Please Amersham - let us keep our tubes

Gordon Dixon who has unfortunately moved away, is still very much involved with Chesham. He was interested to read our item that Transport for London (TfL) has gone public with the proposal that in the future, all the trains from Chesham will go through to Baker Street instead of just offering a shuttle service to and from Chalfont St Latimer. Gordon tells us the background to this change is because by the year 2012 all the existing Metropolitan Line Rolling Stock will be replaced by newly designed units which will have accessibility from one coach to another throughout the train, of particular benefit to wheel-chair users - a bit like the bendy buses. Unfortunately there will be slightly less seats because of the need for ability to pass through the train. There will also be air-conditioning. Because of the design of this rolling stock it is only be built in eight-coach units, and this means that it will be impossible to get the whole of the length of the train into the bay siding at Chalfont & Latimer.

Gordon Dixon at the centenary of Chesham Station 1989.

The platforms at Chesham are long enough to take the full length of the new trains. For the Chesham train service this left three alternatives: (1) to extend the bay platform at Chalfont & Latimer Station although this would mean encroaching onto the car park at that station; (2) moving away from electrically motivated rolling stock onto diesel units, but this would mean losing the through trains in the morning and evening peak periods; (3) extending the route of all the trains from Chesham so that they go onto the mainline as do the two morning through trains every day, routing them either to terminate at Watford or Baker Street; or (4) the worst scenario to close Chesham Station completely.
Members of the Federation of Metropolitan Line Users Committees have four-monthly meetings with the Management of the Metropolitan Line, and over recent months they have been discussing these alternatives with them. Gordon hopes that the residents of Chesham will consider that the proposal now being discussed is the best of all the alternatives, and that it will have full backing from all the residents. And he adds a final note for the people of Amersham, “Please do not oppose this scheme, despite the fact that during the off-peak period you are losing two trains per hour, you still have four trains every hour against the possibility that Chesham could lose their rail service altogether.”