Author : Stanley C. Jenkins with additional material from Geraint Hughes
ISBN : 9780853616757
Cover : paperback
Price : £10.95

The 6½ mile-long single track branch from Watford Junction to St Albans (Abbey) opened on 5th May 1858. The branch was, from its inception, part of the London & North Western Railway. The St Albans (Abbey) branch started life as a simple country branch and remained a particularly bucolic affair throughout its long life, and only in recent years has new housing developments en route to St Albans given rise to significant residential traffic. The Watford to St Albans line was a candidate for closure during the Beeching era, but happily, growing traffic led to an entirely new lease of life for this rural route, which in July 1988 became part of British Railways’ 25 kV ac overhead electric system.

Since the first edition of The Watford to St Albans Branch was published in 1990 the story of the line has been an eventful one.

Geraint Hughes, the passenger transport policy manager for Hertfordshire County Council from 1991 until 2005, has contributed a new chapter – ‘Modern Times and Renewed Optimism’. He was closely involved in the development of the strategy for the ‘Abbey Line’ culminating in its designation as a community railway in 2004 followed by the formation of the Community Rail Partnership in 2005. In 2005 he moved to Silverlink Trains to oversee the development of the Community Rail project until the end of the Silverlink franchise in 2007.

A5 format, 128 pages, 120 illustrations.