Decline
Passenger demand was never high and further declined during the inter-war years. The rivalry between the Midland and LNW Railway companies ensured that the line ultimately failed to serve the people of Hemel Hempstead in the most useful way possible, and the last passenger train ran in December 1947, following a 'temporary' suspension of services due to the national coal shortage.
Following nationalisation of the railways, the connection of the lines at Boxmoor which had so long been a bone of contention was finally resolved, the connection being made to allow coal trains to supply the nearby gasworks at Duckhall. Having finally connected the lines, this service ran for all of six months in 1959 before the line was closed altogether. The viaduct crossing the lower end of Marlowes was demolished on July 6, 1960 during redevelopment of the town centre. Many people turned out to witness the demolition of this local landmark, and the event was well recorded in photographs.
The line between Cupid Green and Harpenden was privately owned by the Hemelite company from 1968, and was used to transport raw materials for manufacturing building blocks via Harpenden to their works at Cupid Green. The line beyond this point to the terminus at Hemel was lifted during the late 1950s.
It is notable that prior to Hemel Hempstead being chosen as the site for a new town, Redbourn was also considered. Had this occurred then the Nicky Line would have been significantly upgraded to provide a link between the main line at Hemel and a new station at Redbourn.
Read more about this topic: Nicky Line
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“Where mass opinion dominates the government, there is a morbid derangement of the true functions of power. The derangement brings about the enfeeblement, verging on paralysis, of the capacity to govern. This breakdown in the constitutional order is the cause of the precipitate and catastrophic decline of Western society. It may, if it cannot be arrested and reversed, bring about the fall of the West.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive it—yesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I don’t give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1984)
“My opposition [to interviews] lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)