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[edit] Northern Heights Project
The "Northern Heights" Project was planned by London Underground as part of its New Works Programme - 1935-1940.
The project involved the connection to the Underground’s Northern Line of a group of existing London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) steam-operated branch lines in north London, running from Finsbury Park to Edgware, High Barnet and Alexandra Palace via Highgate.
The lines had been constructed by the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway (EH&LR), the Great Northern Railway (GNR) and the Muswell Hill and Palace Railway in the 1860s and 1870s.
(See Edgware, Highgate and London Railway article for a detailed history of their construction).
[edit] Planned works
Planned modernisation of the lines included the following works:
- Electrification, resignalling and station improvement works
- The construction of new tunnels from Archway station (then named Highgate) at the end of the Northern Line’s eastern branch to a point south east of East Finchley station where a connection to the LNER tracks would be made. The tunnels would pass directly beneath the LNER’s Highgate station.
- The reconstruction of LNER’s Highgate station including the construction of a new deep level station on the tunnelled section.
- The reconstruction of East Finchley station to provide additional platforms.
- The doubling of the single track line from Finchley Central to Edgware.
- The closure of the existing LNER station at Edgware and a minor diversion of the LNER route to take it into the existing Edgware Underground Station.
- The construction of a tunnelled link from the surface platforms at Finsbury Park to the Northern City Line tunnels (then part of London Underground) enabling through running to Moorgate.
- The construction of a new extension from Edgware to Bushey Heath in Hertfordshire with stations at Brockley Hill, Elstree and Bushey Heath and a new depot at Aldenham.
When completed the project would connect an additional seventeen stations to the London Underground network and provide a number of alternative routes into central London from the northern suburbs.
Works started in the late 1930s but the start of the Second World War halted construction.
