London's mythological (truly) North Metropolitan Railway

[At_traction]

Related to a thread about Edward Stanford's 1864 map of London with topical railway propositions in "General discussion" (but the question in question (haha) will be probably actually better served here):

The online map shows the route for a "North Metropolitan Railway 1866", proposed but never carried out.

The railway is located to the north of the North London Railway, in the east joining GER Seven Sisters branch at Hackney Downs and crossing GER at Stratford, then joining the LT&SR at West Ham and extending towards North Woolwich roughly alongside the GER Woolwich branch:
http://london1864.com/stanford27.htm

Towards west, the line carries on north of the NLR, routed around north of Hampstead and then joining "Midland & South-Western Junction Rly" ('Super Outer Circle') near Cricklewood.
http://london1864.com/stanford06.htm

Don't know whether the name relates to the Metropolitan Railway Co., with its original name in the 1850s being the same, with the word "North", but as the line never seems to join the GWR route (except perhaps via the connection with Midland & South-Western and then to Willesden Junction), it seems probable that the route was to be more along the line of the North London Railway, as an independent company.

Any background on the company and the proposed line?

 

[pendolino]

Can I add a similar query to this thread? The same map also shows mentions the 'North Western and Charing Cross Junction Railway' - any ideas on that?

 

[At_traction]

Studying the subject, the railway seems to have got as far as obtaining an Act of Parliament on 30 July 1866.

There is in fact a copy of that act available at eBay, with the document (sub)titled:
An Act for the Construction of Railways between the Great Western Railway near Southall and the River Thames near the Victoria Docks, to be called "The North Metropolitan Railway;" and for other purposes.

The line description follows the map's scribblings, extending all the way to Royal dockland, so it seems that although the route was approved, nothing came of it.

(There is in fact a wealth of, for example, rail-related books and documents, like patents, available by the seller, in case anyone here is interested in railways. I myself just bought four, albeit mostly non-rail...)