HS1

So this festive season has seen me darting up and down to Kent like a yo-yo! But not for me the usual route to and from Victoria. Nope due to weather and destinations required I have been lucky to experience the High Speed Link to and from St Pancras International. Affectionately known as HS1 or HighSpeed 1 it serves Kent and is designed to making getting to London easier for our overseas travellers.

I do though await for news of High Speed 2!

So what do you get? Well for me a lowly traveller from Sittingbourne I get a few more options of a way into London. However from Teynham I am restricted to one service to London Vic an hour. HS1 is more expensive. You pay for the high speed bit... which is basically from Gravesend to St Pancras International. A trip of now 15 minutes. The rest of the journey is much as before - Rainham, Gillingham (mighty Gillingham), Chatham, Rochester, but here's the split - Strood, Gravesend, Ebbsfleet International, (where you can change for Brussels and Paris which makes me smile) Stratford International and St Pancras International. The trains though are new, clean and the staff seem happier. Everytime I've been on it its been a treat. I especially loved last weekend coming out from under the Thames and there was the St Elizabeth Crossing - and a completely new view of London from the train. New Years Day on the way to Kent seeing the lowest reddy orange moon hanging huge in the sky. Magical. This morning the actual speed made my neck hairs stand on end. I am in England whooshing through it ... on the other hand my proud Kent roots make me wonder if the great scars we have inflicted across the county are worth it - when as a local commuter my train service dwindles to one an hour.

So why this blog? Well it dawned on me today as I got off and walked to the ticket barrier - there are several reasons to be nostalgic when at St Pancras. It was the station I came in and out of for Leicester when I was up there for University. The place where I met what I naively thought was going to be my first and only love all those years ago. If I stand still enough I can see me nervous, immature and bouncing around the station trying to find him. Little knowing what pain he would put me through and how much it would make me the way I am today. Back then the platform was at ground level and a wind used to howl through the archway at the front - where now they are renovating the building to be a hotel/flats.

Liaisons at St Pancras have been numerous. More so than any other station in fact. Somehow though Victoria is really my main way in and out of London to Kent - it has rarely seen many admirers. Obvious it's where I met Lovegod for our first meeting and footie game together. A fellow Gills fan and the start of a hair raising mad 6 months with a younger man! Ha ha. That just seems like an age ago. Yet just a mo ago when Groovejet's Spiller (If this ain't love) mix came on my MP3 I had a flash back and smiled. Why are the Gills so good Hugo?? Gillingham shirts were the rage then too! And perhaps Dr Marc. We met at Victoria. Once. To say good bye I seem to recall. But St Pancras. Well that has oft been the start of many a fun train journey back to Leicester, or walk or car ride across town. And now with it's raised platform and extended station concourse you can see across to Kings Cross. To the dreams of engineers past and present. You can float to the tube. You can meet people away from the howl of that archway. You can look for Sparky's initials carved in the walls and check out the lighting. You can even have a free pee.

You can meet the most important person of you life and take it from there. Highspeed or otherwise.