Chesham tube station

Chesham lies at the end of the Metropolitan Line Chesham branch, and opened 8 July 1889 as the original northern terminus of the Metropolitan Railway from. There is no station starter signal at Chesham. The branch has no intermediate stations. The distance between Chesham and Chalfont & Latimer is the longest distance between adjacent stations on the network at 3.89 mi. Chesham station is the least used station on the Metropolitan Line at 429,000 passengers per annum.

It is a popular starting station for those participating in the Tube Challenge.

Location
Chesham is in Travelcard Zone 9 (previously zone D). It is situated 25 miles (40.2km) north west of Charing Cross, making it the furthest station out from Central London anywhere on the London Underground network (using Charing Cross as a central point). It is also both the northernmost and westernmost London Underground Station. Chesham replaced Ongar as the farthest station when the latter closed in 1994.

Services
There are two 8-car through trains to (during the morning rush hour) and two returning through trains in the evening rush hour but for most of the day a 4-car train operates as a shuttle service to and from  station, on the main line to  and Aylesbury. In February 2009, following a consultation the previous year, Transport for London announced that Chesham would have a regular through service to central London from 2011. . It is expected that this will involve the phasing out of the Chesham to Chalfont & Latimer shuttle service and its replacement with a half-hourly direct service between Chesham and Baker Street or Aldgate.

Crossrail plans
The original Crossrail plans involved Chesham being connected to Chalfont & Latimer station by a shuttle service,(See Crossrail, Alternative routes) however this plan was dropped in the late 1990s.

History


There had been an intention to extend the branch onwards to Tring and make a connection to the LNWR Euston - Birmingham line. Land for the purpose was bought along the proposed line of route (for some time there was a gap in the houses along Victoria Road where the railway line was supposed to have run, and pieces of what appears to be concrete embankment are still visible today), but no further progress was made, and with the extension of the main line onwards from Chalfont and Latimer towards Amersham the idea was abandoned.

There was a goods yard beyond the current site of the station; this now serves as the car park for the station and the town's Waitrose.

Because of the plans for extension the station and the presence of the goods yard, Chesham used to have no fewer than three tracks (though only two platforms) and all three tracks remained well into the seventies (long after the yard was closed) as rather useless sidings. This three track layout may be clearly seen (in the early seventies) at the end of the opening credits of Metro-land. Today there is only one platform and one track, the empty space that used to be platform one has now become a floral display (as visible in the picture). According to a plaque on the water tower, this garden won an award in 1993.

Ticket barriers were installed in the late 1990s.