The Chesham Flyer / Shuttle

The line to Chesham was for a while the terminus of the Metropolitan Railway. When the Met pushed out from Harrow and Rickmansworth in the 1880s, Chesham was the destination. There were proposals to link on from Chesham to the main London Euston to Birmingham line around the Tring area. Indeed, some land north of Chesham station was acquired for this purpose. I wonder if Watkin the then Chairman of the Met had a wry smile to himself when the people of Chesham actually raised funds to locate the station in a more central location as opposed to the proposed station in the Waterside area. If Watkin already had plans to extend beyond Chesham, he must have been delighted to receive the funds from the good folk of Chesham to extend the railway to central Chesham.

The line from Chalfont Road (now Chalfont & Latimer) was single track, it being double up to Chalfont. When the main line was diverted through Amersham to Aylesbury, the line to Chesham became a branch line.

When I was young, I seem to remember the service was referred to by some as the "Chesham Flyer" although the name "Chesham Shuttle" is more widely used.

The above picture shows loco of 41284 on the Chesham branch approaching Chalfont & Latimer on 11 September 1960. Note the track is already electrified and steam services would soon end. The coaches are the famous "Ashbury" stock, some of which are now preserved on the Bluebell Railway. See the link here for details of their preservation. These coaches had a long life, first built in 1898 with others in 1900, they were converted several times and ended up being fitted as auto train coaches, this meant the engine driver could drive the steam train from the front of the coach, while the fireman remained on the locomotive. This saved having to run the engine round the train at each end of the line.

When electrification came to the Chesham branch some through services to the City were hauled by the Met's electric locomotives, thus avoiding the need for the change of steam to electric locomotives at Rickmansworth.

The then new A60 stock then formed the rolling stock for the line (although other electric stock made an appearance in the early days of the electric service). A four car unit was used to form the shuttle to and from Chalfont. A new bay platform was built at Chesham to allow the shuttle train to be at Chesham when a through 8 car service was operating in the rush hour. This bay platform has been removed which means that if the through trains are late, the shuttle has to wait at Chalfont for the line to clear.

Picture courtesy of Frank Phillipson
An A60 stock train waiting at Chalfont to form the Chesham shuttle service in December 1975.

Chesham has always enjoyed through trains to and from the City in the peak hours (often in the past to and from Liverpool Street) and Saturday lunch time (workers used to work Saturday mornings). The Saturday through service was removed many years ago, but two peak hours services remain. there are often proposals to cut these services as they can cause delays in the timetable for the rest of the line, but to date pressure from the Chesham commuters and other interested bodies have maintained the service.

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