An alternate British Railway history- What if the Great Central Railway was never built?

This is my second in my timelines of alternate British railway histories which surprisingly, are actually quite interesting to research. My first timeline “Thatcher Survives-So does British Rail”, is still being updated, but I’m waiting to buy a particular book that’ll help me move the timeline forward. In the meantime, this short scenario will look at what would British railways look like should the Great Central Railway not have been built.

When we talk about the Great Central Railway, we are principally talking about the London Extension of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire railway, which was a cross-country main line in the North of England, until the line’s chairman-Sir Edward Watkin, drew up the ambitious plan for a high speed (for the Victorian times), high capacity main line railway with a generously sized loading guage connecting the English industrial heartlands to a Channel Tunnel and henceforth onto Europe. The line always has been an enigma on the British railway system, being the latest of all mainlines built, having opened in 1899, and to such an ambitious plan that never saw its full potential. The Great Central Railway was built with heavy luxurious trains, that were always lightly loaded. The terminus, London Marylebone station, tucked away from the main Marylebone Road, was always the smallest and modest out of all the London termini.
If the Great Central Railway had not been built, it would have left a mark, but not a big one. The first thing that would change would be the Great Western Railway’s “New North Mainline”-a joint main line built with the Great Central Railway that took the GWR’s Birmingham and Bikenhead traffic on a north-westerly route out of London, instead of the older, circutrous westerly route via Reading and Oxford, would not have been built. Before the GWR/GCR Joint Line was proposed, the GWR mulled the creation of various cut offs such as from the town of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, to Bicester in Oxfordshire where it would join the existing line towards Birmingham. However, this line would have only been single track and not suitable for high speed, long distance running. And so if it was built, would probably have been closed under the Beeching Axe in the 1960s, which saw many British Railway lines closed.
At the same time, the Great Central Railway’s proud stations-Sheffiled Victoria, Nottingham Victoria, Leicester Central, Rugby Central and London Marylebone simply wouldn’t exist. Nottingham Victoria, which became later became a shopping centre, would just be another part of Nottingham’s city centre, and Marylebone would become another of London’s pleasantly named West End districts-such as Mayfair, Soho, Fitzrovia or Bloomsbury, that would have no Underground station bearing its name. Instead, the Bakerloo line would continue beneath the site of what is today Marylebone station which would just be more lucrative property.
Nothing much would change until the mid 20th century. I can’t see the GWR ever getting around to building its own new main line to Birimingham, as if it waited for another 10 years would have run into Would War One and the lack of manpower would have stopped the project. Towns such as High Wycombe, would still be served by a route to London by means of the Marlow Branch, which originally ran from Bourne End to High Wycombe. Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield (where the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli lived) may be served by an extension of the Greenford branch, but this seems unlikely considering the GWR put more interest in long distance traffic than commuter traffic.

Without the GWR’s New North Mainline from Acton, the Central Line’s West Ruislip branch wouldn’t exist. Instead the Central Line would likely be extended along the GWR to Hayes or West Drayon. A large depot would be constructed for the Central line in the Stockley area of Middlesex, near the end of the line to replace the Ruislip dept in OTL.

By the 1960s, London Transport was considering to electrify the Metropolitan Line to Aylesbury, a town in Buckinghamshire about 30 miles from London. However, this was scrapped in favour of electrifying as far as Amersham and allowing British Rail to continue running to Aylesbury, as a shadow of the former GCR route. Without the GCR, there would be no British Rail services between London and Aylesbury, meaning London Transport would have to have extended the electrification to Aylesbury. This would make the Metropolitan Line, at over 40 miles long, one of if not the longest rapid transit line in the world. If this happened, the A60 stock trains that ran on the Metropolitan and were built without seats, would probably have a redesigned cab to accommodate seats for the long journey to Aylesbury.


Into the 1970s, I don’t think the line would ever transfer to BR, considering there would be nowhere for BR trains in London to terminate. Baker Street, with only four platforms would likely be too small and relegating the Amersham to Aylesbury section to a shuttle would most likely cause too much political backlash for it to be viable. The only solution is that the 1990s plan for Crossrail- the east-west heavy rail metro through central London that originally proposed to take over metropolitan and BR services to Chesham, Amersham and Aylesbury, would survive to this day and the Met would not continue anywhere further north than Ricksmanworth once Crossrail opens next December.

In this timeline, by the 1980s, without the Chiltern Line, Network South East would have more money to pay for upgrading other routes, and perhaps would concentrate on the London, Tilbury and Southend Line out of Fenchurch Street instead of privatisation halting such plans in the mid 1990s. In addition, Birmingham Snow Hill would probably still get a through service to London, although this would later be operated by First Great Western. Having to take the original circuitous route via Oxford, this service would not be competitive with the established services on the West Coast Mainline from Euston and would exist primarily to give a direct service between London and Leamington Spa. Furthermore, the class 165/166 “Network Turbo” fleets would be much smaller, only having to operate on the Network South East “Thames Line” from Paddington. In this instance, it’s possible the class 168 “Clubman” units would not be built, as these were built for Chiltern Railways services out of Marylebone in OTL.

In the future, without the GCR alignment north of Aylesbury, the HS2 high speed line would have to take a different course, most likely via Heathrow and along the M40.

If the GCR wasn’t built it would be strange to see how little its loss would make an impact. Aside from the long term changes of the metropolitan line running all the way to Alyesbury and towns such as Gerards Cross and Beaconsfield never turning into commuter towns, we wouldn’t see that much difference into how the railway looks today.
 
I'm sorry to not have much to add (you're much more knowledgeable on this by far), but I wonder what will become of the MSLR. Also, where will John G. Robinson go instead of the GCR?
 

Devvy

Donor
Some thoughts....

Firstly for the London Extension to be built, would be a pre-1900 PoD as it was opened in 1899! :)

Otherwise....no GCML means that the Met as you say continues to serve as far as Aylesbury. Historically the Met Railway resisted attempts to lump it in to UERL (the predecessor of London Underground), and was forced in due to it's joint operation of the Circle Line. Here, you might see the Met Railway stay out as a 5th (and small) railway company, and forced to build a new London terminus (*Marylebone) to handle it's increasing suburban traffic as part of it's separation from London Underground.

I think you'd still see GWR cutoff of some sort, to serve Beaconsfield, Gerrards Cross, High Wycombe, Princes Risborough, which post war would see an increase of population - it just wouldn't be built to such express line standards though. GWR would want a route for faster expresses from London to Brum and beyond, and congestion on the GWML to Didcot might force it as well.
 
Top