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I have a vague memory of a big glass building downstairs at Willesden over the main-line platforms; this would have been in the early 1960s. I think there were three rather than four platforms upstairs; a short one one specifically for services going southwards on to the West London Line. It's...

A 25" map from 1896 gives some details mentioned in earlier posts: both junctions with the LSWR Ascot > Aldershot line; the 'non-junction' with the SER line, that is, a siding. This one from 1972 shows how the western curve between the Ascot line and the main line has become two sidings; the...

I'm pretty sure that platform 2 at Twickenham, a London-facing bay, is not used. Platform 1, also a London-facing bay, had its track removed a few years back after being derelict for ages; the platform is still there but lost in a jungle of weeds. Platform 2 was used back in the past for...

Much slower. I recall my first trips down the ECML to York and down the Midland to Sheffield, both on an HST: the former whizzed along like the clappers; the latter occasionally got up to reasonable speed, but most of the time seemed just to amble along. On the logic of going through populated...

The last time I flew in an aeroplane was a BA flight, Heathrow to Cologne, in 1991. We were served with a somewhat desiccated chicken salad, free of charge. I thought it rather amusing, as the flight took just an hour, no more than my ride on the 285 bus to Heathrow, and of course I didn't get...

I've noticed over the years that although when at or near an airport jet aeroplanes are considerably more noisy than turboprop ones, there's quite a difference between them elsewhere. For example, I live about four miles to the south of Heathrow's approach, roughly when they're at about 1500...

That reminds me of when I was on a school trip around 1970 and some brat of a schoolkid heaved a brickbat at the coach as we went through Putney. We assumed that he came from Elliott School, a right rough-house at the time, but discussing this years later with a pal who had been there, he...

Well, there's via Tulse Hill, Crystal Palace and up through New Cross Gate...

Blimey! That's a long time. Even the 14 bus doesn't take that long.

One would have to be getting on a bit to know who Ozzy Osbourne is (or was). Presumably, this was a fair time back. Mascots and cartoon characters are by no means a modern phenomenon. I remember Mr Therm, a cartoon character devised in the early 1930s for the Gas Light and Coke Company to...

I've read an article in a magazine about this, probably in a Railway Magazine in my dad's collection. It contained a map, which showed a vast station combining Waterloo with a similarly sized station to replace Waterloo East and Charing Cross, roughly where the big roundabout is at the foot of...

A recent report here states that the proposals to pedestrianise Oxford Street are likely to go ahead, as the government is likely to permit the London Mayor's office to overrule Westminster Council's objections. If the proposals do go ahead, the western end of the street will be pedestrianised...

Or seen the width of rolling stock on 3'6" or metre gauge railways elsewhere; the huge Garretts in Africa were an amazing sight to see.

Hammersmith and Chiswick must be a contender. Built in a fairly unpopulated area halfway between what were at the time small Middlesex settlements, the line at H+C station pointed north, and went in a semi-circle to South Acton, where it joined what's now the North London Line. More on it here.

If Mildmay is pronounced as my paternal grandparents did, that is, 'Marmay', then there's no problem. Before they were married, they both lived a few hundred yards from Mildmay Park station (Hayling Road, Hawthorne Street), so I guess they knew how to pronounce it in the prescribed fashion.

At the opposite end of the discussion, I've never understood why the Windsor service from Waterloo insists on having 'and Eton Riverside' appended to 'Windsor' on many displays, as it's most unlikely that anyone at Waterloo or along the route would think that the train would be going to the...

The first edition of the A to Z guide was published around the time of the LCC's road renaming operation. I have a reproduction copy of it, and it includes a list of the streets whose names were changed. I was under the impression that this was done in order to ensure that no name was duplicated...

Many of the electric bikes around my way are used by 'box boy' delivery lads, and they all go at considerably over the 15.5mph at which the motor should cut out. This is especially the case with the ones that look more like motor-bikes, with small wheels and fat tyres. On clear roads I ride at...

That was the other Dead Donkey Lane, a little to the north of the one in my earlier post. It seems that they were at some point one long lane. There was a call to the council to revert it to its original name, but, sadly, nothing came of it.

My favourite is in Chiswick, near where the District and North London Lines cross over the LSWR Brentford loop: Dead Donkey Lane, which is now Magnolia Road.