Edgware Underground station: north ends of platforms 2 & 3

Image: © Christopher Hilton Taken: 19 Apr 2017

Under the London Underground Northern Heights scheme, part of the 1930s New Works programme, it was proposed to extend the Northern Line beyond Edgware to Bushey Heath, and had the scheme come to fruition these tracks would have led away under the road northwards. This was a time of rapid suburban expansion and it was expected that London would continue to expand outwards; in addition, as part of the same scheme the Underground took over various suburban railways built by the Great Northern Railway and its predecessors, including a branch line from Finchley Central to Edgware, which would have created a second route into London and thus a way of handling the increased loadings that extension would have involved. The Second World War broke out before the extension could take place; after the war, priorities changed and in particular the Green Belt legislation meant that suburban expansion no longer took place at pre-War rates, so the scheme was abandoned. The line between Finchley Central and Edgware was only electrified as far as Mill Hill East (the section that remains as part of the Underground to this day) and the steam-operated section beyond Mill Hill East to Edgware was abandoned in the 1950s.

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0