The end of the line

Disembarking I note what a strange hotch potch of past and future this place is. The fortfied site built by people with ologies in the 1980s neighbours the end of the line for a once Great network from before the 1880s.

Nowadays a lone ticket machine serves the rather pathetic north circular tracked equivalent (and all things considered I'd rather be by the river at the other end).

The magnificent old ticket hall is now a museum: a beautifully preserved building with lovingly presented memorabilia - tickets, signs, crockery.

Hard to believe that anyone other than the oddest of odd explorer would actually venture here; to pass it you'd either be running to/from anonymous urine-soaked, grafitti-etched trains or sitting in that queue of cars. Impressively surreal.

Uninspired yuppie suicide blocks are now encroaching on the waterfront, visible through the rubble and barbed wire of unloved council estates: a tracksuit on every corner along with the occasional police cordon.

I'm a firm believer that in London the transport connections are key. Getting back on my ghost train I can't help but feel that things will have noticeably and expensively changed in two year's time. Being able to get a seat on a train that only takes 15 minutes to reach Europe's newest financial capital and 25 minutes to reach its oldest?

It may be the end of the line but it's not quite the end of my journey...