 As the line had not yet formally been approved for opening by the Railway Inspectorate, the MR requested that the local authorities not celebrate the event. However, public interest was high and schools closed for the day. Large crowds gathered around the station and along the line, and a banner reading "Long looked for, come at last" was hung across Chesham station. As the train pulled into Chesham, it was greeted by celebratory gunfire as it drew into the town, and a band at the station played See the Conquering Hero Comes. The party alighted at the newly built Chesham goods depot, which had been decorated as a banqueting hall for the occasion, and an opening ceremony was conducted outside by Edward Watkin and local dignitary and railway financier Ferdinand de Rothschild before the group entered the goods depot for a celebratory meal. Watkin gave a speech recollecting George Stephenson's desire, fifty years earlier, to see the first mainline railway built along the route now being taken by the Metropolitan Railway, joked that he hoped the easy access to London would not lead to the rural nature of the area being displaced by "a sudden influx of cockneys", and spoke of his desire to see the connection northwards to the LNWR completed.
