Northern Line: Finchley Central to Mill Hill East

In this video, we make a short northbound journey on a London Underground Alsthom 1995 Stock Northern Line train from Finchley Central to Mill Hill East.

This branch shares similarities with the Chesham branch on the Metropolitan Line as it runs on single tracking and Mill Hill East station has a single platform. However, unlike Chesham, Mill Hill East used to be part of a branch of the Great Northern Railway in the 19th century which continued on to the original station at Edgware and was never intended to be the terminus. It was later closed due to cuts by Dr Beeching and although the line is clearly visible from a bird's eye view (have a look at Google Maps), the infrastructure that remains today includes an empty viaduct, a couple of bridges and a nature reserve. Before the second world war, the line was due to re-open as part of the expanded Northern Line (known as the Northern Heights Plan), which was to feature electrification, a branch to Alexandra Palace, a connection with the current Edgware branch and an extension to Bushey Heath via two new stations at Brockley Hill and Elstree South. However, WWII resulted in funds being redirected into the defence budget putting the project on hold. The Northern Heights Plan was officially cancelled soon after the war ended due to new Green Belt legislation which prohibited development of new houses on greenfield sites. Mill Hill East station survived due to the fact that electrification works had been completed as far as there but the rest of the old line between Edgware and Mill Hill East was never safeguarded and as a result, development on segments of the line went ahead, eliminating any chance of revival.