts of Watford.

The argument given for abandoning the extension has been shown in the intervening 60 years to be flawed as Bushey has continued to develop without the railway, and now finds itself at a level where a railway would be desirable but without a potential route due to post war encroachment over the possible routes.


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