Dear LPG, 

I am not and never have been a train enthusiast, but it is so nice to be able to get around on them again after a year or two of staying at home.  I found myself traveling to Guys hospital not so long ago and, even though there is always the bus as an alternative, it was refreshing to take a look at the sights from the train’s windows.

It takes me right back to when I travelled to an office in central London.  Back then I used to pass through the station every day on the way to work, but these days most of the travellers miss the sights outside the train and focus on the small screen instead.  I am talking about their mobile phones and, in my attempt to fit in I got mine out as well. 

We were on a train so, with no other inspiration evident, I looked up trains and found a couple of interesting facts that I think might be noteworthy to any trainspotter worth their salt, although I was more focussed on the stations.

For some reason I found myself looking up London Bridge Train Station and the fact that stuck in my mind was that it’s ‘station code, is a set of initials which reminded me of the gazette’s.  You have to agree you could easily mistake ‘LBG’ for ‘LPG’ when you are saying them.  I also found another internet fact worth noting.  Did you know that London Bridge Station was the first train station ever in London, and it opened on December 14th, 1836?  Another thing that I worked out is that in 2014, as old as it is, LBG was still the 4th busiest train station in London having clocked up 56,442,044 passengers that year.

But we, in Lewisham, have to be residents of a lot more than just a little sleepy suburb of Southeast London.  According to the internet’s Wikipedia, Lewisham station boasted 8,669,820 that year and was the 25th most frequented station out of the 368 listed as ‘heavy rail passenger stations’ in the capital.

The last thing to say about all this is that with fairs rising so drastically after the inactivity that lockdown has caused the travel industry, the fare rises are frightening.  But, while we still have our freedom passes we pensioners are among the passengers who can pay the cheapest fares to go places.

I have asked LPG to post my message to coincide with the stations big day even though my trip down that particular memory lane happened a good six months ago now.  But for all those LPG readers who remember mornings and evenings of commuting, isn’t it good to know that there are still a few things that are guaranteed to be at least twice as old as you?

BF, Lewisham

BF shares his findings… 

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