© David Meaden

All from Platform 12

Great stuff David.

Surprising how much decoration is in a humble station that we just walk past every day.

Somebody was once supposed to have said "There's no money in railway stations, but we spend more of it on building them than we do building rolling stock!"

And wasn't it some bright spark that said "Who, and after a long journey covered in soot and smelling of burnt coal, would want to stay in a hotel at the end of the line fit for kings that's also covered in soot and smells of burnt coal ?!"

Yet when I was at bording school, the only way back home was to wait for an eternity at a halt made out of a pile of old railway sleepers, a can of creosote and a bucket of sand that stood in for a gents toilet whenever there wasn't a fire to put out and cost little more than my third class ticket to civilisation to build.

And what about the massive concrete coaler at - well exactly where eludes me right now - where the railway company were taking tenders for its demolition before it had even been built "So right Bob (the builder) that's how much it'll cost to build it, so how much to knock it down then?"

"Eh""