 Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm in Croxley Green today. Croxley Green is a village between Rikmansworth and Watford, served by Croxley station on the Watford branch of the Metropolitan Line. What we're going to do today, we're going to go down to Croxley Hall Woods to have a look at the woods and how the Watford branch of the Metropolitan Line travels through the woods. But first, I just thought I'd show you All Saints Church. It's a really rather beautiful building. The foundation stones were first laid in 1870. Just let you have a look. I do really like the conical spire the church has got. So what we're going to do now is we're going to walk around the end of the church and we're going to head down to this little lane that will take us down to Croxley Hall Woods and we're going to go and see what we can see down there because it's really quite an interesting woodland and for people like me it's even more interesting because it's got the railway passing through. Let's just let you have a look at the church as we walk past. So we've just gone past the church now. Where we're going to is just up here, this little pathway, or it's more like an unmade road that takes us down to Croxley Hall Woods. So we're going to go down there and see what we can see. Now we have been to Croxley Hall Woods before but not actually in the woods themselves. We passed through on the train so let's get across the road quickly. A bit of an awkward corner couldn't see around. All Saints Lane, same as the church. So I'm going to go down here towards Croxley Hall Woods. So now let's a bit further down All Saints Way into the very peaceful Croxley Hall Wood. You can hear the sounds of the birds singing, occasionally interrupted by a train passing through which I will show you in a moment. So there's paths going off in all directions. There's another one going up there. Below this fence this is the boundary of London Underground's property so that kind of shows how the railway lines run through the woods. Now if we get to just down here, you can see one thing I really like about Hartfordshire is their footpath signs. See how it says All Saints to Green, that's where we came from. Sometimes it even tells you how in yards, how far it is. It's about a quarter of a mile up there. This looks interesting. There's one called the Croxley Green Boundary Walk. Maybe I could look into that, maybe do that in the future. I'm just going to show you something down here though. So I've said a lot about railways. You might just be able to hear a train. I'm going to show you a railway but I'm not expecting to see a train. Look down there. That is one of a few conventional tunnels on the London Underground. Now that is the curve which runs from Rickmansworth onto the Watford branch. Now if you want to go on that line, you've got to be up early because the train that takes that curve leaves Cheshire about a quarter past five in the morning. I have done it once. I did a video so there's a link in the screen now. It was quite fun but I had to be up early. I have done it also on a few heritage trains. I've done it with Steam, we've met number one and the Great Western Prairie Tank number 5521. I've done it with Sarah Siddons in a class 20. I've also done it on a 1938 stock. The one thing I haven't done it on, which I sort of regret a little bit, is I've never done it on an A-stock train. Now as it's all quite overgrown, it's hard to show you, but the other end of the tunnel, it's only a short tunnel. It's just there when my finger is able to see a bit of track. And then up there is the junction with the other side of the triangle, which most of the trains go into Watford take. So it's really quite underused, although it's double track. So all of this was added in 1925. The main metropolitan line, which we should see in a moment, was opened as far as Rickmansworth in 1887. So when you think the church back there, they started building that in 1870. That predates to Rowey. Actually, if we come down here, we might get a better view of the tunnel. I can just see through the, it's a bit awkward because it is overgrown with all the bushes and everything, but you might just be able to see that is the mouth of the tunnel. And then the metropolitan main line is just on the other side of this fence here. So we really are surrounded by London Underground property in all directions. So as I said, this is the main side of the triangle where the metropolitan line trains to Amisham go and the Chilton Railways trains to Ellsbury Vale partway go. And then what I'm going to do, I'm going to show you this, I'm going to take you up, we'll go over the other side of the triangle. So we see everything on the triangle really. So how welcome we see this. You may be able to see up there is the junction for the Watford line as for the trains that come out of London heading towards Watford. Now if we have a look on this side, we can quite clearly see through the mesh the points for the junction with this side of the Watford triangle. So what we're going to do now, we're going to go back up here and try and find the other side of the Watford triangle. So that's this bit of track. Like I said, there is that one train a day at 5.16 in the morning. And its main purpose really is it brings people from Chesham up the hill and they can change the Chalford Latimer or Brickmersworth and then they get the train from Amisham up to London, which runs five minutes behind it. Although I did once see it, I was at Chalford Latimer one morning when I wasn't paying to go on it and it must have been five minutes late leaving Chesham because the train from Amisham went ahead of it. So if you'd been on that train hoping to go from Chesham to change to London train, you'd have had a long wait. But I've done it a few times. I've actually been a genuine passenger when I've done it because the times I've done it is if there's a rail tour going out of Euston and I don't fancy being in Euston too early in the morning. So I go to Watford Junction. So I take this line and walk to Watford Junction. Of course it was supposed to be extended to Watford Junction. It very nearly happened but it seems to have, well it doesn't seem to be happening at the moment, but we'll do a video on that later today. This is what I was saying about with Hertfordshire's footpath signs. Oh there's a whistle of an underground train. 817 yards. I love how precise and imperial it is. And down to the Grand Union Canal, 538 yards. That's where I'm going to go when I finish the video. Just hear another train now. And it sounds like it's coming from that way. It must be going towards London. I don't know if the camera is picking out the sound of the whistles, but the one thing that hasn't changed on the London Underground electric trains is the whistle. The A-stock trains, the S-stock trains and some of the older trains, they all have that high-pitched whistle as opposed to horn, which most other trains have. As for that bit of track over there then, passenger trains on it. Like I said, if you want to do it, you've pretty much got to be up early in the morning or go on one of the Heritage trains, which run occasionally. There is talk, or there was talk, when they extended to Watford, which Watford Junction, which as I said hasn't happened yet, that there could have been, say, a Watford to Ellsbury train, which would have used that side of the curve. But I don't know, we'll have to wait and see if and when that ever happens. But it would be nice if there were more regular trains. I believe there was a regular train on that branch between Watford and Rikmersworth until about 1967. And then it was withdrawn. In the 90s there were a few more trains, because what would happen, or what I think still does happen, but they're not for passengers, is some of the last trains out of London, they terminate at Watford and then they go empty over that curved Rikmersworth. I've just noticed here, here is the substation, probably built at the time when they built the Watford branch. And you can see the Metropolitan Main Line over there. And the other side of the triangle, the majority of the trains going to Watford use, runs along here. So let's really decide first and clearly see the track. Fortunately, we can't quite see the Junction and Junction with the rarely used side of the triangles a bit further around. If we have a look here, we can clearly see though the junction with the Metropolitan Main Line. And down there is the Grand Union Canal. There was also another railway to Rikmersworth, one that predated the Metropolitan Line, which ran from Watford Junction to Rikmersworth. I'm going to leave this track and we're going to go into here. Because the reason I want to finish the video here is you can see we're kind of coming into gravel pits. Now these gravel pits, these were dug out when they built that first railway to Rikmersworth. It was built by Lord Ebrey, he was the local MP. It's now disused, it closed the passengers in 1952 and it's a footpath known as the Ebrey Way. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to, when I finish this video, I'm going to go down there and I'm making another video on that branch line. But I thought we'll just finish with a bit of walking through Croxley Hall Woods. And like I said, when there's not a train running, it really is quite a nice peaceful place. Just nice sometimes when it's just you in the woods and you can hear the sound of the birds singing. And the railway line would be up there somewhere. I'm not expecting to see any more of the railway. Now I think we're deep in the woods, well I'll say deep we're in the woods. And yes, no more railways in this video now, but we're never far from them. If a train went along there now, we'd know about it. I think now we're actually coming right into the middle of one of these pits. So to think, all the spoil dug out here went towards building the railway to Rikmansworth, which basically the Metropolitan took all its business away. So I think I'm going to end this video here. I hope you enjoyed watching. Like I said, if you want to go on that bit of track, you've got to be up early. But it's worth it, especially if you're a track ranger and you want to say you've done it. If you want to come to these woods, it's not too far to walk from Croxley Station or indeed from Rikmansworth Station, which is interesting. There's a real pit going down there. So here, why not come for a day out here? Like I said, maybe not so early in the morning, but come have a day out and walk around these woods. They're really nice, peaceful places. So from Croxley Hall Woods, thank you very much for watching. Please do feel free to like, subscribe, comment and do look out for the next video. I'm going to walk along the Eburyway from Rikmansworth Church Street towards Watford. Thank you very much for watching. Goodbye.