This was the route i commuted on for nine years, to Waterloo, not knowing that 18 years later i would join BR and five years later drive this route. Retired now, but enjoyed my time on the railway and met my wife through the railways as well.
Enjoyed this! Have used this route for nearly 40 years, so it's nice to see it from the front window! Great that you captured the rebuild of London Bridge station part way through reconstruction; scenes like this are soon forgotten. Amazing job to rebuild the station whilst keeping trains running. Thanks for uploading this video. 👍
I remember my father working the old signal boxes that were displaced by Dartford power box, sadly his signing out signature was the last on many a lever box up and down the Kentish lines, Cuxton Down, Sole Street, Longfield, Charlton, Northfleet, Gravesend to name a few and he kept all the original workings books and panel parchments from quite a lot of them too. BR did promise him a main starter signal from Cuxton but he never got it. As a signalman he was an enigma, even with promotion he maintained his passing out's on boxes as until E grade he was a relief-man and because he was picture perfect on so many boxes he was often called to boxes where no one was available due to sickness such as working Strood/Rochester/Gillingham when he was at Wimbledon A.
Ian Watson Cuxton still exists, but is little more than a crossing box (recently converted from gates to barriers) with a handful of signals (now colour light) in each direction. All the sidings are long out of use, sadly
I too commuted this line, Sidcup to London Bridge, from 1964 to 1966. Not long, but my formative years of 16 to 18. Interesting to see that some (city) stations have changed but the majority has not. The carriages were very different in my day, I remember a double-decker set that ran Into Cannon Street in the am peak. I have now lived in Sydney for nearly sixty years som this was fascinating to watch.
The camera was not able to be mounted where the wiper swings across on this particular journey. These are due to be refilmed imminently due to the changes that have happened around Bermondsey
@@emmo999 apparently the reasoning for metro cammells dissapeaance is that gec alsthom closed the factory due to asbestos issues and the workers where falling ill due to it, and gec alstjom didn't receive enough government funding to fix the asbestos problem, so they had no choice but to close metro cammell down
It is a fairy sad story as metro cammell had 150 odd years of history. Is it true that there is a large networker model at slade green depot, because I remember seeing a blue liveried large model is it used in training purposes
@Solomon Clarke yeah that was weird, maybe the cameras positioning didn't record the motor sound very well. Because the driver cab is directly above the traction motors. And there was a ton of wind blocking out the sound.
Really? I recall the Bexleyheath line being rather chavvy, other inner sections of the. Woolwich/Greenwich line are much nicer, Woolwich is up and coming, Charlton isn’t too bad either, Blackheath and Greenwich are fancy and Deptford is rather trendy, the Sidcup line has a more 1930s surburbia vibe
