A-Z Day 21: Railways

R is for: rainbows, rats, relativity, raffia, renaissance, Rome,  rants and, best of all, railways.

I love  rail travel, which is just as well, given that as one of that rare breed - a non-driver, I do an awful lot of it; at minimum one -  sometimes up to three times a week. The staff at our local station are beginning to recognise me! 

Part of the reason I'm so fond of it is because of the space it gives me; I do some of my best thinking on good old FGW, Cross-Country, South-Western, and, on very special occasions - Arriva Wales. There are curiosities to discover: like the labyrinth installations  on the London Underground, the Paddington Statue on Paddington Station. Nearer to home, I'm pleased to report that the memorial plaque to young Henry West is now safely back in its place of honour on Platform 7.

Much much further afield is the spectacular scenery along the famous West Highland Line, where Mr GP and I spent a wonderful day as part of our grand hike from the North of England to Oban, four years ago. If you ever have the chance to visit the Western Highlands, please, please don't leave the area without booking a trip; you'll be in for a truly memorable experience, I promise.

It's getting late, so I'll leave you with today's musical treats: Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, (whose playing once inspired Mr GP to learn the flute) in Locomotive Breath, and the old favourite: Love Train by the O'Jays.

Where is Henry West?

Horrors! Albeit I've spent  half my life this month on the train, I've only just noticed that the memorial plaque to poor Henry West, has become  a casualty of the Reading Station redevelopment project. It's vanished from its usual place on Platform Seven. I checked behind the trolley park, even wondered if he might be hiding behind two newly installed vending machines, but, sadly, the nail holes in the wall beside them gave the game away. Young Henry, him of the fulsome and flowery epitaph, has vanished as completely as the 1840 whirlwind which claimed his life. Funnily enough I'd been reading about the building of the first rail stations earlier in the day at an exhibition in Woking, another town that came about directly as a result of the setting up of the new rail network and which provided one of the early routes into London.  Ah well, there's always his memorial at St Lawrence's Church, but I do hope they replace the notice somewhere on the station once the work is completed. It seems fitting, somehow, that as our transport services move further into the 21st century, we should still remember those who helped set them up in the very beginning.