Amersham is a

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The ...

and

National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the ...

station in

Amersham Amersham ( ) is a market town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, northwest of central London, from Aylesbury and from High Wycombe. Amersham is part of the London commuter be ...

in the Chiltern district of

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-e ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. Amersham station is a terminus of the London Underground's

Metropolitan line The Metropolitan line, colloquially known as the Met, is a London Underground line between in the City of London and and in Buckinghamshire, with branches to in Hertfordshire and in Hillingdon. Printed in magenta on the tube map, the lin ...

. It is 23.7 miles (38.1 km) northwest of

Charing Cross Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Clockwise from north these are: the east side of Trafalgar Square leading to St Martin's Place and then Charing Cross Road; the Strand leading to the City ...

, making it the second furthest Underground station from central London and the second most westerly station of the whole London Underground system, after . It is in

Travelcard Zone 9 The Travelcard is an inter-modal travel ticket for unlimited use on the London Underground, London Overground, Elizabeth line, Docklands Light Railway, London Trams, London Buses and National Rail services in the Greater London area. Travelcar ...

(previously zone D). Amersham station is also served by

Chiltern Railways Chiltern Railways, formally The Chiltern Railway Company Limited, is a British train operating company that has operated the Chiltern Railways franchise since July 1996. Since 2009, it has been a subsidiary of Arriva UK Trains. Chiltern Rail ...

, which run trains between

London Marylebone Marylebone station ( ) is a Central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the Marylebone area of the City of Westminster. On the National Rail network it is also known as London Marylebone and is the southern ...

and

Aylesbury Aylesbury ( ) is the county town of Buckinghamshire, South East England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery, David Tugwell`s house on Watermead and the Waterside Theatre. It is in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wy ...

. From Aylesbury a shuttle service to

Princes Risborough Princes Risborough () is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England, about south of Aylesbury and north west of High Wycombe. It lies at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, at the north end of a gap or pass through the Chilterns, the south end o ...

provides access to through services between Marylebone and Birmingham Snow Hill. The journey times between Amersham and

Central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteris ...

range between 33 and 60 minutes. The journey time between Amersham and Chalfont & Latimer is about three and a half minutes.

History

Amersham with Marylebone - Woodford Halse stopping train geograph-2722765-by-Ben-Brooksbank

The station was opened on 1 September 1892 as part of the

Metropolitan Railway The Metropolitan Railway (also known as the Met) was a passenger and goods railway that served London from 1863 to 1933, its main line heading north-west from the capital's financial heart in the City to what were to become the Middlesex su ...

(Met) extension from Chalfont Road (now Chalfont & Latimer) to Aylesbury. On 12 March 1922, its name was changed to "Amersham & Chesham Bois", but the original name was restored during 1937. From 16 March 1899, the

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company was grouped into the ...

served the station through its

extension Extension, extend or extended may refer to: Mathematics Logic or set theory * Axiom of extensionality * Extensible cardinal * Extension (model theory) * Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values that satisfy the predicate * Ext ...

to Marylebone. Consequently, the station became joint Met/GCR owned. On 1 January 1923, the GCR became part of the

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after LMS) of the " Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At th ...

(LNER) as part of the

Railways Act 1921 The Railways Act 1921 (c. 55), also known as the Grouping Act, was an Act of Parliament enacted by the British government and intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, by "grouping" them into four la ...

, and on 1 July 1933, the Met became part of the

London Passenger Transport Board The London Passenger Transport Board was the organisation responsible for local public transport in London and its environs from 1933 to 1948. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and brand was Lond ...

(LPTB), thus becoming the

of the

. On 1 January 1948, the LNER was

nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to p ...

, its share of the station initially coming under the control of the

Eastern Region of British Railways The Eastern Region was a region of British Railways from 1948, whose operating area could be identified from the dark blue signs and colour schemes that adorned its station and other railway buildings. Together with the North Eastern Region (w ...

, before being transferred to the London Midland Region in 1958. On 12 September 1960, the tracks from

Rickmansworth Rickmansworth () is a town in southwest Hertfordshire, England, about northwest of central London and inside the perimeter of the M25 motorway. The town is mainly to the north of the Grand Union Canal (formerly the Grand Junction Canal) and th ...

to Amersham were

electrified Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic history ...

, partially fulfilling plans first proposed some thirty years earlier. The rolling stock ordered by London Underground as part of this project, the A60 stock, is named after Amersham.

Service changes

When the sectorisation of British Rail took place in 1982, services to Aylesbury on what had by now become the

London to Aylesbury Line London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major se ...

came under the operation of

Network SouthEast Network SouthEast (NSE) was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982. NSE mainly operated commuter rail trains within Greater London and inter-urban services in densely populated South East England, although the net ...

. Following the

privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the indust ...

in the early 1990s, these services have been provided by

. From December 2010, off-peak Metropolitan line services to and from Amersham were reduced to two per hour, with a corresponding increase in through services on the

Chesham branch The Chesham branch is a single-track railway branch line in Buckinghamshire, England, owned and operated by the London Underground. It runs from a junction at Chalfont & Latimer station on the Metropolitan line for 3.89 miles (6.26 km ...

. This is a return to the historically normal frequency of two Metropolitan trains per hour from the four Metropolitan trains per hour service that had been operating for the previous five years. Including the Chiltern Railways services, Amersham still has four trains an hour to London in total, with extra trains from both operators at peak hours. Metropolitan line services are divided 50:50 between Amersham and Chesham. This is expected to divide

park and ride A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system ( ...

kiss and ride A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system (r ...

motorist users more evenly between the two stations and help spread the load on local roads, though the change was made purely for operational reasons.

The station today

The station is located on Station Approach, Amersham. Ticket barriers are in operation at the station. In 2009, because of financial constraints, Transport for London (TfL) decided to stop work on a project to provide step-free access at Amersham and five other stations, on the grounds that these are relatively quiet stations and some are already one or two stops away from an existing step-free station. In 2017, TfL announced that Amersham station would receive funding for step-free access, with work commencing in 2018. It was opened in February 2021.

Services

Services at Amersham are operated by

and

on the

. The off-peak service at the station is: * 2 tph to

Aldgate Aldgate () was a gate in the former defensive wall around the City of London. It gives its name to Aldgate High Street, the first stretch of the A11 road, which included the site of the former gate. The area of Aldgate, the most common use of ...

(All Stations) * 2 tph to

* 2 tph to of which 1 continues to

Notes and references

Notes

References

External links

*
Official London Underground website
{{Railway stations in Buckinghamshire Station Metropolitan line stations Tube stations in Buckinghamshire Railway stations in Buckinghamshire London Underground stations located above ground Former Metropolitan and Great Central Joint Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1892 Railway stations served by Chiltern Railways 1892 establishments in England