"Matthew Church" wrote in message
om...

Something else that has bothered me recently. London's first (proper)
railway The London and Greenwich was built *entirely* on a viaduct to
prevent collisions with cattle!? I read somewhere that they had a lot
of trouble with wheels cracking and came up with a radical solution
but can't remember what it was. Amongst the arches around Bermondsey
there must be viaducts from the old railway, anyone from The Old Kent
Road know which is which?

From North Kent West junction (where the Greenwich line leaves the South
Eastern Main (Tonbridge) Line) to just short of Greenwich the two-track
viaduct is the original 1836 viaduct. Between NKWJ and London Bridge the
viaduct was widened in various stages up to 1901, and track use rearranged
on various occasions, most recently in he 1970s. On the approach to London
Bridge the current tracks on the original portion of the viaduct are the No.
5 (Charing Cross) Down and the No. 6 (Charing Cross) Up.

London's oldest station (leaving aside the dubious arguments of Mitcham) is
Deptford, although it was closed between 1915 and 1926.

Peter