Genealogy Chat

Could anyone help with suggestions as to which railway company would likely have been the one that someone living in Greenwich in 1865 would have been employed by? He is listed as a railway porter on his daughter's birth certificate. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you. Sue

Possably the LGR - London & Greenwich Railway or SER - South Easten Railway (Now part of South East Trains) The LGR opened its first section between Spa Road (Bermondsey) and Deptford on February 8, 1836, the line being extended westwards to London Bridge from December 14, 1836; and to a temporary station at Greenwich on December 14, 1838. The present station was opened two years later in 1840, and until the line through Maze Hill to a junction with the North Kent Line just west of Charlton was opened in 1878, Greenwich was the terminus. The layout of the station still partly betrays that fact. The line from London, built on a continuous viaduct, is perfectly straight, but after Greenwich it makes a sharp turn and dips into a tunnel. There also used to be a space between the two tracks for the locomotive 'escape route' to reverse the trains, but this disappeared when the station was reorganised to accommodate the Docklands Light Railway. The London and Greenwich Railway (LGR) and the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway (CWR) in East Kent were the earliest railways to serve the then county of Kent: eventually both became parts of the South Eastern Railway (SER). At Bermondsey there was a junction for the London & Croydon Railway opened in 1839. LT