On Apr 2, 10:48 am, wrote:

"The Croxley Rail Link is not just the icing on the cake for the
people of West Watford, it is the cherry on the icing of the cake."

While we're on the subject:

Wouldn't it make sense for the branch to be NR rather than LU? Watford
Junction and Watford High Street are NR stations, and AIUI the
Metropolitan line north of Harrow-on-the-Hill is also owned by NR (the
fasts, at least). If the priority is on local services into Watford, it
would make sense for it to be NR, not LU. Making it NR would also open up
the possibility of longer-distance Chiltern services into Watford (if
there's any demand for that). (And personally, i've long thought that the
Met should give up on the fasts north of HotH altogether, and let Chiltern
use that route exclusively, especially post-S-stock, but what do i know.)

Although now i'm confused about who owns the lines round there. The Met is
two- or four-track from London to HotH, and there's the NR route beside
it; north of HotH, there are two pairs: a slow pair used only by LU
trains, and a fast pair used by LU trains to Amersham, and by NR trains. I
always thought that (a) NR owned the NR-only tracks south of HotH (b) LU
owned the LU-only tracks south of HotH, (c) LU owned the LU-only tracks
north of HotH, and (d) NR owned the shared track north of HotH. But now
i'm reading CULG and Clive says "LU takes over ownership of all 6 tracks
just south of [HotH]", and on his layout diagram, the border is drawn on
the NR lines, and not the Met ones. Oh, but hang on, there's another
border just north of Amersham, at Mantles Wood junction. So do LU really
own the shared fasts from HotH to Mantles Wood? So Chiltern trains run
over NR, then LU, the NR?

Also, what were the railways around Watford like before they got axed and
mothballed and so on? I'm trying to work out how far the Croxley Green
branch went. I've found the Watford and Rickmansworth Railway, which seems
to have been the earliest branch, which comprises today's DC line route
from Watford Junction to Watford High Street, plus the Croxley Green
branch as far as Riverside Park and the power station, but then carried on
on a route which is now either lost or the Ebury Way cycle path along the
south side of Watford, over the Met, and into Rickmansworth. The building
of the New aka DC Lines put in the link from the WCML mainline to the WRR
aka Rickmansworth branch just south of Watford High Street. But where does
the line that goes to Croxley come in? There is mention of a freight
branch off the WRR to the Grand Union - is that it? So why are there
stations on it? Did they come later? At some point, the Met was extended
to Cassiobury Park, with no connections to anything, but with a
Rickmansworth - Watford chord that i don't quite understand. But did the
Croxley Green branch just end where the line runs out on the map, at the
roundabout near Cassio Bridge, where Watford Road crosses the Grand Union?

Oh, hang on, all is clear:

http://underground-history.co.uk/croxley.php.

tom

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