This is the bottom of Baldwins Lane in Croxley Green and that's the Metropolitan line passing overhead. Had plans for the Metropolitan line extension ever happened this would have been the place where trains veered off across a new viaduct on their way to Watford Junction. As you can see no such viaduct veers off because the project is very much dead. Local councillors like to pretend it isn't and dangle various non-tube alternatives, but none of the options add up and there's already a bus service not enough people use and there's no money and it's never going to happen. As a Croxley boy I take no joy from this, nor any pride in being the one who broke the news, but that's how it is.
This is the entrance to Croxley Green station, the pointless terminus of an anachronistic spur line. I say this as someone who grew up ten minutes walk away but we only ever took the bus. The last train ran in 1996 and since then the wooden platform's been removed, the signs taken down and the viaduct fenced off. From the roadside you can still clearly see the steps up from the Two Bridges roundabout, watched over by a peeling pair of red Network SouthEast lampposts. The fence is now a bit sturdier than it used to be so access is not an option, but if anyone was intent on trespass then Storm Eunice has brought down a tree on top of a Vauxhall Astra in the Sea Scouts' car park and gouged a convenient notch in the wire fencing behind.
This is the fabulous lattice girder bridge across the Grand Union Canal which once carried hardly any trains to Watford Junction. It survives because it was never part of the Metropolitan line extension blueprint and Herts County Council bought it instead. The big plan was to construct a 400m viaduct from the right-hand side of Photo One to the left-hand side of Photo Three, thereby linking the Underground to an arc of disused railway and correcting a 100 year-old disconnect. What shocked me on this visit was the enormous tower in the background, indeed it had been startlingly out-of-place since I spotted it on the horizon from the upper slopes of suburban Croxley. Southwest Hertfordshire just doesn't look like this... except seemingly it does now.
This is a closer view from Ascot Road, the dual carriageway access road which severed the original railway in 1996. The 24-storey monster is already the tallest building in the whole of Watford, indeed it's somehow seven floors taller than the previous incumbent, but has yet to welcome tenants. The tower block went out to consultation in the heady days of 2016 when the Metropolitan Line Extension was still a thing, and was granted planning permission in 2017 just before TfL officially cancelled everything. Cassiobridge station would have been located right here at the foot of the tower so its presence would have made some sort of sense as a gateway landmark for West Watford. Instead it'll now be packed with residents reliant on cars and looks horribly adrift, but such are the unintended casualties of cancelled transport projects.
This is what an unbuilt railway looks like. A thicket of undergrowth, cut back when extending the line was a viable prospect but since left to run wild. Last time I stood here (at the top of the ramp where Cassiobridge station ought to be) it was still easy to see through the fence and spot a cat sitting on the rails. Today those rails are almost completely obscured and will completely disappear once spring leaf growth begins. Everything now lies in the shadow of hundreds more flats, and hundreds more are appearing just up the line on the site of the former Watford Laundry. It wouldn't be difficult to start hacking back the branches again, should anyone ever work out why a dead end transport link needs to exist, but for now only local wildlife is seeing any benefit.
This is the view from Hagden Lane with the Laundry Works development in the near distance. The line of the railway remains very obvious, as if someone strimmed it last summer, but the embankments are already running rampant and the vegetation below the bridge is heading that way fast. When I peered over the wall in 2013, just before the extension got the green light, the trees on the line below were already well above head height. I fear we might be heading that way again.
This is the view from the other side of the same bridge, looking down at the ruins of Watford West station. It was never destined to be replaced under MLX proposals because these days new stations only ever benefit unbuilt houses, not existing residents. I was surprised to see that the security gate down to the platform was unlocked because it never had been before, and thus a little less surprised to see four teenagers hanging out and smoking something down on the tracks. They however were positively shocked that someone on the bridge was taking a photo and glared in my direction before one of them vaulted onto the platform and hotfooted it up the stairs. I was in full-on retreat by this point and managed to avoid an angry confrontation... but if you have ever wanted to access this urbex treasure, now might be a good time.
And this is the existing Watford station from which Metropolitan line trains still run to central London. It was due to be closed by now, even under the most pessimistic version of the timeline, with all services filtering via the extension instead. Instead those alternative tracks remain total tumbleweed and the 97 year-old Metroland terminus has won a permanent reprieve. Sometimes, alas, the sensible thing to do is throw all your dreams in the bin and leave everything alone.
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