Only a few minutes by bus route 331 to Denham for National Rail services to London Marylebone and to Northwood for the Metropolitan Line. One can even travel on to Uxbridge which has good shopping (and connections to the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines and bus links to Heathrow Airport). Hardly cut off. In fact, it has good transport connections considering it's a relatively small village in a green belt area.
Nice video, actually reflecting the position of many settlements on the outskirts of London, for whose residents and businesses the public transport options are a lot less than ideal - hence most use cars. In south east 'London' Biggin Hill comes to mind; I gather there was a plan for a rail loop serving the area - which never got built. I like David Shepheard's idea (comment 2 wks ago) about extending right through to Watford Junction. Incidentally, did you know there is a Harefield tube station - on Underground Eric's model railway channel?
Great video. Keep making these things. I don't think you should settle for "we have to wait for 2030, when HS2 is finished". You need to lobby for this now. It took about 100 yeas for Crossrail to be built and there have been over twenty attempts to get the Bakerloo Line extended into South East London. There will always be people to say "That isn't worth the money" and fight you. Do not do their job for them. Argue for things to be built now and try to build up support for your plans. With HS2 not being open, it would actually be better to carry out works to extend the Central Line north and east before it opens. From a health and safety point of view, the works would not be putting high speed rail passengers at risk. And from a logistical point of view the HS2 haul roads and logistics could be used to bring in materials. So the sooner this work is started the better. The limiting factor here is the speed of engineering design. Given that HS2 dives into the ground at West Ruislip, I actually think that a bridge over HS2 would make more sense than a tunnel. Close the western terminus of West Ruislip, and build a temporary terminus at Ruislip Gardens, with trains running past the station, and a driver in the rear to turn them around, so they can return to London quickly. Then demoslish the existing platforms that are below the road and build new platforms far enough up in the air for a double decker bus to get underneath. If this was stacked on top of the National Rail platforms, there could be lifts that serve both lines and that also have a middle floor at road level. Then the Central Line can cross the HS2 line, while it is still coming out of the ground. Everything that side of the existing railway line has already been disrupted, so getting the Central Line across there would be an extra public benefit that did not cause much more land to be stolen from the public realm.
I think you are being a little bit under-ambitious here MAX. You have a great idea here, but it could be linking up the Central Line with the Metropolitan Line and creating a lot of radial journey options that bring in passengers, regardless of the traffic to Harefield itself. Instead of extending the Central Line from West Ruislip to Harefield Marina and have the line go in to a dead-end terminus at Harefield Cricket Ground, that has no viability for further extension, you should drop your last station and move to the right of Harefield itself and build a Harefield station either on Breakspear Road to the South East of the village or on Northwood Road, to the North East of the villiage. Then you can head north to Batchworth and across the Metropolitan Railway to the branch that goes to Croxley and Watford. There is a mothballed plan to divert the Metropolitan Railway from Watford to Watford Junction and that would see the current Watford station abandoned. If your Central Line extension was tied into that previous plan, you would end up with an interchange station and Croxley, that provides access to Watford Junction and the old Watford station would give you four tracks to turn Central Line trains around. So the people near Watford Station would loose one service only to gain a different service. We might even be able to adapt Watford Station to turn the two sidings into extra platforms. Getting through Batchworth, without kyboshing houses would be tough. It's a low population area, but there are almost continuous houses along both London Road and Moor Lane. But if you go to the east of Batchworth (between Batchworth and Moor Park Station, I think can go through the "9 of Herts" golf course and the Moor Park Golf Course instead. There is a small road from Moor Park Golf Course up to Sandy Lodge Road. I think that could be used for a cut and cover tunnel through the houses, with the A4145 moved a bit to the west and a Batchworth Station built there. Then it is just a matter of getting over a couple of lakes and onto the big triangle of land that will become an important junction for the National Rail trains travelling into Watford Junction alongside Metropolitan Line trains. This whole section needs to be quad tracked and built for cross-platform interchange at Croxley Station. At Baldwin's Lane, there needs to be a flyover to take the National Rail and Metropolitan Line trains off to Watford Junction. But the rest of the line can mostly remain the same, and just be transferred from the Metropolitan Line to the Central Line. A plan like this would have good economic benefits for Watford and West Ruislip, there would be plenty of land that could be used for a Central Line traincare depot (freeing up land further in for sale to developers). And this would work in tandem with the existing plan to bring Network Rail trains and Metropolitan Line trains to Watford and create a lot of radial train journey options that reduce car dependency and lower the number of cars that need to drive into this part of London.
Only a few minutes by bus route 331 to Denham for National Rail services to London Marylebone and to Northwood for the Metropolitan Line. One can even travel on to Uxbridge which has good shopping (and connections to the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines and bus links to Heathrow Airport). Hardly cut off. In fact, it has good transport connections considering it's a relatively small village in a green belt area.
Super Akshay Harefield Very nice Yhe music Programme was awesome ma Thanks for the Video
Nice video, actually reflecting the position of many settlements on the outskirts of London, for whose residents and businesses the public transport options are a lot less than ideal - hence most use cars. In south east 'London' Biggin Hill comes to mind; I gather there was a plan for a rail loop serving the area - which never got built. I like David Shepheard's idea (comment 2 wks ago) about extending right through to Watford Junction.
Incidentally, did you know there is a Harefield tube station - on Underground Eric's model railway channel?
Great video. Keep making these things.
I don't think you should settle for "we have to wait for 2030, when HS2 is finished". You need to lobby for this now. It took about 100 yeas for Crossrail to be built and there have been over twenty attempts to get the Bakerloo Line extended into South East London. There will always be people to say "That isn't worth the money" and fight you. Do not do their job for them. Argue for things to be built now and try to build up support for your plans.
With HS2 not being open, it would actually be better to carry out works to extend the Central Line north and east before it opens. From a health and safety point of view, the works would not be putting high speed rail passengers at risk. And from a logistical point of view the HS2 haul roads and logistics could be used to bring in materials. So the sooner this work is started the better. The limiting factor here is the speed of engineering design.
Given that HS2 dives into the ground at West Ruislip, I actually think that a bridge over HS2 would make more sense than a tunnel. Close the western terminus of West Ruislip, and build a temporary terminus at Ruislip Gardens, with trains running past the station, and a driver in the rear to turn them around, so they can return to London quickly. Then demoslish the existing platforms that are below the road and build new platforms far enough up in the air for a double decker bus to get underneath. If this was stacked on top of the National Rail platforms, there could be lifts that serve both lines and that also have a middle floor at road level. Then the Central Line can cross the HS2 line, while it is still coming out of the ground. Everything that side of the existing railway line has already been disrupted, so getting the Central Line across there would be an extra public benefit that did not cause much more land to be stolen from the public realm.
I think you are being a little bit under-ambitious here MAX. You have a great idea here, but it could be linking up the Central Line with the Metropolitan Line and creating a lot of radial journey options that bring in passengers, regardless of the traffic to Harefield itself.
Instead of extending the Central Line from West Ruislip to Harefield Marina and have the line go in to a dead-end terminus at Harefield Cricket Ground, that has no viability for further extension, you should drop your last station and move to the right of Harefield itself and build a Harefield station either on Breakspear Road to the South East of the village or on Northwood Road, to the North East of the villiage.
Then you can head north to Batchworth and across the Metropolitan Railway to the branch that goes to Croxley and Watford. There is a mothballed plan to divert the Metropolitan Railway from Watford to Watford Junction and that would see the current Watford station abandoned. If your Central Line extension was tied into that previous plan, you would end up with an interchange station and Croxley, that provides access to Watford Junction and the old Watford station would give you four tracks to turn Central Line trains around. So the people near Watford Station would loose one service only to gain a different service. We might even be able to adapt Watford Station to turn the two sidings into extra platforms.
Getting through Batchworth, without kyboshing houses would be tough. It's a low population area, but there are almost continuous houses along both London Road and Moor Lane. But if you go to the east of Batchworth (between Batchworth and Moor Park Station, I think can go through the "9 of Herts" golf course and the Moor Park Golf Course instead. There is a small road from Moor Park Golf Course up to Sandy Lodge Road. I think that could be used for a cut and cover tunnel through the houses, with the A4145 moved a bit to the west and a Batchworth Station built there.
Then it is just a matter of getting over a couple of lakes and onto the big triangle of land that will become an important junction for the National Rail trains travelling into Watford Junction alongside Metropolitan Line trains. This whole section needs to be quad tracked and built for cross-platform interchange at Croxley Station. At Baldwin's Lane, there needs to be a flyover to take the National Rail and Metropolitan Line trains off to Watford Junction. But the rest of the line can mostly remain the same, and just be transferred from the Metropolitan Line to the Central Line.
A plan like this would have good economic benefits for Watford and West Ruislip, there would be plenty of land that could be used for a Central Line traincare depot (freeing up land further in for sale to developers). And this would work in tandem with the existing plan to bring Network Rail trains and Metropolitan Line trains to Watford and create a lot of radial train journey options that reduce car dependency and lower the number of cars that need to drive into this part of London.