page_title: Chesham branch
section_title: Nationalisation
hierarchical_section_title: Chesham branch / London Transport / Nationalisation
caption_attribution_description: Chesham station, Buckinghamshire In 1957, some of the furthest-flung reaches of the London Underground system were still worked by steam. Here, a 4-4-2T locomotive of LNER class C13 (GCR Class 9K) waits at Chesham with a train for Chalfont.
context_page_description: The Chesham branch is a single-track railway branch line in Buckinghamshire, England, owned and operated by the London Underground. It runs from a junction at Chalfont & Latimer station on the Metropolitan line for 3.89 miles northwest to Chesham. The line was built as part of Edward Watkin's scheme to turn his Metropolitan Railway into a direct rail route between London and Manchester, and it was envisaged initially that a station outside Chesham would be an intermediate stop on a through route running north to connect with the London and North Western Railway. Deteriorating relations between the MR and LNWR led to the MR instead expanding to the northwest via Aylesbury, and the scheme to connect with the LNWR was abandoned. By this time much of the land needed for the section of line as far as Chesham had been bought. As Chesham was at the time the only significant town near the MR's new route, it was decided to build the route only as far as Chesham, and to complete the connection with the LNWR at a future date if it proved desirable.
context_section_description: On 1 January 1948, almost all railways in Britain—including the London Transport Passenger Board and the London and North Eastern Railway—were nationalised under the Transport Act 1947. The LPTB became the London Transport Executive (LT), and the LNER became a part of British Railways. In the Greater London Plan of 1944 Sir Patrick Abercrombie had strongly recommended a halt to further modern development in Chesham and along the Chess Valley to preserve the sensitive local environment, and there was thus little prospect for growth in passenger numbers on the branch.
  For the first decade after nationalisation services to Chesham continued much as before, although the unification of the mainline companies meant a wider variety of locomotives operating services on the branch. For two weeks from 13 October 1952 LT experimented with a three-car lightweight diesel train on the route, but the train used had difficulty negotiating the line's sharp bends and the branch reverted to steam operations.
  By the mid-1950s, British Railways had begun to operate in regional units, and responsibility for services on the former Great Central routes in the Chilterns was transferred to the London Midland Region. Services on the branch were generally hauled by LMS Ivatt Class locomotives, although passenger trains continued to use the 1898 Ashbury cars. British Railways continued to operate goods services on the branch, although these declined steadily owing to competition from road haulage to the point at which coal deliveries were the only significant business.
  By now the pre-war electrification scheme had been revived. In 1957 electrification between Rickmansworth and Amersham and Chesham began. Chalfont & Latimer's platforms were extended and a second platform was opened at Chesham on 3 July 1960 to prevent through operations to and from Baker Street from interfering with the Chesham–Chalfont & Latimer shuttle. An electric service using London Underground T Stock began operations between Chesham and Chalfont & Latimer on 16 August 1960, with former MR electric locomotives hauling the through trains to and from London. A steam locomotive was kept on standby in the new second platform at Chesham, in case of a failure of the electric trains. From June 1962 both the T Stock and the locomotive-hauled trains were replaced by the newly introduced London Underground A Stock.
  The last scheduled London Transport steam passenger train on the branch left Chesham at 12.11 am on 12 September 1960. 1,917 passengers used the line that day, in comparison with a typical Sunday usage of around 100. Earlier on 11 September descendants of the Chesham residents who had attended Watkin's original meeting to promote the railway, along with 86-year-old Albert Wilcox who had been present at the opening of the line, rode the steam shuttle to Chalfont & Latimer and back, and attended a ceremony in Chesham's Council Chamber. (Although the 12.11 am service from Chesham on 12 September 1960 was the last scheduled London Transport steam service to use the line, a steam train left Marylebone for Chesham each morning at 3.55 am to deliver newspapers, returning as the first passenger train from Chesham at 5.58 am. This journey to Marylebone was open to the public but was unadvertised and did not appear in published timetables. This arrangement continued to be operated by steam locomotive until 18 June 1962.) The Ashbury passenger cars, which by now had each covered around 800,000 miles (1,300,000 km), were retired from service. The last steam-powered passenger services on the remaining non-electrified section between Amersham and Aylesbury ran on 9 September 1961. The line between Amersham and Aylesbury was handed over to British Rail, leaving Chesham as the westernmost point of the London Underground network. The goods yard at Chesham was closed in 1966, and a train hauled by a former GWR 5700 Class locomotive removed the track from the goods yard, the last steam service to use the line. On 17 October 1967 the newspaper train service and its return journey to Marylebone, b
caption: A GCR Class 9K locomotive at Chesham station in 1957, during the final years of steam operations
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "1800", "Image YResolution": "1800", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0", "Image DateTime": "2007:06:18 14:31:21", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10245", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3926", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3120"}