Ghost Stations: Watford West (Croxley Branch #2) Traditional Geocache

This is the 2nd of a series of Ghost Tube and Railway Station caches. The hope is that other geocachers find similar disused stations and add to the series.

Watford West Station: You are looking for a nano sized cache with log only, you will need to bring a pen. There is limited parking near this one, evenings and Sundays appear to be no problem but check nearby signs. Should be a quick CnD.

The area in front of the station entrance here is not particularly special and serves only as an extension of the bus stop. This cache is obviously not intented to bring you to a beauty spot, only to get a glimpse of the station from the bridge/entrance and see what's left.

As with Croxley Green, it is possible to reach the tracks, but the same trespassing rules apply and the tracks are much trickier to get to since there is a big slope. There's a lot of discarded beer bottles near the tracks too and I am advised that homeless people tend to use this place so it's probably best to avoid.

The station was opened in 1912 and was part of the Watford and Rickmansworth Railway branches. Along with Croxley Green, it was 'temporarily' closed and substituted with a replacement bus service.

According to Wikipedia, "Tickets could be purchased for travel to Watford West until quite recently. In 2004-05, ten passengers purchased tickets for travel to the station, placing it higher than Gainsborough Central, a station currently open and in use."

As part of the proposed new Croxley Rail link (leading to Watford Junction) this station would be rebuilt and re-opened, making it no longer a Ghost Station. We may be waiting a while to find out, this project appears to have suffered delays and the current proposal is for 2016.

All across London and the suburbs there are a number of disused railways and tube stations along with partial or complete tracks and platforms with varying overgrowth of surrounding vegetation.

Some of these stations have been closed indefinitely, others have fallen into disuse through transport authorities negligent policies. But the fact that some of the signs and other furniture are still there even up to 50 years and beyond is fascinating.

Hopefully, a cache at these locations will help everyone to create an informal geocaching map of what the rail and tube network used to look like and perhaps make you wonder why they don't run trains in these locations anymore.

Ghost Tube sign image generated with the help of London Underground Sign Generator and Gimp