24) Here you have something different. This is Clapham Junction, in South London. It is the busiest railway junction in the worid. More than two thousand five hundred trains pass through here every twenty-four hours – that is an average of two a minute all through the day and night. Actually, at the peak period, there is a train passing about every twenty seconds, and it has been worked out that about two thousand passengers ride through the station every minute during the morning and evening peak periods. The trains go between London and the suburbs, and to the South Coast, Portsmouth and the West of England. You can see that Clapham is really two stations – one over on the left, and one on the right. You can see the platforms, roofed in, and the footbridge which connects all the platforms. There is a train going to London – that’s towards the bottom of the picture – and several other locomotives and trains, too.

I suppose one could imagine a railway system without station buildings, but platforms and somewhere to shelter while waiting for the train make travelling much pleasanter