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Watford Central was a planned station on the London Underground network in Watford, Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. The station was part of a proposed extension of the Metropolitan line from the present-day site of Watford tube station into Watford town centre, but was never opened. Had the line been built, Watford Central would have been one of the northern termini of the line. The building which was planned for use as the station booking hall still exists today as The Moon Under Water public house on Watford High Street, opposite the junction with Clarendon Road. ==History== Building a line to Watford had been an ambition of the Metropolitan Railway Company for several years. Watford was already served by the LNWR main line, but Watford Urban District Council began to lobby the MR to extend their line into the town. By 1911 Watford had grown enough to make a new railway connection seem commercially viable. At this time, the MR shared tracks with the Great Central Railway (GCR) and these companies had formed the Metropolitan and Great Central Joint Railway; together they drew up plans to construct a branch line to Watford town centre, receiving Parliamentary approval in 1912. In the original plans, the Metropolitan line was to terminate at a passenger station located on Hempstead Road, close to the northern end of the High Street, with a goods station a mile further south at Cassiobury Park Avenue. The Urban District Council, despite their earlier enthusiasm for a new railway, now objected to the scheme; the council had recently purchased parts of the Cassiobury Estate from the Earl of Essex to create Cassiobury Park, and were opposed to the MR driving a railway across their beautiful municipal park.〔 The outbreak of World War I in 1914 hampered the project's development, and it was not until 1922 that construction of the Watford branch commenced. By this stage, the GCR was financially less secure and the MR instead formed a joint committee with the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), the Watford Joint Committee. Opposition from local politicians to the Cassiobury route meant that the terminus had to be sited next to the new goods yard in the Cassiobury area of the town, some distance from the centre. Watford station opened as the terminus of the Metropolitan Railway Watford branch in 1925.〔 The MR was keen to promote its new destination as part of its Metro-Land advertising campaign; posters published by the MR in 1925 promoting the new route "by Metro to Watford" depicted an illustrated view of Watford High Street on market day, belying the remote location of the station. While the MR was able to provide a shuttle bus service from its station to the town centre, the Metropolitan branch line passenger numbers compared unfavourably with rival services into central London offered by the LMS and the UERL Bakerloo line from the more centrally located and stations. The LNER pulled out of the venture after the General Strike of 1926.〔 The remote location of Watford Met station was clearly proving to be unsatisfactory, and the MR drew up plans to extend the line into the town centre. In 1927 the company purchased a property at 44 Watford High Street, the Empress Tea Rooms and Winter Gardens. A strip of land behind the property provided about 2.5 acres, enough for redevelopment as a railway station with a High Street frontage. Parliamentary approval given in 1929. The MR put forward alternative routes for the line extension:〔 *Route 1, extending the line directly beyond the existing terminus and entering a tunnel under Cassiobury Park, Cassio Road, West Hertfordshire Sports Ground to the new station. *Route 2, branching off from the existing railway line just south-west of the original Met station and entering a straight tunnel under Watford Grammar School playing fields, Cassio Road, and the West Hertfordshire Sports Ground to the High Street terminus. The scheme was never enacted and the proposed tunnels across Watford were never built. The Watford Metropolitan terminus was to remain at its remote Cassiobury location for more than 90 years. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Watford Central tube station」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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