Its still possible the euro tunnel could take a tube train to Brussels 🤔🤔👍👍

Mr yerkeys

Tube lines across the Atlantic. Retake New York and Chicago.

@@Tencentsthetug They will have to lay the third/fourth rails for the electrification tho, unless they find a way to have Underground trains run using overhead catenary.

It is possible to modify a 1973 stock to run with over head power lines

Or maybe he is Watkins back again

@@chrisinnes2128 not from that surfshark putt

You can get as far as Chesham on the underground and change there, although it is not part of the London zone fair system, which I guess is the important part for many. I suppose it would be possible, in principle, to electrify the line as far as Aylesbury from Chesham, but I can't imagine the Chiltern Line being keen of that as it would likely affect their income from the Marylebone terminus.

There has never been a direct service to Aylesbury from Chesham, which is a branch line terminus of the Metropolitan Line. Met trains used to run to Aylesbury from Chalfont & Latimer and Amersham, however.

I tend to just either switch to chiltern rail at either harrow-on-the-hill or Amersham

@@ianmcclavin Apologies, I meant Amersham.

There was a scheme in the early 1980's to single the line north of Amersham and transfer it back to LU after electrification. Trains from Aylesbury would have run via Princes Risborough to Paddington with Marylebone being turned into a coach terminus. Thankfully it came to nothing and the line saw a huge resurgence under Adrian Shooter. Now however Chiltern seem intent on killing it with less frequent services and the use of the terrible 2+3 seating Class 165 units which would be fine if the only users were under 5's but for adults are simply ridiculous.

If the Great Central line had never closed there might be no reason to build HS2.

His channel tunnel wasn't much either. Nice sideburns tho...

Tripcocks are on the way out - and have already (largely) gone on the Northern and Jubilee lines. The new signalling system uses moving blocks rather than static signals and the tripcocks linked to them.

@@NicholasNA I believe Four Lines Modernisation (4LM), which will obviously do away with tripcocks, is due to go beyond Finchley Road this year (2024), along the obviously well known pair of outer Metropolitan tracks to Wembley Park (not simply because of the stadium, but they do provide a fast way to get there) and I suppose it will reach Amersham at some point. I don’t know if the long single track between Chalfont and Latimer and Chesham has any relevance as far as 4LM is concerned.

And of course, the branch to Vernay Junction after Quainton Road, the furthest point from London on the Metropolitan Railway some 50 miles out, with a 4-way junction with the Bletchley and Oxford Line, and the line northwest-ward to Buckingham, Brackley and Banbury. A very isolated rural location, nearly 2 miles from the nearest village.

I think you're confusing the two lines that ran north from Quainton Road to meet the LNWR Oxford- Bletchley line at Calvert and Verney Junction respectively. The former was the Great Central's main line to Sheffield, the latter was the Metropolitan Railway. The GCR route remainhs open for freight, and it is that one that may be reopened to connect Aylesbury to Milton Keynes at some future date.

Hmmm, this sounds like an idea for a potential Jago video one day...

@@norbitonflyer5625 Thanks for clarifying that. I'd not thought that there would be two lines, but now I look at my OS maps there were. In any event, a link between the Bicester-Bletchley line would have quite a lot of potential without, I would hope, too much cost as I don't think there is much in the way of major engineering works along the route and there's not exactly a lot of people living on that route to complain about it. However, the way that railway civil engineering cost increase in this country is astonishing, who knows?

@@TheEulerIDMaybe history will repeat itself? Many lines were originally built in the expectation that they would stimulate housing development and thus provide a customer base (Metroland!). I wonder if re-opening long closed lines within easy reach of London would have the same effect? I live 35 miles from the capital and around here the new estates are appearing at quite a rate. Of course, the prospect of seeing rural idylls going under concrete and brick will give some backlash. I remember someone saying "A developer is someone who wants to build a house in the countryside, a conservationist is someone who has already got one."

I used to do something like that for my grandma. She had no internet and lived between a massive hill and a forest so the mobile signal wasn't strong enough.

Tales from Beyond the Tube...

+1 😊

The Wycombe Railway's branch to Aylesbury was actually the FIFTH line in England to be converted to Standard Gauge. The first line was the Somerset Central Railway (which was independent of the GWR), between Burnham and Wells, on 31st August 1861. This was done to facilitate better compatibility with the Standard Gauge Dorset Central Railway, which the Somerset Central wanted to connect to and amalgamate with to form the Somerset & Dorset Railway. The second line was the GWR-owned Stratford-on-Avon Railway, between Hatton and a point just west of the old Stratford-on-Avon terminus in Birmingham Road, on 1st January 1863. This was done as the aforementioned Stratford-on-Avon terminus was to be abandoned and the line re-routed to a new station which would connect it to the West Midland Railway's Standard Gauge line from Stratford-on-Avon to Honeybourne. The third line was a small section of the LBSCR's Main Line between the old Battersea Park & Steamboat Pier station and Longhedge Junction, on 7th October 1865. This was used by a GWR Broad Gauge service into London Victoria from the West London Line, which briefly ran between 1863 and 1866. The line was converted as the West London Line was re-routed to connect to LC&DR's Main Line at Stewarts Lane Junction instead. On 30th July 1866 the GWR obtained the legal powers necessary to allow it to completely convert all of it's network to Standard Gauge. This program would steadily be carried out over the next 26 years. The fourth line was the section of track between London Victoria and Chelsea Basin Junction on the West London Line, on some unknown date in November 1866. This was done as the GWR's services into London Victoria were withdrawn, and there were no longer any Broad Gauge trains running along this route. The GWR did still run a Broad Gauge goods train over the West London Line into Chelsea Basin, which would be withdrawn in 1875. And finally we get to the Wycombe Railway's branch from Princes Risborough to Aylesbury, which was converted on 25th May 1868. This was the first line to be converted as part of the GWR's nationwide gauge-conversion program, which is probably why you thought is was the first line ever to be converted.

I also believe it was originally intended to extend the Cheddington to Aylesbury branch to Oxford.

@@kevinrayner5812 Indeed it was. In fact, that was actually the first ever proposal for any main line railway into Oxford (proposed in 1836), predating the GWR''s first failed proposal in 1837. The line itself opened to Aylesbury in 1839, but by then the planned Oxford extension had already been dropped. The GWR would eventually get it's proposed line to Oxford built in 1844 (this was actually their THIRD attempt at an Oxford line), which was the first railway to Oxford to actually be built. In a similar vein, the Metropolitan Railway had plans to extend the Quainton Road to Brill Tramway into Oxford, which would have made for a similar connection between Aylesbury and Oxford. They even re-named the line to the "Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad" in anticipation of this. Of course, this planned railway line also didn't happen, so there has never been a direct rail link between the two towns.

Why stop at Aylesbury run it on to Quaiton Road

Yes, I remember seeing that solitary service in the timetable. I think it got cut back to Birmingham for some years before finally disappearing. The lines join at South Ruislip. Until last year you could travel (once a week) on a train from West Ealing to West Ruislip via Greenford that traversed part of that section. It's been replaced by a bus.

The reverse isn't much better! Having to get back from London to Aylesbury late night is a nerve wracking affair of clock watching because missing that last train, which isn't very late, by a few minutes is a soul destroying event.

@@nickryan3417 I know that because I have friends that live there and always have doubts about being able to make it to the last train. A pity that the service isn't working till later!

Pardon my ignorance (I no longer live in London), but has there ever been any study of a second Circle Line, roughly paralleling the M25?

@@tommilton5753 Nothing that far out to my knowledge. What demand would it serve? The M25 mainly exists so long distance road journeys can avoid London. Orbital railways are useful where they are connecting O&D pairs with high demand to decongest the radial routes people would otherwise use. I don’t see that as a high need in the area of the M25.

I gather they're calling it "hurry culture" now.

Time for Jago Hazzard to start saving up for some wellies, so he can stand in the field that used to be Verney Junction and take some video of cows: "The London-bound platform would have been where the cow on the left is." 🤪

@@DavidShepheard "Take my money!"

Noy quite the same. The District didn't own the track beyond Ealing Broadway - (it didn't even own the track between Ravenscourt Park, Turnham Green and Richmond)

I know but tubes still ran to Windsor. Had some agreement i suppose

​@@MrCobo04 District trains ran to Windsor, and were also discontinued, long before any 'tube' line was built (and the District wasn't a 'tube' anyway, nor was the Metropolitan). So, no 'tube' trains ever went to Windsor...

@@CaseyJonesNumber1 as i mentioned the district railway. It also ran to Southend as well

​​@@MrCobo04I am replying to you saying that 'tubes still ran to Windsor', which they didn't - the 'tubes' hadn't been built, or even thought of at that time.

Correct. Aylesbury was not considered when we looked at route options for the revived Crossrail in 2001/2 because the SRA did not want the Chiltern franchise messed with. We looked at other second western routes but none was viable enough to make it into the Bill.

@ennett9687 And Heathrow makes a very useful second western terminal option anyway. Interesting point, if Aylesbury had been added to Crossrail, would that have just been the route via High Wycombe? If not, how would the trains have got across to the Met line through Harrow?

@@iankemp1131 Heathrow was in the 90s scheme, not counted as a branch in itself. The peak service proposed for the branches was at one point 12tph GW (8 Readings, 4 Heathrows) and 12tph Aylesbury (8 Aylesbury, 4 Chesham), though that balance would probably have had to change given demand) The connection to the Met was to be via new track on the north edge of Old Oak Common depot to the Dudding Hill line.

@@simonbennett9687 Thank you, very informative!

You can’t do that anymore, I’m afraid the 55 is now withdrawn The same route was around in the days the Met went to Aylesbury but back then it was the 359 jointly run by London Transport and Eastern National (until 1952)/United Counties (from 1952)

If a connection from Aylesbury to East West Rail ever happens, it will be using the still-open goods line (former GCR route) to Calvert, not the long-closed and built-over Met Line route to Verney Junction.

There's a Jago video on the Wembley tower.