I must have walked past the war memorial on platform one of Paddington station a hundred times or more. It’s a very fine large bronze of a WWI soldier, designed by Charles Sargeant Jagger. He is well wrapped up against the cold and rain, wearing his steel helmet and looking down, reading a letter from home. It is dedicated to all the former employees of the Great Western Railway Company. Each November it is richly dressed with wreaths and poppies.
The last few times I walked past it I saw this large white box, slightly to one side of the memorial. It is illuminated from the inside of the box and rather looks like a discarded large size lampshade from the 1960s. There is even an electric lead plugged into the wall. I didn’t pay any attention to it really. And then the other day I took a closer look and to my surprise found it to be another war memorial to the employees of the GWR.
Up close it lists in fine greyish, difficult to see, print, the names of every former worker who fell, what their job on the railways was, and the date and place they were killed.
The motivation and inspiration for this is clearly beyond any reproach, but the execution, with this rather dull white box, is dreadful. It looks so temporary, so ephemeral and I dare say it won’t last as it has none of the solidity of most war memorials.
The fact is that unless you make a real effort to go up close then you would never recognise it as a war memorial. Most people willt just walk on by.
I would much prefer, and the men who fell would be much better remembered, if their names, jobs and other information were etched into bronze, or perhaps into stone.
Of course, its very easy to be critical. And I am conscious that the GWR, more than any other railway company, does much more to remember its fallen than almost any comparable railway enterprise, or indeed, any other type of commercial enterprise that exists. anywhere in the world.
They have created what must be the most awesome and appropriate memorial you could imagine.
In November 2018 they wrote all the details of the 2,545 men who fell, all those details that are on the giant lampshade on platform one, onto the side of a train and dedicated the whole train to their memory. It was, it is magnificent. The great electric Inter City Express engine, all its steel and sheet metal, pulling its nine sleek coaches, all engraved and dressed with the names and biographies of each of the 2545 men, some with photographs of the fallen
How utterly appropriate. How utterly awesome. The Inter City engine thundering along the permanent way, to Bristol, the Cotswolds and south Wales, along all the lines their employees worked, carrying their names to the towns and villages from where they came. Of course many of the little stations, and the branch lines are long gone, but still, it is so evocative.
One can well image those employees, soldiers now, marching to the trenches knowing many of them will not return but having a smile at the thought they might be so warmly remembered by their successors and colleagues through all the years, on the permanent way, They would be right chuffed!.
So Hats off to the GWR.
Now, how about getting rid of the lampshade. perhaps etch their names into the very surface of platform one , perhaps where Paddington will open up into the new bright and shinning Crossrail terminal, there beside Paddington bear, under the cathedral like canopy of your beautiful railway station.
Broadsides - A collection of bits and pieces 
So many walk on by without seeing, or caring, now John.