I Think, Therefore I Amersham

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  • Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
  • A Metropolitan station that’s a long way from the metropolis.
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Комментарии • 280

  • @SupremeLeaderKimJong-un
    @SupremeLeaderKimJong-un Год назад +43

    If it wasn't for Watkin, Wembley wouldn't be so famous. I assure you, Watkin was definitely obsessed with Paris. He wanted to build a tower like the Eiffel Tower that could beat its height called the "Great Tower of London" at Wembley Park. The tower began construction in 1892 but it was never completed and was demolished in 1907. The site of the tower is now occupied by Wembley Stadium. Watkin purchased a tract of land adjacent to the route of the Metropolitan Railway at Wembley with the goal of building an amusement park laid out with boating lakes, a waterfall, ornamental gardens (the park land had previously been landscaped by Humphry Repton and known as Wembley Park in the 18th century), and cricket and football pitches. The crowning icon of this park would've been the tower.
    Without Watkin's pleasure gardens and station, it is unlikely that the British Empire Exhibition would have been held at Wembley, which in turn would have prevented Wembley becoming either synonymous with English football or a successful popular music venue. Without Watkin, it is likely that the district would have simply become inter-war semi-detached suburbia like the rest of west London.

    • @abigailbarfoot3846
      @abigailbarfoot3846 Год назад +2

      Jago did a video on Watkin and his tower during the lock down

    • @benhawkins4245
      @benhawkins4245 Год назад +1

      @@abigailbarfoot3846 i was literally about to comment the same thing lol

  • @MrFantasnick
    @MrFantasnick Год назад +33

    There are many maps in this episode ! One might say….Des cartes 😉

  • @AverytheCubanAmerican
    @AverytheCubanAmerican Год назад +41

    Edward Watkin: British rail should go all the way to Paris.
    Brits then: Ha, that's a funny joke, Edward!
    Channel Tunnel: is completed in 1994
    Edward Watkin's ghost: *Who's laughing now?*
    Watkin very much DID want a Channel tunnel to be built early on. He was on the board of Chemins de fer du Nord which was a railway based in Calais, and he even dug a 2,020 yard-pilot tunnel between 1880 and 1881 at Shakespeare Cliff near Dover (the entrance to said tunnel still exists but is closed). Despite his attempts, Queen Victoria (who called it "objectionable") and Parliament were against it because they feared it would weaken national defense. They thought France would use it to invade them.

    • @SynchroScore
      @SynchroScore Год назад +4

      I've also heard of the fear that a cross-Channel tunnel could be used by the French to invade. I always thought that was ridiculous. It would be just like many major railway bridges on the Continent, built so that it could be blasted in the event of trouble. A few-hundred pounds of dynamite would stop any army coming through.

  • @nirgunapa56
    @nirgunapa56 Год назад +13

    Amershamed to say I've never been there, but now I have...

  • @highvoltageswitcher6256
    @highvoltageswitcher6256 Год назад +33

    👍 I remember watching a documentary, I think it was called “Metroland”. It stared Sir John Betjeman waxing lyrical, as only he could, about the possible expansion of the much maligned suburbs.

    • @markiangooley
      @markiangooley Год назад +3

      Some of Evelyn Waugh’s novels became associated with the name Metroland but I don’t know if it has quite the same meaning for that. Betjeman and Waugh had a somewhat tempestuous friendship…

    • @thomasburke2683
      @thomasburke2683 Год назад +3

      A most enjoyable programme, I had it on VHS.

    • @TheGoldenDuckie111
      @TheGoldenDuckie111 Год назад +2

      Love Metroland!

    • @ShedTV
      @ShedTV Год назад +3

      I saw Metroland for the first time last month. Absolutely joyous!

    • @Tevildo
      @Tevildo Год назад +2

      "The Croxley Green Revels, a tradition dating back to 1952."

  • @PokhrajRoy.
    @PokhrajRoy. Год назад +68

    You deserve a standing ovation for the title of this video! 👏🏽 #RenéGadeThinking

    • @john1703
      @john1703 Год назад +4

      So Jago's new name is "Eersham".

    • @petertooth2831
      @petertooth2831 Год назад +3

      Rambling on in a Renee Descartes manner.

    • @ianthomson9363
      @ianthomson9363 Год назад +3

      @@petertooth2831 Or alternatively, admitting that he makes all this stuff up - am a sham.
      Either way it scores very highly on the Groanometer, which is what we expect from this channel.

    • @NickyMitchell85
      @NickyMitchell85 Год назад +1

      I agree ☝️.

  • @phaasch
    @phaasch Год назад +6

    " In those wet fields, the railway didn't pay- the Metro stops at Amersham today".

  • @paulusthegrey
    @paulusthegrey Год назад +7

    Glad to see the Jago pun machine is in good working order.

  • @gwenever7286
    @gwenever7286 Год назад +6

    I love Amersham Station, my Aunt worked in the ticket office for 40 years before she retired.

  • @sarran1955
    @sarran1955 Год назад +3

    Hello Jago,
    Wow.. this takes me back to the '60s, when we would go from Chorleywood to Amersham to visit the BRAND NEW swimming pool.
    Cordialement,

    • @sihollett
      @sihollett Год назад

      Pretty sure people do that now, in the '20s... (that once brand-new swimming pool was demolished last year after a new one was built next to it).

    • @hb1338
      @hb1338 Год назад

      They built a new library at the same time.

    • @sihollett
      @sihollett Год назад

      @@hb1338 Given they demolished the old Library (and the Youth and Community Centres) it was only right that they put a Library and Community Centre in the new facility.

  • @billsinkins361
    @billsinkins361 Год назад +3

    Hearing about Amersham reminds me of my time in graduate school. We bought quite a few radiochemicals from Amersham. Some googling tells me the old radiochemical center is now a GE Healthcare site.

    • @hb1338
      @hb1338 Год назад +1

      My best friend's father worked there in the 1970s.

    • @billsinkins361
      @billsinkins361 Год назад +1

      @@hb1338 Brilliant! Amersham radiochemicals were used all over the world. That small town in the English countryside was home to a very important resource. Your best friend's father should be proud!

    • @iankemp1131
      @iankemp1131 Год назад +1

      Originally part of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, then Amersham International, and indeed still fulfilling a vital role today. Harwell in Oxfordshire also produced radiochemicals from its research reactors, mainly iodine-131. Its half-life was about 2 days (thus decaying rapidly and not harming patients). So it was made during the day, chemically extracted in the evening and loaded into a fleet of fast cars which distributed it overnight to hospitals all round the country and were officially authorised to exceed the motorway speed limit. A friend worked on the extraction process. They normally finished between 10 pm and midnight, but if things went wrong they might be working till 2 am.

  • @Mgameing123
    @Mgameing123 Год назад +22

    Amazing video! I used to live in Amersham Old Town and I can tell you. Amersham-On-The-Hill (where the station is) feels seperate from Amersham Old Town still to this day. I used to always catch the route 1 to get to the train station. Honestly Amersham Met Line trains are not busy at all because most passengers take the faster Chiltern service to London but there are still a handful of people taking the All Stations Met Line trains.

    • @hb1338
      @hb1338 Год назад +3

      If my memory is correct, in the 1970s Amersham was served by both fast and slow Met trains - the fast ones travelled Moor Park Harrow-on the Hill Finchley Road, the slow ones visited all stations, but there were some variations on this pattern. My father knew which services ran when without recourse to the timetable and I have inherited and/or acquired his eye for detail. Nowadays it appears that only the Chiltern Line (nice trains) operates the fast service.

    • @Mgameing123
      @Mgameing123 Год назад

      @@hb1338 Met line still run fast trains but only at peak time in the peak direction. But for the most of the day yes Chiltern trains are your best bet when going London.

    • @simplesimon2802
      @simplesimon2802 Год назад

      ​@@hb1338 for a while the trains ran non-stop between Finchley Road and Moor Park. I sometimes travelled on them, the journey took a little under 20 minutes!

    • @Mgameing123
      @Mgameing123 Год назад

      @@simplesimon2802 I was not alive when that happened.

  • @alejandrayalanbowman367
    @alejandrayalanbowman367 Год назад +22

    Hi Jago from Spain. My first encounters with the Metropolitan were back in 1957 when I used to travel from Preston Road to Stanmore and back daily, changing at Wembley Park. The Metropolitan carriages, then, were slam-door stock hauled by a loco - many memories.

  • @MrMontage4
    @MrMontage4 Год назад +13

    If any of you happen to end up here early morning, please visit the sandwich shop when you turn left out the main doors - they serve a full English breakfast in a bap the size of a dinner plate

  • @michaelwright2986
    @michaelwright2986 Год назад +6

    That clock face at 7:12 is very elegant--Swiss railways, eat your modernist heart out.

  • @winterspark7324
    @winterspark7324 Год назад +5

    if you walk down the hill from the station you will find the Sun Houses leading to High and Over ... art deco masterpieces and then into the actual old town and onto Shardeloes

  • @tomwilmott3426
    @tomwilmott3426 Год назад +2

    My grandparents always referred to the MSL as "Mucky, Slow, and Late". fun times in north lincolnshire

  • @jennyd255
    @jennyd255 Год назад +5

    Back when I bought my first home in Aylesbury, around the time when Adam was first dating Eve, and Maggie, the wicked witch of the west, was casting her first spells, there was talk of a tube service being restored, but I guess that never came to anything. These days I suppose the hope is for a reopening of the route to Calvert and the new East West railway. I wonder if that hope too will prove forlorn. Sadly, as I'm now Scotland based I probably won't get to ride either route.

    • @hb1338
      @hb1338 Год назад

      I believe that when David Lidington was MP for Aylesbury, he lobbied very hard for improvement of the rail service to Aylesbury, but without success.

  • @julianaylor4351
    @julianaylor4351 Год назад +1

    I liked the old Metropolitan rolling stock, because the floor plate, told me that it was as old as me and the sprung seating, which is something you don't get on suburban trains anymore. The seating is now like a park bench, if you can get to sit on it....rock hard.

  • @scottpankonin1068
    @scottpankonin1068 Год назад +15

    It is still far out in the countryside (from my place in the London bubble, anyway). That far out, on the approach they change the next station announcement to include a "Hear-ye, hear-ye..."

  • @GeoffArnold1
    @GeoffArnold1 Год назад +5

    Great video of my home station (I lived there in the late 60s.) Curious why you finished off with a shot of 1938 Tube stock, which never ran in regular service to Amersham.

    • @delurkor
      @delurkor Год назад

      Yes, this ex colonial also wants to know about that. Or is TFL in worst shape than we know?

    • @davidholt7883
      @davidholt7883 Год назад +1

      I suspect it is one of the Museum's Art Deco runs, which are very popular. The 38 looks full. There are some more happening at the end of this month.

  • @reptongeek
    @reptongeek Год назад +1

    I never got to Amersham sadly as the lack of signal staff in the early hours did me in. But I am planning to have a day trip so I can finally visit my last eight Underground stations

  • @borderlands6606
    @borderlands6606 Год назад +2

    A college friend lived in the area. It seems the further north one lived in Buckinghamshire, the more people laboured under the suspicion they might be living in the Midlands, and consequently, Provincials. Which was the opposite of their aspirations to be metropolitans. Amersham is roughly level with Oxford, which critics say is a small Midland town, to the annoyance of its students. On such delicate topics does English identity balance.
    MS&L = Money Sunk & Lost, GC = Gone Completely.

  • @Pinkybum
    @Pinkybum Год назад +2

    Finally I got one: "Locomotives to my wooden coaches!"

  • @iankemp1131
    @iankemp1131 Год назад +4

    Amersham is in fact the highest point on the line through the Chilterns as the route climbs over a hump between the Chess and Misbourne valleys, so even before the cutback of Aylesbury services it was the highest station on the Metropolitan Railway and London Transport. Most of the bank from Rickmansworth is at 1 in 105 and presented a stiff test in steam days for Met and GC trains alike.

    • @sihollett
      @sihollett Год назад +2

      When they run Met Number 1 for 'Steam on the Met' days, or even old electric locos like Sarah Siddons, they throw on a historic BR diesel loco at the other end to make sure the train has enough push to get up that hill.

  • @Julius_Hardware
    @Julius_Hardware Год назад +16

    This is Amersham. The end. Of everything. Seriously, don't go beyond this point, they eat their babies out there.

    • @sihollett
      @sihollett Год назад +5

      Can confirm. Don't head north or west of here. The Eldritch horror that is James Corden comes from just beyond Amersham, and the less said about Chesham the better...

    • @apolloc.vermouth5672
      @apolloc.vermouth5672 Год назад +4

      Come now, there isn't really anything beyond Amersham. George Orwell was a science fiction writer.

    • @sihollett
      @sihollett Год назад +6

      @@apolloc.vermouth5672 Growing up in the town, I did try to walk west, but after a few miles I found myself back in the town. It was like there was some mysterious force field trying to stop people from falling off the edge of the world.

    • @Mgameing123
      @Mgameing123 Год назад +2

      @@sihollett Great Missenden: I am here to ruin your carrier!

    • @sihollett
      @sihollett Год назад +3

      @@Mgameing123 Great Missenden is a fictional place created by children's author Roald Dahl, with the lie continued by Chiltern Railways to sell tickets on that line that they don't have to give all the revenue to London Underground.

  • @maximarkhipov2186
    @maximarkhipov2186 Год назад +1

    great video , was waiting some time for you to document the station that I use very frequently .

  • @corinheathcote9868
    @corinheathcote9868 Год назад +2

    Watkins another stand out character from the early days of tube👍🏻. Nicely covered.

  • @isashax
    @isashax Год назад +3

    I like the countryside look on this station. Need to visit it one day.

    • @hb1338
      @hb1338 Год назад +2

      Amersham is an affluent dormitory town with a pleasant feel and an excellent boys school. The old town, now bypassed, used to lie on the main road from London to Aylesbury and was a coaching halt, with a wide main street flanked by attractive old buildings with stables behind. The new town, which is mostly anonymous but includes the station, is at the top of the hill. If you take the Chiltern line further, Great Missenden and Wendover are lovely rural villages. There used to be a post office in Great Missenden, and the safe there was built by my great-great grandfather.

  • @chrisnmayor
    @chrisnmayor Год назад +3

    Come for the pun - stay for the trains...😁

  • @AFCManUk
    @AFCManUk Год назад +2

    Ah, Mr. Jago, you're Denmark Hill-ing Me Softly with your puns!

  • @kaitlyn__L
    @kaitlyn__L Год назад +3

    The self deprecating joke at the start was unexpected and funny, I liked the end of episode pun as well. I hadn’t realised some parts of the network used steam locomotives into the early 60s!

    • @eugenemurray2940
      @eugenemurray2940 Год назад +1

      LT used steam till 1972..
      Maroon painted GWR Panniers
      BR stopped in 1968

    • @chris8405
      @chris8405 Год назад

      Last steam seen in London was a couple of LT (ex GWR) Pannier Tanks used on engineering trains until 1972. Last steam passenger trains were out of Waterloo until July 1967. Otherwise steam was gone from the other routes in the capital by the end of 1965.

    • @miked351947
      @miked351947 Год назад +1

      The flying pig electric engine took the train to Rickmansworth. A steam locomotive took the train to the end of the Metropolitan line at Aylesbury. As a young trainspotter in the late 1950s I would look at the trains from the North Circular Road bridge over the railway at Neasden 😊

  • @barrywood2806
    @barrywood2806 Год назад +1

    "Station names bordering on false advertising". And now the same happens with airports. And yes, those A60/62 stock were rather special. Roomy, and the fact that they were, in effect, express trains made them feel a cut above the usual underground rides.

  • @zitzong
    @zitzong Год назад +36

    Amersham the station which is only for the bold, valiant souls with enough money for the fare, amongst our society, who dare to travel out to the mysterious area of the tube map of Zone 9.

    • @highpath4776
      @highpath4776 Год назад +2

      if you start from Z2 or higher and avoid Z1 off peak it is not too pricey

    • @simonpowell9975
      @simonpowell9975 Год назад

      In the 90s I remember having to persuade central London ticket staff that there was in fact a Zone D! www.clarksbury.com/cdl/maps/tube99.jpg

  • @highbury1972
    @highbury1972 Год назад +1

    I have also been there a few times and it’s a lovely place. I do believe some of Midsomer Murders was filmed in Amersham. Chiltern Railway’s have a cool livery and it has shades of NSE about it.

  • @alanbudgen2672
    @alanbudgen2672 Год назад +2

    We need a Brilliant Brill video one day. Excellent as always.

  • @davidwong9230
    @davidwong9230 Год назад +2

    Those operating the line needed coaching in the 1960s in the techniques of electrifying the service. It must have been quite a shock to the system 🚂 ⚡️

  • @ianmcclavin
    @ianmcclavin Год назад +18

    BR did peruse about closing Marylebone in the early eighties, as the Met was already running parallel services as far as Amersham, centred on Baker Street, but this wasn't proceded with, and now Marylebone has become quite an important terminus again in its own right, at the time it was under threat, Metropolitan Line trains to Amersham were almost as fast as the Chiltern ones, and Banbury only saw a service from Marylebone every two hours, the hourly service to Princes Risborough alternating with a 2-hourly Aylesbury service via High Wycombe. Now, there's fast and stopping services, projection of the Banbury service to Birmingham, a viable alternative to the WCML out of Euston, and the new Oxford service. Marylebone 's fortunes have turned around completely.

    • @Mgameing123
      @Mgameing123 Год назад +3

      Maylebone is now at capacity with "no room to expand" so yeah it definitely became important again.

    • @AaronOfMpls
      @AaronOfMpls Год назад

      Indeed, and Jago did a video about that about a year and a half ago: ruclips.net/video/1-PAaq6Qjk4/видео.html

    • @MrGreatplum
      @MrGreatplum Год назад

      @@Mgameing123 - and they extended it by 2 platforms in the early 2000s

    • @Mgameing123
      @Mgameing123 Год назад

      @@MrGreatplum Yeah.

    • @ianmcclavin
      @ianmcclavin Год назад +1

      @@MrGreatplum Yes, it takes quite a while to access the trains if you find out yours is departing from one of the platforms at the far end! The porters with the buggies are kept busy here, they do a grand job!!

  • @tomcarroll2244
    @tomcarroll2244 Год назад

    I lived in Beaconsfield (the High Wycombe branch with service to Marylebone) back in the 1970s. When British Rail would go on strike, which seemed like an annual occurrence, I would just catch the express tube from Amersham.

  • @PokhrajRoy.
    @PokhrajRoy. Год назад +4

    “hacks on RUclips…”
    Is there something you’d like to share with the class, Jago?

  • @muzza9575
    @muzza9575 Год назад +3

    Yet another great episode Jago. Love the title. Any chance of a "Cognito Ergo Sum-merston"?😜.

  • @therathergoodengineer9285
    @therathergoodengineer9285 Год назад +1

    Amersham is one of those stations that turned a village into a part of the city (its hard to explain)

  • @Steven_Rowe
    @Steven_Rowe Год назад +2

    Oh Amersham, I know thee well.
    Back in the dim dark past of the 1960s you could buy a twin rover ticket and travel on tube and buses all day for FIVE BOB, blimey that is 25P, and it was 10 bob for adults.
    So my mate and I would just travel the tube all day long and a favourite was going out on the met.
    Well we decided to go as far as we could, so one Saturday morning, we arrived at Aylesbury, I would have been around 12 at the time.
    So imagine the scene when an inspector with a peaked cap looking and sounding like Blakey interrogated us, it was like the Spanish inquisition, our crime was travelling to Alyesbury when the furthest you were allowed to go was Rickmansworth, he accused us of doing it before and insured as that we would wind up in Pentonville awaiting Albert Peirrepoint to drop us through the trap door.
    I kid you not this geezer was scary, probably failed to get into the SS during WW2.
    So we decided to turn over and read the back of the ticket, which duly stated, "It's not valid North of Rickmansworth.
    Honestly, when you're 12, you don't read junk like that do you?
    Anyway, it's all good now, I met some wonderful people inside, the Kray twins, and got out in 2021.
    Yes, I did meet Blakey , very intimidating he was too.

    • @hb1338
      @hb1338 Год назад

      I used to get told off at Great Missenden for standing too close to the edge of the platform. My greatest fear was that the station master would tell my father, even though he didn't know him from Adam.

    • @Steven_Rowe
      @Steven_Rowe Год назад

      @H B yes you would be shot at dawn.

  • @DarthCoco
    @DarthCoco Год назад

    3 weeks ago, I finally went to Amersham. Like Chesham I appreciate the area for similar qualities, and it also does feel far out for a London Underground station. Definitely has good connections with both Chiltern and Metropolitan Line services.

  • @highpath4776
    @highpath4776 Год назад +1

    Wakins line from Sheffield was also hauled by the "Ee, Class" as the yorkshiremen said

  • @italiahill77
    @italiahill77 Год назад +1

    Jago, do you think there’d be enough in it to make a video about the history of goods being carried on trains? I often hear mention of goods depots, goods carriages etc but not sure I understand the system or the place in day-to-day life, when they existed. Thanks for the really wonderful videos.

  • @machosker
    @machosker Год назад

    Love the video, got to visit here last year. Both my brother and I are transport buffs and did the 1938 stock running last September. That 1/3 scale model is well worth a look.

  • @harold6442
    @harold6442 Год назад +3

    I think it would be cool to have a video on the Met 100 and Met 150 events

  • @rwm2986
    @rwm2986 Год назад +14

    Thanks for another informative video. It is quite amazing how, under BR, the services out of Marylebone were the 'Cinderella' of all operations yet as 'Chiltern Railways' the services have gone from strength to strength.
    I sometimes think that the only reason BR kept Marylebone was that it was very useful for running weekend steam excursions as, up to the mid-1980s and perhaps beyond, it still had a turntable.

    • @highpath4776
      @highpath4776 Год назад +2

      Plus BR HQ was there , in some part to stop Ex Midland / GW and LNER stations / regions thinking they were superior

    • @Recessio
      @Recessio Год назад +1

      @@highpath4776 maybe that regional rivalry explains why some of the staff referred to the HQ as "the Kremlin"!

    • @highpath4776
      @highpath4776 Год назад

      @@Recessio Well it was a representation of State Ownership (actually I get confused, at times it was BRB , sometimes the BTC - were they both there at the same time ?)

  • @ZGryphon
    @ZGryphon Год назад +2

    "Well, look, old boy, we called it the Metropolitan Railway because if we'd called it the Middle of Nowhere Railway, nobody would bally well ride it, would they?"

  • @tsungiraichiramba
    @tsungiraichiramba Год назад

    Went there in Aug 2021 and it’s by far one of the best places to visit

  • @brenstratters2026
    @brenstratters2026 Год назад +2

    I do enjoy your little tit-bits on the underground and others. Just a thought. How about covering the change from ground pick ups to overhead on The Thameslink line between Blackfriars to Farringdon?

  • @thomastc520
    @thomastc520 Год назад +2

    I've always wondered if TfL would restore services to Aylesbury as some form of "TfL Rail" services

    • @Mgameing123
      @Mgameing123 Год назад

      I think that Chiltern trains in theory could get cut and replaced with some additional Met Line trains.

    • @Flipper-hd6cx
      @Flipper-hd6cx Год назад +1

      I can't see any need, not really any benefit for TfL certainly. Amersham travellers generally try to use Chiltern services as they are so much quicker especially off peak when the Met is all stations. Outside of the peaks a half hourly 2 car service is generally sufficient for the needs of the stations to AVP.

  • @teecefamilykent
    @teecefamilykent Год назад +1

    Brilliant video sir!

  • @cebudave
    @cebudave Год назад +1

    Thanks for the great info on Amersham station. I live in High Wycombe and prefer to travel to London via Amersham, as it's cheaper that way for a family of four.

    • @iankemp1131
      @iankemp1131 Год назад +1

      Ironically, 40 years ago, LT fares out to the Amersham area were noticeably more expensive than BR ones to nearby destinations, and you weren't allowed to use a Student Railcard on the Aylesbury line or break your journey because of this.

  • @simonbennett6648
    @simonbennett6648 Год назад +1

    The distance from central London and semi-fast operation were part of the reasons taking over the routes of Amersham and Chesham were part of the original 1990s Crossrail scheme. Come the 2000s revival of the scheme though and the success of Chiltern meant the SRA would not countenance carving up that franchise. So now we have the unbalanced situation with nearly half the Elizabeth line service not going further west than Paddington.

  • @Sarahbryson321
    @Sarahbryson321 Год назад +8

    Why was verney junction called that?

    • @ThatScottishAtlantic57
      @ThatScottishAtlantic57 Год назад +8

      I believe the name comes from the fact that. Until the railway came along, the only people living there was the Verney Family.
      Taking from Wikipedia, so take with much salt.

    • @kbtred51
      @kbtred51 Год назад

      Because it joined the Oxford to Cambridge line

  • @superlynx98
    @superlynx98 Год назад

    I was in Amersham just last weekend! Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if the metropolitan line took over the Chiltern line to Aylesbury. Would it use Marylebone? Would capacity at Baker Street or Aldgate be increased to facilitate the extra services? What becomes of the Chiltern railways depot at Aylesbury? Would this mean fast metropolitan line services all day in both directions (I would assume so, I don't think Aylesbury residents would appreciate their already 50 minute train journey being made longer with 7 more stops!)? What would the tube map look like now it's got those extra stations (special fare zone, contactless only at Stoke Mandeville and Aylesbury?)
    Clearly I've spent too long thinking about this while waiting for my train to work! :)

  • @dogrando
    @dogrando Год назад +4

    I can't believe I'm writing this, but... I think it's the *third* most northerly (after Chesham and Epping) and the second most *westerly* (after Chesham, by a gnat's whisker).

    • @sihollett
      @sihollett Год назад +1

      It is however, by some margin, the highest tube station at 150m above sea level (number 2 is Chalfont & Latimer at 123m)

    • @AFCManUk
      @AFCManUk Год назад +1

      Indeed, Chesham is the most Westerly Station, but, when the inbound service from London is parked up in the turnaround siding just past Amersham, That train is the most Westerly on the whole network.

  • @ThatScottishAtlantic57
    @ThatScottishAtlantic57 Год назад +11

    Ok, that title pun was clever.
    Great video Jago, love the Metropolitan Railway steam fleet👍

  • @NickyMitchell85
    @NickyMitchell85 Год назад +4

    I think 💭, Therefore I Amerfan of Jago Hazzard’s ‘Tale From The Tube 🚇’.

  • @MartinOgg
    @MartinOgg Год назад

    You are definitely in Amersham! I used to live there

  • @justinrovers1
    @justinrovers1 Год назад +1

    The title alone gets 5 stars!! Made me laugh, not just lol.

  • @playwithmeinsecondlife6129
    @playwithmeinsecondlife6129 Год назад +15

    I have plans to take the Lake Shore Limited from Syracuse all the way in to Pennsylvania Station but I can't imagine getting anywhere near your haunts. Still, I like the sound of your voice.

  • @allotment3275
    @allotment3275 Год назад +5

    Big up the Zone D massive

  • @miguelbarreira5005
    @miguelbarreira5005 Год назад

    I can't wait to see Jago do Verney Junction!

  • @robinjones6999
    @robinjones6999 Год назад +3

    The title caused an instant click - brilliant

  • @RogersRamblings
    @RogersRamblings Год назад +2

    From Manchester to Paris via Amersham and the Channel Tunnel if Sir Edward Watkin had had his way. Doubtless the publicity copywriters of yore would have provided aspiring You Tube historians with yet more material to ramble on about.

  • @zetectic7968
    @zetectic7968 Год назад +4

    Only got to Amersham a half dozen or so times but for at least 1 winter was getting off at Chesham. The trip up from Baker St. was always a cold one at 7 am as the heating was poor & most of it left the carriage at every stop when the doors opened. Fortunately the journey back was always much warmer & after a tiring day I often nodded off.

  • @sihollett
    @sihollett Год назад +5

    Picture of the most terrible interwar housing in the town (not part of the Weller Estate that was in the poster you put), in the rain, to make it seem that Amersham's Metroland was not as good as the hype...
    ...OK later developments made it not quite as countryside-adjacent as it was originally. And yes, it was suburban (albeit very leafy) rather than proper countryside, but the advertising was pretty accurate.

    • @dukenukem5768
      @dukenukem5768 Год назад +1

      The advertising poster was not misleading. It correctly showed the trees that were chopped down to make room for the houses.

  • @NigelCronin
    @NigelCronin Год назад +1

    Hmm, so the railway company's property division is selling houses with a built-in garage... I wonder if they've thought that through...?

    • @sihollett
      @sihollett Год назад +3

      You walk to the station, where you get your train. You drive for local journeys like down the hill to the Old Town or to get deeper into the countryside to enjoy that.

    • @highpath4776
      @highpath4776 Год назад +2

      @@sihollett yeah, they didnt own the bus companies then, Amersham had two - Amersham and District was notionally independent and London Country's one was mainly for Green Line services, even at Aylesbury it was Red Rover Buses - owned by a car dealership "Keiths Garages"

    • @hb1338
      @hb1338 Год назад +1

      @@highpath4776 I travelled to primary school on the 394 service. IIRC, the fare was 3d.

    • @highpath4776
      @highpath4776 Год назад

      @@hb1338 Indeed was it London General or LPTB that took over Amersham and District ?

  • @seanbonella
    @seanbonella Год назад +2

    Clever title Jago

  • @johnjephcote7636
    @johnjephcote7636 Год назад +10

    At least the GW called its stations 'Something Road' which told one there was a long walk ahead. A lady once asked a stationmaster why her station was so far from the town/village. The answer was 'I expect it had to be near the railway, ma'am'.

  • @highpath4776
    @highpath4776 Год назад +7

    The 1960s map with the radiused 90deg curves looks interesting , has anyone done a modern version of the network map with the elegant - if somewhat even less geographical accurate - flowing lines?

  • @kapuchinoification
    @kapuchinoification Год назад +1

    It seems odd that more than half of the line to Aylesbury is electrified, yet diesel trains run over the 4th rail, to serve just 5 stations. Surely it would be better to lay the additional 20 miles of 4th rail, and run the Met trains up to Aylesbury. This would offer a direct connection to the city for commuters. Timings could be retained by reintroducing the 'fast' services between Moor Park and Finchley Road, and capacity on the Chiltern main line would be increased at Marylebone!

    • @iankemp1131
      @iankemp1131 Год назад +1

      Good point. It was also suggested in the 1980s when Marylebone was slated for closure. However I'm not sure that passengers would have been keen on either the bouncy A class stock or the hard-seated S stock all the way out to Aylesbury. The other argument against it was lack of track capacity south of Finchley Road and east of Baker Street.

    • @dukenukem5768
      @dukenukem5768 Год назад +1

      The 'elf & safety droids freak out when extending 3rd or 4th rail electrification is mentioned. So good luck with that.

  • @1Tenor1
    @1Tenor1 Год назад

    Omg been here, it felt too fancy for me icl

  • @roderickmain9697
    @roderickmain9697 Год назад +1

    Cognito ergo Underground. It would have been quite easy to get to Oxford assuming they could have reused existing lines. I can see it now "Oxford to Paris by Metropolitan line". Railways are, after all, about connections.
    I'm not entirely surprised by the closure of goods yards. Picking up single wagons here and there is not exactly encouraging rapid delivery of said goods, particularly if they are perishable. Occasionally, you come across the remains of some huge marshaling yards which have all but died out too. Even in the rest of Europe theres not much (visibly) going by rail. In the USA its a different piscatorial kettle where passenger traffic is the forgotten son as mile long goods trains chunter across the land. (some of them even double decker containers).
    Americans are still going to use planes while we consider ever faster trains (well, at least Europe). I'm imagining Metropolitan liveried Javelins going to France. If Only.

    • @hb1338
      @hb1338 Год назад

      In Great Missenden there used to be a coal merchant in the station yard - at one time, all his supplies arrived by train.

  • @mattsyson3980
    @mattsyson3980 Год назад

    Nitpicking I know BUT if the aspirations were London, Amersham 'possibly Manchester' I think I see a small snag in the 'Paris' direction, on the basis it is completely the wrong direction. I suppose if it was intended to be a 'Tube' line then tunnelling under La Manche could fall in the generally accurate description of the works needed.
    Whatever, it is always good to hear Jago's dulcit and measured tone giving me fascinating information about things I will probably never see again. If only there was someone who was so forthcoming about the Paris Metro lines I could while away many hours on those. Tim Traveller has started but as he is not a resident of France he can't really get into the real depth like Jago.

    • @norbitonflyer5625
      @norbitonflyer5625 Год назад

      Thge Paris extension would indeed have bveen from the other end, using the met's "Widened Lines" link (or possibly the Brunel tunnel) to the South Eastern Railway - another part of Watkin's railway empire

  • @MattSomethingOrOther
    @MattSomethingOrOther 11 месяцев назад

    *I grew up in Amersham and went to college in Aylesbury, by train every day! Dirty smelly diesel. Wonderful*

  • @ianhelps3749
    @ianhelps3749 Год назад

    I went to Amersham once in the late 80s by train from Marylebone. I had a job interview at Amersham International, a chemical firm which was quite a big employer back in the day. I don't know if they are still there. Anyway I didn't get the job ( otherwise I could have lived in Amersham, it didn't look too bad).

    • @Julius_Hardware
      @Julius_Hardware Год назад +1

      I worked at Amersham International in the late 1980s - its still there but now part of General Electric Healthcare. Though its really Little Chalfont (nowhere near any other Chalfonts obviously)

    • @hb1338
      @hb1338 Год назад +2

      When it was called The Radiochemical Centre in the 1970s, it made, erm, radioactive chemicals.

    • @iankemp1131
      @iankemp1131 Год назад +1

      @@hb1338 And still does - very useful for medical diagnostics etc.

  • @rolandbogush2594
    @rolandbogush2594 Год назад

    Very interesting, not least for giving the pronunciation of ‘Bois’ in a place name, something I have long wondered about but been too embarrassed to ask. I have heard it said as ‘bwa’ as if it were being said in French, but I am prepared to take your pronunciation as gospel. Theydon Bois is another example that springs to mind.

  • @JamesPetts
    @JamesPetts Год назад +1

    I approve of Metroland.

  • @iankemp1131
    @iankemp1131 Год назад +40

    When the MSLR changed to GC the nickname was changed from "Money Sunk and Lost" to "Gone Completely". By and large it was a fair comment. Watkin was chairman of both and also the SER and the first Channel Tunnel borings project, so indeed getting to Paris was surely on his radar. (Not that it had been invented then).

    • @john1703
      @john1703 Год назад +8

      I fear that Mr Watkin was sadly mistaken if he thought that one could reach Paris, on the Metropolitan line, by heading out beyond Amersham.

    • @frglee
      @frglee Год назад +12

      Watkin actually built a mile of the Channel Tunnel out under the sea from Folkestone in 1882/3 so he and his investors must have been pretty serious about it. Another mile was dug on the French side at Sandgatte. (It was actually stopped by the British government, terrified of foreign invasions!)
      Oh, and the Great Central Railway was built to continental loading gauge for when higher and wider coaches and wagons from continental Europe ventured onto the British railway system through the Channel Tunnel. Watkin was quite a visionary, unlike the myopic fools that closed and demolished the line in the 1960s.

    • @gravellegb
      @gravellegb Год назад +2

      There was once an American railroad called the Erie Lackawanna. It was notorious for being in financial difficulty, so people called it the Erie Lackamoney.

    • @Inkyminkyzizwoz
      @Inkyminkyzizwoz Год назад +1

      It was also called the Mucky, Slow and Lazy

    • @stephenarbon2227
      @stephenarbon2227 Год назад +2

      I read in one book, that the GC and then LNER never paid a dividend from the year they started building the line to London, till the year LNER was nationalized and they stopped running trains.

  • @eastlancsesteem
    @eastlancsesteem Год назад +3

    Random fact: Chesham is actually further than Amersham.

  • @ianpatterson6552
    @ianpatterson6552 Год назад +3

    Look back in Amersham.

  • @dom1310df
    @dom1310df Год назад

    Imagine if the Metropolitan Railway had stuck with its original plan to run to Tring via Chesham. We might not have Amersham (town and station) as it is today, if at all.

  • @PaulSmith-pl7fo
    @PaulSmith-pl7fo Год назад +2

    Hi Jago. Who doesn't enjoy a ramble?

  • @laurenceskinnerton73
    @laurenceskinnerton73 Год назад

    Very good.

  • @sujmaster
    @sujmaster Год назад +1

    On the chiltern railway, i actually prefer it when i travel back to birmingham now, its cheaper and the trains are much nicer inside in my opinion, and its only around 20 minutes slower than the fastest avanti west coast service

  • @DavidSmith-648
    @DavidSmith-648 Год назад +2

    Zone 23, wouldn't it be?

  • @kevinnicholson7722
    @kevinnicholson7722 Год назад +1

    A stock are the best underground trains ever!

  • @chris8405
    @chris8405 Год назад +2

    The 'A' stock is well worth a video of their own, I used to enjoy the bouncy ride out of Uxbridge on those comfy seats, plus the thudding of the noisy compressor. I got to Chesham in one, but never to Amersham. Thinking about it I've only ever been to Amersham on loco-hauled trains thanks to BR diesel specials and Steam on the Met.

  • @18robsmith
    @18robsmith Год назад +5

    Oh dear, is it rally that long since I travelled from Baker Street to Harrow on the Hill with Mater and Pater on a steam train before swapping to one of those new fangled electric things. Well I suppose it must be.

    • @andrewmurray5542
      @andrewmurray5542 Год назад +2

      By jove, yes. When they removed first class, Nanny instructed us to sit tight and converse with nobody and that we wouldn't understand them anyway as the other paasengers would speak with strange accents. As usual, Nanny was right.

  • @onbedoeldekut1515
    @onbedoeldekut1515 Год назад +3

    I hope you're okay, you sounded a tiny bit out of sorts.

  • @highpath4776
    @highpath4776 Год назад +1

    May I suggest that if Watkin wanted to go to Paris that going to Aylesbury and Oxford is going in the wrong direction.

    • @HertsCommuter
      @HertsCommuter Год назад +2

      Try telling those that brought us "London Oxford Airport"!🙂

    • @hb1338
      @hb1338 Год назад +1

      @@HertsCommuter The use of the word London was a failed attempt to have Kidlington classified as a London airport. The hope was that such a move would bring an increase in traffic from people who searched for services using LON, the code for "any London airport". Interestingly, both Luton and Southend *are* officially London airports

  • @allenwilliams1306
    @allenwilliams1306 Год назад

    MS&:: Money sunk and lost; GC: Gone completely.

  • @TheChunky2010
    @TheChunky2010 Год назад +2

    Today it would be called Amersham Parkway 😂

    • @Mgameing123
      @Mgameing123 Год назад

      What a horrible idea since it is bang in the middle of the town.

    • @TheChunky2010
      @TheChunky2010 Год назад

      @@Mgameing123 I guess you didn’t watch the video

    • @Mgameing123
      @Mgameing123 Год назад

      @@TheChunky2010 Oh I forgot about the huge parking lot.

  • @Jimyjames73
    @Jimyjames73 Год назад

    Hiya Jago - I used to live nr Amersham & Chesham - 3 things - 1) I have heard of 'Metro-land'!!! 2) I also like the 1/3 Scale Loco @ 3:55 & 3) DO WE GET (A LONG LAST) TO SEE WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE??? From 7:26 to 7:34 - is that you wearing that white T-shirt being reflected in the windows of that red London Underground Train??? 🤔🚂🚂🚂

    • @Tevildo
      @Tevildo Год назад

      Jago can be seen playing Harry Beck in Jay Foreman's video on the history of the tube map, if you're interested.

    • @Julius_Hardware
      @Julius_Hardware Год назад

      Nope, that's not him. Jago has done cameos in other youtuber's work

    • @Jimyjames73
      @Jimyjames73 Год назад

      @@Tevildo Oh ok - Thanks 🙂🚂🚂🚂

    • @Jimyjames73
      @Jimyjames73 Год назад

      @@Julius_Hardware Oh I thought that was too good to be true!!! 😀🚂🚂🚂

  • @ThatCoalSoul
    @ThatCoalSoul Год назад +1

    That title? You should be amashamed!
    Then again maybe I can't say that, my steam video titles are just as odd!

  • @GeorgeChoy
    @GeorgeChoy Год назад +9

    Jago, you should do your own version of Geoff Marshall's end of the line.

    • @highpath4776
      @highpath4776 Год назад +4

      Featuring Quainton Road , etc, indeed that would be Brill