Watford Stadium Ghost Station #3 Croxley Branch Multi-cache

This is one 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.

This cache is also the 3rd and final of the Croxley Branch series of Ghost Stations.

Watford Stadium Station: The cache is a tiny lock n' lock container with logbook, pencil and room for small tradeable items.

I had to make this an offset hide since it's just not a great place for geocachers search - residential houses and barking dogs on one side of the bridge and vandalism and flytipping on the other. Still, I've tried to make the questions easy as possible in order to get you to visit the entrance to this station before searching for the cache.

Obviously south of the footpath and parts of the path itself function as a fly-tip, however the cache is not hidden anywhere near this, the cache location should take you to a place covered with vegetation and little sign of human activity (other than previous cachers). If you are standing in the middle of a fly-tip when looking for the final location you're coordinates are wrong! :)

If you are driving to this cache please approach from Cadiff Road since there is a residential zone with houses with dogs and kids right next to this station. If you do approach from the West, Jelicoe Road offer less disruptive space for parking. Otherwise it's pretty much a designated walking path so no-one should really pay attention to what you are doing.

As with the other stations on the Croxley Branch, it's is possible to reach the tracks, and it appears lots of people have done so since the fence has been torn down at many locations along this line. It's much cleaner than the Watford West station and there are no tresspasser signs but caution is still advisible. The platform still exists and is visible from the bridge on Vicarage Road.

The Cache is located at:

Nearby to the station entrance you will notice there is a rather sad looking cow. If you walk under the bridge and further down the path there is a flower. It is obvious that Watford Council have tried but sadly failed to make this some kind of interesting nature walk and it has been quite neglected. In order to get the coords of the cache answer the following questions:

A) How many black spots does the cow have?
B) Add 2 to A
C) How many petals on the flower?
D) A - C
E) Number of metal beams under the bridge - D
F) B

There is not much information about this station apart from the fact that it was used specifically for football matches, open on match days only - drawing crowds away from other stations and into the back entrance of the Vicarage Road football stadium.

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