Edgware, Highgate and London Railway

The Edgware, Highgate and London Railway was a railway in north London. The railway was a precursor of parts of London Underground's Northern line and was, in the 1930s the core of an ambitious expansion plan for that line which was thwarted by the Second World War. Parts of the line were closed in the 1950s and have since been removed.

The company was established by a private act of parliament passed on 3 June 1862. The route, measuring 8.75 miles (14.08 km), ran through parts of rural Middlesex (now suburban north London) from Finsbury Park through Stroud Green, Crouch End, Highgate, Finchley and Mill Hill to Edgware. Additional acts in 1864 and 1866 granted powers to construct branch lines from Highgate to Muswell Hill and from Finchley to High Barnet respectively. The railway was sponsored by the larger Great Northern Railway (GNR), whose main line from King's Cross ran through Finsbury Park on its way to Potters Bar and the north. Before the line to Edgware was opened, it was purchased in July 1867 by the GNR and was opened as a single track line on 22 August 1867.

At first, services ran from Edgware to Finsbury Park, King's Cross and, via Snow Hill tunnel, to Ludgate Hill, Blackfriars and Loughborough Road on the south of the Thames. After 1869, trains terminated at Moorgate. Services could also run from Finsbury Park via the North London Railway to Broad Street after the Canonbury-Finsbury Park link opened in 1875. 21 trains a day ran to Finchley, usually in 24 minutes from Kings Cross, and 14 continued to Edgware. In 1870 the track between Finsbury Park and Finchley & Hendon (now Finchley Central) was doubled in preparation for the opening of the High Barnet branch and Muswell Hill branch.

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