Hemel Hempsted railway station

Nickey line
Harpenden Midland Main Line Roundwood Halt Redbourn River Ver Beaumont Lane level crossing Beaumont's Halt Owen's Siding M1 motorway bridge Claydale Siding Godwin's Siding Godwin's Halt Hemel Hempsted Marlowes viaduct Heath Park Goods Depot Heath Park Halt Grand Union Canal River Bulbourne A41 road bridge Duckhall Gasworks siding Boxmoor West Coast Main Line

The Nickey Line was opened on 16 July 1877 to great fanfare with celebrations led by the Berkhamsted Rifle Corps Band. A special train was laid on from Hemel Hempsted station to Luton and champagne receptions were held in Luton and Hemel town halls. Church bells were rung and a banner hung across Alexandra Road in Hemel proclaimed "Success to the Hemel Hemptead and Midland Railway Company".[4]

The line's development was chiefly driven by the transportation of goods and coal, and the thriving hat making industry in Luton created demand for a transport link with the straw plait trade that existed in Hemel. As a result, the line was joined to the Midland Main Line north of Harpenden and initially rail services ran to Luton, requiring London-bound passengers to change trains at Chiltern Green.[5] After some years Luton's hat trade had declined and passenger demand caused the junction to be re-aligned south to provide a more convenient interchange at Harpenden station.[6]

Rivalry between the Midland Railway and the LNWR (which had absorbed the London and Birmingham Railway in 1846) prevented the line from being extended to join up with the West Coast Main Line. For most of its existence, the Nickey Line's southern terminus was a goods siding at Duckhall gasworks, only 0.5 miles (0.80 km) away from Boxmoor station (today's Hemel Hempstead railway station). Passenger services terminated at Hemel Hempsted until 1905 when a new station was opened at Heath Park Halt, just north of Boxmoor.

The LNWR operated a competing bus from Hemel town centre to Boxmoor to "poach" passengers for its main line service to London Euston. After the two competitors were merged into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), Nickey Line passenger services were reduced and more investment was put into the bus service which was extended to Harpenden.[7]

The LMS experimented briefly with new transport technology, the "Ro-Railer", which was a bus/train hybrid that could travel on both roads and railways.[8][9][10] By operating a bus service through Hemel Hempstead town which could then run at high speed along railway tracks, the LMS hoped to run a more efficient combined road and rail service. On a demonstration run in 1931, the Ro-Railer was driven along the Nickey Line from Redbourn to Hemel Hempsted, where it entered the siding and was driven up a specially constructed ramp of sleepers laid between the tracks. This provided a level surface for mechanically changing the vehicle from rail to road wheels. It then drove off the railway track and up Crescent Road to tour the locale before returning onto the railway. After the trials, the Ro-Railer vehicle was put into service at Stratford-upon-Avon but the service was not continued on the Nickey Line.[11][9]

Map of the Nickey Line through Hemel Hempstead, now closed

Eventually the road bus service prevailed; Nickey Line passenger trains were "temporarily" suspended during the national coal shortage of 1947 and were never resumed,[12] and the last passenger service on the Nickey Line ran on 16 June 1947.[13]

Hemel Hempstead, now a designated New Town, underwent major redevelopment in the 1950s and 1960s and the Marlowes railway viaduct over the town centre was demolished on 2 July 1960.[14] The Nickey Line, now a part of British Railways, was a declining goods branch line. The closure of the remaining parts of the line continued in stages and Hemel Hempsted station closed in 1963. Cuttings were filled in, embankments flattened and commercial buildings and housing estates were built on the former railway land.

Only the northernmost stretch of track between Cupid Green (north of Godwin's Halt) and Harpenden remained in goods operation, having been leased by BR to the Hemelite concrete company in 1968. The Midland Main Line junction at Harpenden was finally severed in 1979 and the last part of the Nickey Line was lifted up in 1982.[15]