Railway walks: The Ebury Way
Rickmansworth → Watford (3½ miles)
The Watford and Rickmansworth Railway should be celebrating its 150th birthday this month, but never survived long enough. It opened on 1st October 1862, a speculative four mile link between two Hertfordshire towns across Lord Ebury's estate. The railway had to negotiate three river valleys, a canal and a section of open moorland, and failed to pass any other population centres along the way. Only a handful of trains ran each day, even in the early years, and passenger numbers remained low. Eventually London-bound traffic was superseded by the more useful Metropolitan line, and so the railway closed sixty ago in March 1952. After a long period of dereliction the trackbed was reopened to walkers and cyclists as the Ebury Way - a nice easy stroll or a family ride, and a fine afternoon out.
You'll find no trace of Rickmansworth station today. This is the station at the foot of Church Street, down by Batchworth Lock, and completely distinct from the Met line station in the heart of town. The terminus and platforms have long since been replaced by a builders merchant, so the Ebury Way starts by sidling its way ignominiously between a metal fence and a housing estate. It gets better, quickly. A cluster of narrowboats fills an overgrown basin off the Grand Union Canal. A former rail bridge crosses almost-the-very-end of the River Chess. And then the path strikes out between two long leafy lakes, each a filled-in gravel pit. These are favoured fishing spots, both for the Croxley Hall Carp Syndicate and for the local heron, who might appear for you on the bankside if you're lucky. Keep an eye out through the trees for the Croxley Great Barn, a gabled monastic storehouse built in the 14th century, with toursavailable on the last Saturday of the month.
The watery vista continues as the Grand Union Canal curves around and underneath the railway. At this point the channel doubles up as the River Gade, very close to where it meets the River Colne - not for nothing is the local authority known as Three Rivers. It's a pleasant spot, close to Lot Mead lock, with Metropolitan trains rumbling across the canal in the background. Divert along the towpath here for a woodside walk to Croxley station (details here), whereas the Ebury Way continues along the line of the former railway. It's a blue and green and pleasant stroll, with another lake or two set beyond the trees, nothing wildly special, but still a proper rural getaway.
Ah, hang on. Beyond the Metropolitan line bridge a trading estate kicks in, thankfully on one side only, but that's not so lovely. A long row of warehouses has been shoehorned into a remote slice of land, plus a mobile phone mast - anything the people of Rickmansworth would rather not have on their doorstep. Best look left instead towards Croxley Common Moor, an extensive but squelchy Site of Scientific Interest. It's wild and marshy and rather lovely, should you care for a detour, but mind your step for hidden cowpats. The cattle roaming free here used to frighten me as a child, at least during the summer months, but I bet the herd's not that scary really. That's my grandmother's old house you can see on the hillside across the moor, overlooking the housing estate where John Dickinson's paper mill isn't any more.
Just beyond the tip of the moor, one of the business units on the right is a little posher than the rest. This is Camelot HQ, home to the organisers of the National Lottery (and definitely not the site of King Arthur's round table). If you ever win a million you'll likely end up in a meeting room here to be advised on what you might do with your windfall. The neighbouring Holywell estate is precisely the sort of neighbourhood which people buy tickets to escape, but the Ebury Way thankfully only glances the perimeter. Beyond Tolpits Lane the valley opens out again, with rolling views to the south across fields and farmland. Ignore the pylons and the spiky electricity transmission station and it's almost pretty. And take a closer look at the final footbridge over the River Colne, or what's left of it, for an original 1862 iron plaque.
And that's about it. Just before Riverside Park the path bends off into Oxhey towards central Watford, no longer following the route of the original line. But that's because there's a junction ahead and another railway is about to swing in from the left. This is the Croxley Greenbranch line, an abandoned railway of some legend and considerable future importance. It was opened precisely 100 years ago, and somehow survived the Beeching axe to run limply into the 1990s. I used to commute to work on this line, for one summer at least, so it won't surprise you to hear I've blogged all about it before. What's new is that the Metropolitan line is now due to be extended this way from Croxley into Watford Junction, with plans now at the public inquiry stage, and scheduled for completion in 2016. Fancy a sneak peek?
Look for a gap in the undergrowth close to the Sustrans cycling totem, and head up the brief slope beyond. Within a few seconds you'll be up on the embankment standing on the actual rails of the Croxley Green branch line, still very much in situ. No train could pass this way at present, it's much too overgrown, with a thicket growing up fast between the sleepers. But duck down and you can follow the railway for some distance east or west, stepping over lengths of twisted black rubber cable as you go. It's not trespassing - the line's unprotected by fencing or signs or anything - but there's still an illicit thrill to standing where you probably shouldn't. Don't expect such access to last. By 2014 TfL's engineers will have moved in, wiping away the thorny stalks and resculpting this narrow curve for a twin tracked future. And before long we'll all be able to ride through this very spot, between Watford Hospital and Watford High Street stations, on a disused branch line brought back to life.
With perfect timing, the Dangleway's Autumn marketing campaign has launched this week. A bit of PR money is being splashed around - at stations, on buses and on trains - to make us love and use the cablecar a little more. Might work. Could hardly make things worse.
The campaign has four aims:
to increase awareness of this new route within the local boroughs
to promote the winter timetable that will be in place until 31 March 2013
to increase awareness of Oyster Pay as you go ticketing options
to promote the benefits for regular users
It seems unlikely that residents of Greenwich, Newham and Tower Hamlets have missed the cablecar's birth. You only have to look towards the river and there it is, even from the other side of the borough - a series of small blobs moving across the horizon. What residents may not have realised is precisely where it is (a friend at work thought it launched somewhere near the Tower of London), or that they can use it to get across the river.
It's a dead cert that the cablecar's opening hours aren't widely known. Those who view it as a tourist attraction might be surprised to hear it starts running at 7am on weekdays. Those who view it as a commuter route will be disappointed to hear it stops before the end of the evening. The winter timetable's most important feature is that the gondolas now only run until 8pm, not 9pm. But this also means a significant period of after-dark journey time, so please (please) come and enjoy "the twinkling lights of London".
Most people aren't yet aware that Oyster Pay as you go is an acceptable means of payment. During the Games there were scores of people queueing up to buy tickets, many of whom could have walked straight aboard but didn't realise. But no, it's simple. You just stride up to the gate, swipe, and hey presto, that's £3.20 gone. Think of this as the poor man's London Eye.
And then there are some 'special benefits' for regular users. Travel five times in one week and kerching, 50% of your £16 fare is repaid. There is a catch, which is that the refund only occurs the following calendar week, and only if you ride the cablecar again. But if you're a regular user who rides the cablecar more than five times, good news, half of that total's repaid too.
Except, well, I'm trying to work out who on earth these 'regular users' might be. Who is it who needs to travel from the O2 to ExCel, or thereabouts, on a repeated basis? The campaign poster reproduced above is aimed specifically at these people, whoever they are, if indeed they exist. Are there a significant number of people for whom the cablecar could be a sensible regular travel option, better than the Jubilee line, or are TfL delusional? Let's have a go...
Londoners who could be regular cablecar users
a) People who live on the North Greenwich peninsula and travel regularly to the west end of the Royal Docks i) Cleaners at the hotels alongside ExCel ii) The bloke who works in the Londis opposite the northern terminal iii) Cafe staff at The Crystal iv) People who book themselves into every exhibition at ExCel v)
b) People who live at the west end of the Royal Docks and travel regularly to the North Greenwich peninsula i) TfL employees working at the Pier Walk office block right next to the southern terminal ii) Students at Ravensbourne College iii) River-commuters who want to pick up the Thames Clipper into town iv) Michael Jackson fans who want to attend every night of the Immortal tour at the O2 v)
c) Cyclists (not that I've seen one yet) d) Slightly weird Newham residents who like getting off the DLR one stop away from Canning Town and changing to a means of transport that costs £3.20 extra e) Cablecar fetishists
It was good to see the Arabfly Dangleway being scrutinised in the news yesterday. SE London newspaper News Shopper submitted a Freedom of Information request regarding passenger numbers on the new cablecar, and got back some interesting data. Indeed, some might say shocking.
Let's take a closer look at the figures everyone's getting upset about.
Average number
of passengers
per hour
The last
three days
of the Games
The three days
immediately
after the Games
Hourly
capacity
Olympics
1747
711
5000
Paralympics
1181
246
5000
From 1747 passengers an hour during the Olympics to 711 afterwards, that's a 60% drop. And from 1181 passengers an hour during the Paralympics to 246 afterwards, that's an 80% drop. It's a nose-dive alright. These are truly awful figures.
And yet this is rubbish data. The last three days of each Games were a Friday, Saturday and Sunday, which are three touristy types of day. The three days immediately after each Games were a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, which are quieter, non-day-out types of day. The newspaper's not comparing like with like here, quite the opposite. Instead these are stage-managed figures, hand-picked to look more awful than they really are. Indeed, if you were to pick any other major London tourist attraction and compare the Fri/Sat/Sun figures with the Mon/Tue/Wed figures, I bet you'd see a substantial drop there too. What we should be comparing is Monday-Wednesday during the Games with Monday-Wednesday after the Games, or something similar. Yes, there's been a huge drop in Dangleway numbers, but not quite as huge as the newspaper's been making out.
As for passenger numbers being "less than five per cent" of the cablecar's capacity, that appears to be true. The cablecar can cope with up to 2500 passengers an hour in each direction, that's a total of 5000 per hour. But immediately after the Paralympics the average was only 246, fractionally below the magic 5% mark. It's a shockingly low percentage. These are truly awful figures.
And yet this is also rubbish data. In this case the problem is the number 2500, merrily splashed around by TfL in early press releases related to the Dangleway's opening. "It has the capacity to carry up to 2500 people per hour in each direction, the equivalent of 30 buses," they crowed. How fantastic it would be to have a new Thames crossing that could move so many people. But this total of 2500 relied on every gondola containing ten passengers, and there being one gondola taking off every fifteen seconds. This was blue skies drivel pumped out by TfL's press office back when they were attempting to portray the Dangleway as a mass people carrier. Alas this fictional mega-capacity has now come back to bite them, as actual passenger totals fall embarrassingly short.
To give you an idea of what a bad statistic "hourly capacity" is, look back again at those peak Olympic ridership figures. The best usage the Dangleway's ever likely to get was during the Games, with all gondolas occupied and queues at either terminal. If you flew over the Thames during the Olympics you were probably crammed in with at least one other party, probably more. There won't have been as many as ten passengers in every cabin, but they were still crowded enough that you wouldn't have wanted to share with more. Crunch the figures - 1747 divided by 5000 - and the number of passengers using the cablecar during the Games was only 35% of the theoretical total capacity. That's a scandal too, yet it's gone unreported while everyone focuses on the 5%.
As an added complication, the Dangleway's not open for the same number of hours each day - opening at 7am on a weekday, 8am on a Saturday and 9am on a Sunday. During the summer it closes at 9pm, in the winter at 8pm, but during the Games the last flight was nearer midnight. Those longer hours during the Olympics meant more traffic, so if you compare total daily passenger numbers the difference between before and after is even more stark. During the Paralympics, for example, the hourly rate of 1181 was spread out over approximately 16 hours, making a daily passenger total of about 19000 people. After the Paralympics, however, those 246 passengers an hour for 13 hours add up to only 3200 people. That's an astonishing 83% drop - the equivalent of five in every six passengers disappearing.
246 passengers an hour is the equivalent of just two double decker buses in each direction - hardly a mammoth user base. Or, looked at another way, the post-Games midweek figure of 246 passengers an hour is only four passengers a minute. That's the equivalent of only one passenger in every gondola, just one, which doesn't sound like a good use of public money to me. It's only brilliant news if you're an introverted tourist, because you're unlikely to have to share your cabin with a screaming child, a passing hen party or, well, anyone really.
However imperfect these figures may be, they correctly reveal the Dangleway as a visitor attraction, not a commuter lifeline. When it's the weekend or during a mega-event, passengers turn up. When it's a bog-standard Wednesday, passengers don't. TfL initially justified the cablecar's construction by saying it would form an integral part of East London's transport network, but that's proven to be bollocks. Instead they've built an expensive novelty sideshow for tourists and thrill-seekers, outside the Travelcard system, on a Mayoral whim.
Speaking in the Evening Standard the Dangleway's boss, Danny Price, is upbeat. "The latest weekly passengers numbers are in line with our forecast for business as usual in the first year of operation," he says. "As with all new transport links, the number of regular users builds over a period of time as people become familiar with new journey possibilities for both work and pleasure." I'm unconvinced. Riding the cablecar to work is always going to be of minor interest. The two terminals are poorly located, and there's a perfectly good tube/DLR journey between the two ends at no additional cost. I can see why passengers will come for pleasure, indeed hundreds of thousands already have, but sightseers are highly unlikely ever to become regular users.
Recent visualevidence suggests that passenger numbers are even lower now that autumn's here. Midweek September was still sort-of the tourist season, whereas grey October weekdays must be attracting even less than 246 passengers an hour. I'd love to know how few passengers there were on the Dangleway yesterday, or indeed how few there'll be on some foggy afternoon in February. To uncover the true paucity of the cablecar's commuter user base, what's really needed is a regular series of Freedom of Information requests to add to the initial data so far unearthed. Go on, who's going to be the first to submit a request? Because however bad the News Shopper's figures may look, I fear we ain't seen nothing yet.
Railway walks: The Ebury Way
And that's about it. Just before Riverside Park the path bends off into Oxhey towards central Watford, no longer following the route of the original line. But that's because there's a junction ahead and another railway is about to swing in from the left. This is the Croxley Green branch line, an abandoned railway of some legend and considerable future importance. It was opened precisely 100 years ago, and somehow survived the Beeching axe to run limply into the 1990s. I used to commute to work on this line, for one summer at least, so it won't surprise you to hear I've blogged all about it before. What's new is that the Metropolitan line is now due to be extended this way from Croxley into Watford Junction, with plans now at the public inquiry stage, and scheduled for completion in 2016. Fancy a sneak peek?
With perfect timing, the Dangleway's Autumn marketing campaign has launched this week. A bit of PR money is being splashed around - at stations, on buses and on trains - to make us love and use the cablecar a little more. Might work. Could hardly make things worse.
a) People who live on the North Greenwich peninsula and travel regularly to the west end of the Royal Docks
