Drink 2/5 Decor 3/5 Food n/a Price 2/5 Atmosphere 3/5 Staff 4/5

IN MY experience pubs near railway stations are at best functional, at worst they are tatty and unwelcoming with miserable bar staff. Well, The Railway in West Wickham, I'm pleased to say, breaks away from this traditional view of the trackside boozer.

With modern art adorning every wall and leather seating, which smells every bit as good as the inside of a Bentley, this is very definitely on the better side of the tracks.

It's a good sized pub with plently of varied seating areas you can hide yourself away for a quiet drink (complete with wafts of leather) or sit among the throng.

To be honest most of the throng looked fairly well-to-do, reasonably advanced in years and more interested in their pasta than their pints which may well have been shandy.

I opted for a pint of Wadworths 6X for £2.52, chose an elevated leather seat and surveyed my surroundings.

I assume it's had a recent makeover and, to be fair, it's been very well done.

The staff were welcoming and pleasant without being overbearing and for alunchtime it was fairly busy.

After consuming a reasonable quantity of Wadworths I decided to use the facilities'.

A small word of warning here; make sure you've mustered enough energy before making the trip.

The toilets were on the far side of the pub and up a fair few stairs also, inexplicably, there were several chunks of wall in the gents which looked as if someone had been trying to punch their way through them.

However, all in all I would say The Railway is one of the best station pubs' I've ever visited.

Should I find myself disembarking from West Wickham station I will definitely revisit this one.