Nickey line

The Nickey line (also known as the Harpenden to Hemel Hempstead branch railway) is a disused railway that once linked the towns of Hemel Hempstead and Harpenden (initially Luton), via Redbourn, in Hertfordshire, England. The former trackbed has been redeveloped as a rail trail and is part of the Oxford to Welwyn Garden City route of the National Cycle Network. It is approximately 9 miles (14 km) long.

Toponymy

The origin of the nickname "Nickey line" is shrouded in obscurity. Suggestions include being named after the parish of St Nicholas in Harpenden, through which it runs; Hemel's connection with Nicholas Breakspear; the knickerbockers worn by the navvies who constructed the line; or "down the nick", a slang term of engine drivers which meant "to run out of steam" and may have been applicable on the line's difficult inclines.

The spelling of the line's name is recorded as appearing as "Nickey" on signs and tickets for special trains and in the local press; when the line was converted to a shared-use path, the signs which were erected omitted the "e" in the legend "Nicky Line Footpath and Cycleway". The line is commemorated in the modern Marlowes pedestrianisation scheme by a children's playground train and a sign labelled Nicky Line Halt, though no such named station ever existed.

Another possible origin for the name is that the navvies who constructed the line gave it the nickname as the steep climb from the old A6 road (now the A1081) in Harpenden up to the Roundwood Halt is a 1 in 37 gradient, the same as the 3.2 km (2 mi) railway incline called the Lickey Incline south of Birmingham.

The local paper notes that the engines themselves were referred to as "Puffing Annies" by locals, as the climb from the town centre up through Highfield was steep; the engines created much steam and smoke ascending this incline. Older generations in Hemel still refer to the line as the "Puffing Annie", rather than the Nickey line.