THE OBLIVION EXPRESS
The Necropolis Railway with John Clarke
At the Dissenters Chapel on Saturday 7th October at 5 pm
For 87 years, nearly every day, a single train ran from Waterloo to Brookwood cemetery in Surrey and back. Its passengers were a mixture of the living and the dead. The service offered a choice of first, second or third class tickets for both the deceased and their accompanying family and the railway followed a purposefully chosen 23-mile route so the mourners could be consoled in their grief with elegant views of Westminster, Richmond Park and Hampton Court. At its peak, from 1894 to 1903, the train carried more than 2,000 corpses a year.
In this talk, John Clarke, the author of the first major history of the Necropolis Railway and guide to Brookwood Cemetery, will discuss the rise and fall of the Necropolis project and the operations of the railway.
Tickets £12 including a Hendrick's gin cocktail.
