 look there in front of us there's the bridge so that is the bridge over the comb which carried the narrow gauge right away and look there's even track there's actually some tracks still here that's even more exciting hello thank you for joining me I'm in the Hartfordshire town of Rickman's Worth today and we're going to look at an old railway station but first I'm going to show you the church of St Mary the Virgin the reason I thought will come this way through the churchyard is because the railway station we're going to look at was called Rickman's Worth Church Street now this was the first railway to come to Rickman's Worth predated the Metropolitan Railway opened in 1862 the Metropolitan Railway opened in 1887 and it was just a short line from Watford about three and a half miles long and it kind of lost its importance really when the Metropolitan arrived it was just a branch line but it sold it on for passengers until 1952 and it eventually closed to freight in 1967 so with the church behind us just come down here through the churchyard and you can see these houses and flats this is where the good yard would have been just here in front of us I remember once seeing in the railway magazine a picture of a ginty shunting wagons with the church behind it in the background the actual station would have been just along there so I'll show you that in a moment so you had the station to one side and the good yard the tracks fanned out and and that carried on until 1967 after the passenger trains had finished one interesting thing about the railway was it was electrified and there's not that many railways which have been electrified and closed probably the most famous electrified railway to a close was the woodhead route but that was overhead this would have been third and fourth rail right just get across the road so coming to where the good yard would have been been just here this station building would have been about at the end of where those flats were so you'd have come along here and see where we have a bus stop sign there been a little forecourt it had gone in there into the station building so you'd have walked up there gone in through the ticket office it had been probably a bit further back than where the wall is now and it had gone through and the platform would have been just over there now one thing I find quite interesting is it was clearly built not to be a terminal station it was built by Lord Ivory the local MP so he built it the track ended just there you can see how the embankment slowly slopes down I know it's not much of an embankment but the track literally ended there the plan was for the railway line to carry on in that direction down the Corn Valley to Uxbridge but that never happened so it was a terminal station but it wasn't built to be terminal station so if I stand about here I'm standing where the buffer stops would have been and then the station building would have been as I said where this Gable End was the platforms would have been about here and you'd have got on the train in the direction of Watford and London and they were electric EMUs in the earlier days they would have been steam hauled so yeah they've been a nice little railway line and like I said I think it did well to survive as long as it did no doubt if it ever been built as far as Uxbridge it would make a really useful orbital London Railway today so now around the back of the flats this is where the good yard would have been where the tracks would have fanned out the platform would have probably been about the line of where this fence was and you can just see the cars up there that is where the track ended now as I said the railway was built by Lord Ebrie the local MP the path which runs along the length of the old railways known as the Ebrie way now it starts off here not looking too exciting I agree but you come down here behind the factories and as we go along further it will become more like an old railway so when we get up there I shall show you more I did say I'd show you the railway further up but I thought the basin here looks really nice so couldn't resist showing this to you we're not far from the railway the railway line would have been over the other side of that fence on an embankment so probably about level with where I am now but the embankment appears to have been partly demolished partly lowered but if you look there it is hard to see but see beyond that ship there's a bridge on the old railway track bed so what we'll do we'll go down the footpath so this officially is the Ebrie way although from where I left the site the old station it's not actually been on the track bed it's been running beside the track bed so we come along up this little slope here and this is where we are now on the track bed and hopefully we can stay on the track bed for most of the rest of the route so now here we are you can clearly see this is an old railway here's the bridge over the basin has a nice sign here which says Ebrie way so there you go and there's some interpretation here lost rails or Hartfordshire so tells you quite a lot there's a picture I was telling you about see it's a ginty shunting and you've got Rickman's Worth church in the background there's a picture of a rail tour visiting the railway station and so there's some point interesting pictures there so you know it's if you ever out this way do come and enjoy this walk and there's a sign so it says the Ebrie way it's cycle route number six and 61 Watford's for and a quarter miles I'm not going to go all the way to Watford town center I'm going to go as far as I can on this old railway line that's interesting that's a telegraph pole left over from railway days I'm not sure about that one what I'm going to do now then I'm going to carry on along here and show you a few more features on the way there's no intermediate stations to show you on this one but there are a few other branches and a few other curiosities so come with me and let's see what we find I'm now about half a mile away from the old site of Rickman's Worth church Street station walking through this green tunnel along the old rail and I now if we look out on this side actually is on both sides there's been lakes so a lot of water around this rail I don't have ever gone on an old railway surrounded by so much water whether that be like we saw the Grand Union canal basing back there and now we've got the lakes water been over a couple of rivers and talking more of water just down there's a Grand Union canal again that path takes you down to the canal if we have a look at the sign here it's quite interesting so I've got the Averyway sign so it says Watford three and a half Rickman's Worth one now I said we're about half a mile away from the station and when it says one they must mean the town centre and then if you look up there that sign that's for the canal and so it says Rickman's Worth Aquadrome one mile what says Keshavari Park two miles now you may remember Keshavari Park we've been there because it's got a very good miniature railway so have a look at the link on screen now and so if you're just going to Keshavari Park you'll go down there and under this bridge over the Grand Union canal so we're now on to the bridge you can clearly see it had been a single track that's looking up the Grand Union canal towards Rickman's Worth and then if we look out on this side we've got quite an interesting thing we've firstly we've got lock number 80 on the canal and then just up there behind us that bridge that's the Metropolitan lines bridge now there's no train at passing by at the moment but when there is a train you hear it quite clearly from here they really rumble as they go over the bridge and there's quite a lot of points there because you've got the junctions for the branch to Watford is the triangle I've already made a video on that triangle so have a look there's a link on screen now do watch that video and funny enough down by those triangles is where there's some gravel pits where Lord Ebrey had the spoiled dug to build the railway line we walk along today so I'm going to carry on now and see what else we find we're now just a little bit further along the old railway there's another rather large lake it's got fountain in the middle I might be the if you can hear the water sound but there you go there's the lake now we're coming up to the bridge which you could say was the death now to this railway just up here is the bridge where the Metropolitan Railway passes over this one so remember this railway was here first opened in 1862 the Metropolitan Railway arrived at Rikmansworth in 1887 so the Metropolitan Railway obviously had to build this bridge to take them over this existing railway and that's very much how it was in the early days of railways were built and you get lots of duplicating railways companies trying to outdo each other so like I said I can understand why this railway closed as it was although I do think if Lord Ebrey had perhaps got his wish and it could have gone to Archbridge and we may have we may have an orbital railway you could say get on a train from Watford round to West Raiton because it may have meant that the line through Cowley had survived of course there was there was a railway off the Chilton line to Archbridge there's the Metropolitan branch to Archbridge and there's the Great Western branch from West Raiton to Archbridge so it could have all looked very different but the railway as we know it only terminated a Rikmansworth Church Street even though it was quite clear it was never built to be a terminal station so we're now on the other side of the Metropolitan Railway I'm going to continue on along here in the direction of Watford and there's a couple more things on the way I want to show you well we're now walking along beside an industrial state and continuing along the former trackbed of the railway on that side is Croxley Common Moor now what we're going to do we're just going to go down this path just coming up here this one here because I want to show you something through here so you go through here looking that way towards Watford what you see there that is the trackbed of a goods line which went to Croxley Mills so this path here takes us out onto Croxley Moor it might help if I unlock the gate first and so here we've got the trackbed along there that went to Croxley Mills the trackbed we've come along is that side of the hedge so passenger trains didn't go down there it was purely a freight only line and it went to about the canal is see where the woods are in the distance the canal is over there those woods that's Croxley Hall woods which like I said is where we made the other video up by the triangle so here we had a branch line freight only went just up there so I'm not sure if those few enthusiast rail tours which came along the branch went up there so ever any trackbashes of the 1960s ever did get the opportunity to travel on that branch I don't know if anyone does know please do comment and tell me I'm going to continue on up here and we're going to talk about another even more unusual branch which came off from the Ritmansworth Church Street Railway so I'm getting a bit closer towards Watford now but along here on what looks to be a fairly plain bit of track was where possibly the most unusual branch left this railway and there really isn't really anything to show you where it was I believe it was somewhere about here there was a two-foot gauge line which ran from here down to a pumping station it opened in 1931 and it was closed in 1967 it had two diesel locos and they're both preserved at Amberley so what I thought we'll do I'm not saying this is exactly the trackbed but if we go through here to where the fields are and I'll give you an idea of where this little railway line went so you look out into the fields and it would have headed towards over there where that farm is and down the hill that's where there's a pumping station interestingly I can see the grass is a very slight there's a slight depression in the grass and it's a slight different color so that may well be the trackbed of this narrow gauge line but it went straight down there it went over one of the rivers the footbridge interestingly for the footpath came from the never-stop railway at one of the exhibitions at Wembley so it started off as a pleasure for footbridge over pleasure rail and ended up being a footbridge over an industrial rail which I find quite fascinating so they've been around here somewhere where trains could have exchanged between standard gauge and narrow gauge and I'll just find that quite fascinating that here this narrow gauge line existed and now it's almost like you know unless you know you just have no idea it could have been there it might have been here possibly the trackbed does seem to have widened out of it but it was somewhere along this section and I'm going to carry on now towards Watford there's not a huge amount to show you but we're just going to go really as far as we can on the ebreeway and then when we get to the end we'll be near the the DC lines which go into Watford Junction via Watford High Street I don't think the path goes quite that far but that's basically where we're heading for now well I've decided to leave the ebreeway for a little bit I've come down this footpath past this farm I just could not resist going to see if I could see any more of the trackbed of that narrow gauge railway and the ebreeway will be up there behind the hedge but we come to here and here we have here is where the trackbed would have crossed us so you can see the gate posts and everything of this level crossing on a farm track are still in place so we now can look up here up in that direction that's where the track would have come down gone across this crossing here where the gate post survive and down there along the edge of that fence that fence may even date back to the railways in fact I have just noticed something even more exciting I said it dates back to railways I think it's newer than the railways because if you look it's made out of old rail so it looks like that when they took up the rails of narrow gauge railway they actually used some of the track to make fence posts and so it's still here there's still some track even though it can't carry a train what I'm gonna do though I just cannot resist following this little path down here down to the river because I want to see where it crossed the river and the pumping station we've gone to is just down there give you an idea of where we are over there is more park where the big golf course isn't a big stately home so I'm now gonna as the farm I just came down that way I'm gonna carry on down to the river so I'm now just following the old narrow gauge trackbed along here it appears to now go up onto a slight embankment down towards the bridge over the river Colm now I've been told the bridge is still standing so that's why I thought it's important we come down here we can see some you know a real piece of infrastructure which is still there from what is such a little known line so you can clearly see now an embankment and on a smaller scale because it course was an hour gauge and look there in front of us there's the bridge so that is the bridge over the Colm which carried the narrow gauge railway and look there's even track there's actually some tracks still here that's even more exciting how can I show that to you it's overgrown but look it's and it's short but it's track I can't believe that look you see that the rails go it's my microphone is getting caught in the in the roses in me getting excited but here we have track still in situ on this narrow gauge line look at that that is well discovery certainly of the day I really did not expect to find any track today so we're now sitting up here on the embankment there's a little bridge there that was possibly a farmers bridge and then the rails they carry on through the brown balls and then they've gone across the middle one and what proved beyond any doubt so sorry I said a middle one the left span of the bridge it looks as though the right span was to take the pipe which indeed it still does now if I can get back across here without getting any thorns in me or getting microphone wire caught up in prambles and let's just stand up here there we go so standing up here look there we go there is that short but still for me exciting bit of track it had gone across there I'm not going to walk across the river circus skills aren't really my thing so not going to try and cross the river but they carried on down there and it had gone just to the to the pumping station down there but if we look back across like I said we've got the track there looking up there you can see where the railway line would have gone and the ebreeway will be just just there that when my finger is so I've got to go back to ebreeway and that's where we're going to go and finish the video probably in a more urban area but I do like this bit of half-shear countryside with the river coal so from a bridge which once carried a narrow gauge railway over the river coal we're back on the ebreeway and we're heading towards a bridge which once carried a standard gauge railway over river coal up here on this embankment you can see the river coal just down there there you get quite a nice viewpoint then there's a pylon in the Kong Valley so the narrow gauge bridge I don't think we'll be able to see it but it would have been just up there I can see a pillbox in the distance it had been just round the corner from there slightly it's quite a nice section of the former track bed on that side the other side it's a bit overgrown I can see a bloke fishing down there so not a huge amount to see we carry on over the bridge quite interesting here you can see the middle pier and it's good as bands so we're across the bridge now and continue on the ebreeway really till it ends and I don't think it quite ends at the junctions I just want to get to the end of the ebreeway really so not far to go now so I'm now walking through a jungle of birch trees and we are coming to the end of the ebreeway just over here is the line from Croxley Green which closed in 1996 I'll do a video on that another day and there's another board there to me about the ebreeway but we saw Rickmansworth and so that line that closed 996 is just there they cleared all the track in preparation for a reopening which hasn't as of yet happened this line would have joined that line somewhere there the ebreeway ends at the path turns off and goes away from the railway there's one of these cycleway signs here national cycle route number six three miles Rickmansworth one mile to Watford Town Centre so I'm just going to show you as we step off the trackbed what happens really not a lot to be honest it carries on down there it becomes a riverside park but I think that's where we'll leave today's video in the future I'll perhaps do one on that railway I won't be able to walk on the trackbed I don't think but the railway from Croxley Green which closed in 1996 by the way when it closed in 1996 there was one train a day at six o'clock in the morning so you know it wasn't exactly a very well-used service let's just go up these steps just for fun and see what we find at the top and that'll be where we end the video so I do hope you've enjoyed watching thank you very much for joining me please do feel free to like subscribe comment tell your friends and you know why not come for Watford and do this walk yourself it really is quite a pleasant walk and this is quite a pleasant parkland up here so thank you very much for watching goodbye