09:20.

Bloody typical! We’ve had glorious sunshine these past few days whilst I’ve been at home, but today – when I’ve a day out the weather is the South is grey, wet and miserable! I’d planned to be out and about taking pictures for a client but the scenic pictures they want are incompatible with the conditions. So, I find myself on a busy 4-car Class 450 working the 08:50 from Farnham to Waterloo whilst I rejig my plans. I’m heading into the capital, then heading East where the weather’s meant to be clearing from. A vague plan is forming in my mind but we’ll see…

Feel free to keep popping back to see where I go and what I get up to.

10:45.

The trip into London was fine – even if the weather wasn’t. The service was short-formed but the rush was over by the time the train was running. I’d have made an earlier on if it wasn’t for the fact Dawn was dropping her nephew off at school first and Farnham was chocked with traffic, ironic when some people insist that we don’t need to improve public transport and build railways like HS2 because everyone’s supposedly still working from home!

Once in London I dashed to Waterloo East and caught a train to London Bridge where I was going to buy some breakfast but the queue at the Greggs was so long I gave it up as a bad job.

Right now I’m on a quite SouthEastern service heading out to a place I haven’t visited for years – Abbey Wood, which is about to develop a new life from next week when it become a Crossrail terminus. I’m sorry, but I really can’t get into calling Crossrail the Elizabeth Line. Sorry your Maj, but it’s part of the national network, it’s not a glorified tube line. Besides, I suspect if any name does stick it’ll be the ‘Lizzy Line’ which is far less cumbersome!

Passing through old haunts in SE London I’m stuck by how much has changed in the 12 years since I moved away. There’s new building everywhere. What a far cry from when I moved to London back in 1986 when the city was still in decline and the population was steadily shrinking. In those days the reputation of some of the areas I’m passing through was rough to say the least. In Bermondsey it was said even the rottweilers walked around in twos!

11:10.

There’s still something slightly surreal about suddenly seeing overhead wires appearing outside the train window – and then the twin tracks of Crossrail emerging from their tunnels to run parallel all the way into a rebuilt Abbey Wood station. Crossrail Class 345s were much in evidence running the shadow service in preperation for next week’s public opening.

I didn’t hang around at Abbey Wood as the weather’s still crap. Instead I decided to do some recce’s for other pictures as I’ve spent very little time along this line in recent years.

13:30.

I’m currently taking a break in rainy Rochester after travelling as far East as Gillingham where I stopped off to grab a sandwich. I’ve known the town since 1990 when I often used to pop over from London of a weekend to photograph the variety of traction that would be stabled here then. All that’s long gone. The town looked pretty run down then. It’s fortunes haven’t improved. I braved the torrential rain and flooded main street (blocked drains on both sides) to find a Greggs. It was a depressing experience. Shops are boarded up and empty and the dereliction has spread to the population. Just 15 minutes walking down the High St let me see there’s an awful lot of deprivation and health problems here. People who believe the hypes that Kent is the ‘garden of England’ have never visited Chatham and Gillingham! I doidn’t hand around after I’d grabbed a couple of pictures. I made my way along a platform flooding due to leaks from the station canopies and headed back to Rochester which has gained a brand-new station since I stopped here last.

The new 3 platform station at Rochester opened in 2015 and replaced the old cramped one which was further East. It’s been part of a scheme to redevelop the nearby dockland area which was cut off from the town by the railway. Progress has been slow but steady with new housing springing up alongside the railways and the East end of the huge site.

I must admit to liking Rochester. It’s a place with history (hence its castle) literary links (Charles Dickens) and an eclectic mix of shops, restaurants and pubs. It’s also less right-wing than much of the Medway (which is very Brexity), as this artwork by the museum attests to…

21:15.

Apologies for the ‘slight’ intermission but I’ve been non-stop for the past few hours as I made my wat back to Surrey – which is where I’m typing this from. As I left Rochester the weather really began to change making the trip much more enjoyable. I really enjoyed being back along this line, seeing the changes that have – and are – happening. It’s all a far cry from when I first explored the region back in the 1980s!

My first stop was at Gravesend, a station that’s been rebuilt in past years but still retains its Victorian buildings to complement the modern infrastructure such as it’s large cycle hub. Always on the lookout for an elevated view I found a nearby multi-story car park that afforded me this view.

Moving in once more my next port of call was Dartford – yet another place that’s changed dramatically since I first got to know it 30 odd years ago. The vintage slam door trains are long gone. Even the more recent BR built stuff has been elbowed aside by cascaded Siemens trains like this.

But, the biggest change was when I returned to Abbey Wood, the terminus of Crossrail South of the Thames. 30 years ago I’d never have imagined this far-flung corner of South-East London would have not one, but two cross-London connections. The first to arrive was Thameslink and services between Rainham and Luton, allowing to people to traverse the centre of the capital without changing trains. Now Crossrail’s arrived to add East-West to North South. As a consequence, house prices in Abbey Wood have gone through the roof and the skyline’s following suite – as this picture taken earlier demonstrates.

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

This may be a bit of a fits and starts rolling blog – especially as it’s taken me until 13:00 to begin writing despite the fact I’ve been up since 04:45 and travelled from West Yorkshire to London where I’ll be for the next couple of days!

Looking through my library to find pictures for a recent series of blogs I spotted some gaps in the archive plus age of the pictures so I though I’d take what may be my last chance to visit haunts old and new to record the passing of some of the the old BR built 3rd rail electric units along with some updated shots of services I’ve not shot for some time.

It’s been a good trip so far, even if the weather’s not exactly vintage. It’s been gloomy and damp, but that hasn’t affected things too much. Tomorrow is meant to be really sunny, so I’m saving some locations for then.

Here’s a little sample. A pair of Southern’s Class 455s pulling away from Norwood Junction with a service from East Croydon to London Bridge. I’d arrived on this train earlier in the morning.

14:25.

The gloomy weather’s persisted with the added fun of soft rain. Having got the shots I wanted around Norwood Junction bar one (the new high-rise Croydon as a backdrop – the weather’s too dull) I headed off to Sutton to catch some of the 455s which operate Victoria to Epsom services. En route I passed through a very old haunt – Wallington. Back in 1979-80 I used to stay with an ex-girlfriend from Liverpool who lived in a gorgeous 1920s semi that was being rented out as cheap rooms because it was blighted by a proposal to build a Motorway. I’ve never been back since but crossing the high street on the train brought back memories that are now over 40 years old. It was a very different era, with old slam door trains everywhere and little 2-car units on the service to Wimbledon via Mitcham Jn – long before the line was converted to be part of the Croydon tramlink.

My stay at Sutton was brief but productive with several different images secured. As the weather was deteriorating I decided to retrace my steps to East Croydon. In the 1980’s it possessed a grand old signalbox mounted over the tracks at the London end. I always regret I never managed to get pictures before it disappeared.

I changed transport mode by swapping train for tram to get between West and East stations. Croydon was buzzing – in more ways than one as the smell of Ganga permeated the air around the bus station and tram stop! Although life’s returned to the streets the number of shops that were vacant told a story of commerce crippled by Covid. My flirtation with trams was brief. The solid grey skies made photography unattractive so I took a spin on the Caterham branch instead and recce’d potential photo spots for tomorrow. As the weather worsened I decided to abandon picture taking for now and check out another local line, the line out to Tattenham Corner. At least i’d be dry, warm and doing something useful. I’d returned to East Croydon to change trains. Swapping between platforms using the footbridge with the spectacularly useless roof that doesn’t actually keep out the rain! Whoever designed the damned thing had never heard the expression “form follows function”.

Right now I’m sitting on a train which is splitting at Purley. The front 5 cars go to Caterham and the rear 5 to Tattenham Corner

18:10.

I’ll write up my first trip on the Tattenham branch later. Sadly, the weather was awful so there wasn’t much for the camera to do but stay dry. I’m now at Victoria after changing trains at East Croydon yet again. It was a nice, quiet train (not). Now remember, this is ‘rush-hour’ and supposedly we’re going against the flow, but Croydon has an orbit of its own nowadays…