page_title: Nickey line
section_title: Construction & opening
hierarchical_section_title: Nickey line / History / Construction & opening
caption_attribution_description: Hemel Hempsted (Midland) railway station
context_page_description: The Nickey line is a disused railway that once linked the towns of Hemel Hempstead and, initially, Luton but later Harpenden via Redbourn, in Hertfordshire, England. The course of most of the railway has been redeveloped as a cycle and walking path, and is part of the Oxford to Welwyn Garden City route of the National Cycle Network. It is approximately nine miles long.
context_section_description: Construction proceeded extremely slowly, the lower spur from Boxmoor to Hemel Hempstead only being completed by 1871, though the connection to Boxmoor was via an awkward turntable arrangement. Eventually, the HH&L&NWR company ran into financial difficulties and it was the Midland Railway that came to the rescue, financing completion of the line and agreeing to operate it once it was built. At this time the transporting of goods and coal was the primary driving factor in the development of railways rather than commuter rail. The thriving hat making industry in Luton created demand for a transport link with the straw plait trade that existed in Hemel and, as a result, the initial connection with the MR at Harpenden headed north towards Luton rather than south towards London. Passengers travelling on this route changed trains at Chiltern Green to reach London. The connection to the GNR's line at Harpenden East was never achieved.
  The line was finally opened on 16 July 1877 to great fanfare with celebrations led by Berkhamsted Rifle Corps Band. A special train was laid on from Hemel to Luton and champagne receptions were held in Luton and Hemel town halls. Church bells were rung and a banner hung across Alexandra Road in Hemel proclaimed "Success to the Hemel Hemptead and Midland Railway Company".
  When it opened, the new line did not extend as far as Boxmoor, but terminated in Hemel Hempstead. Relations between the Hemel Hempstead Company and the LNWR (which had absorbed the London and Birmingham Railway in 1846) were difficult. The LNWR regarded the Hemel Hemptead and Midland Railway route to St Pancras as a threat to their service into Euston. Because of this intense rivalry, the two companies could not reach an agreement to connect the Nickey line to the LNWR main line. Instead, the southern terminus for the Hemel line was originally Hemel Hempsted (known locally as the Midland Station), and this served as the main passenger facility within the town. This railway station stood at the junction of Midland Road and Adeyfield Road, opposite the Midland Hotel; today the site is occupied by a modern housing development, although the hotel still exists.
  The section of line south of this remained disused until 1880, when the Midland Railway opened the line to provide coal trains to the Duckhall gasworks near to Boxmoor. A connection was constructed as far as the LNWR sidings at Boxmoor; the Nickey line ran along a cutting, rising up to the main line level and under the northernmost arch of the Roughdown Road bridge. Midland Railway trespass notice was affixed to this bridge, indicating the limit of extent of the company's property. For a few years, the Nickey Line was connected to the Boxmoor goods yard via a turntable, but the LNWR removed it in 1897, severing the connection with the main line.
  Rivalry between the LNWR and the Midland Railway grew intense in the 1880s. On one occasion, when a Midland Railway locomotive entered the LNWR siding at Boxmoor, the track was lifted by angry LNWR workers to prevent it from completing it journey. The LNWR began to operate a regular horse bus service to transport passengers from the town centre to the main line station at Boxmoor, where they could take trains to London Euston.  These passengers were able to reach London St Pancras more quickly via the Hemel Hempstead Company's line. Competition increased further when the Hemel Hempstead Motor Car Company started to run a motor bus service to Boxmoor, and this was later taken on by the LNWR in place of its equestrian service. In 1906 the Midland Railway extended passenger services along the Nickey line as far as Heath Park Halt, a high-level railway station which was located on a viaduct extending across Marlowes, close to the present-day site of the former Kodak headquarters building. Additional halts were built on the line at Beaumont's Halt and Godwin's Halt.
  Eventually the straw plait trade declined and the need for goods trains gave way to passenger demand; local businessmen wanted a fast route into London without having to go via Lut
caption: Hemel Hempsted[notes 1] (Midland) railway station, with the Midland Hotel in the background
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