#OnThisDay 167 yrs ago, 25th Jan 1858, a train service began along the two parallel strips of iron laid from Chatham to Faversham, with Rainham, Newington, Sittingbourne and Teynham between. The world changed #OTD for every person in those towns, ever after. So… Happy Birthday to the East Kent Railway, a surprising success story which later became the London, Chatham & Dover. This plucky company’s later extensions took routes through to Elephant, Blackfriars & up through what is now City Thameslink: much of South East London grew because of what began today. (Nice work everyone at @Se_Railway @KentCRP1 @SteveWhiteRail for what you’re doing today!))

Stared here - in silence - with a few others. Then that time travel thing happened again: like it so often does, down by a quiet Thames, when it can feel like the centuries of this city are sliding together. Here on the shore, London of now drifts off into mist, and Old London - an imagined London of ancient paintings and etchings - is suddenly real, right in front with curling woodsmoke and calling birds and then, then it is gone. And I’m not even drunk.

Good morning from London, where at 9 o’clock the low winter sun was splendid and the Thames* was calm as a millpond.