Our series of railway-themed photographs continues to chuff along on the Peeps into the Past Facebook page – and this week featured this delightful cartoon postcard, titled The Last Train from Alton.

Quite what the significance was and the date we didn’t know – so we threw it out to the online Peeps community, and almost wished we hadn’t!

Quick as an express train, Tony Deadman pulled into the comment section to confirm the charming Alton scene was in fact part of a series of national postcards, all featuring the same design.

“Not from Alton but there seems, in the first 10 or so years of the 1900s, to have been a spate these,” he said. 

“There are plenty on eBay. They have that common comic theme: ‘The Last Train/ Tram/ Car From...’ – perhaps advertising the popularity of the town as a tourist day-trip destination that people are reluctant to leave, putting it off to the last scheduled train, then finding there’s a shortage of carriages. A bit like the Last Train from Mumbai.”

I expect there will be reminiscent scenes in a few weeks – but more likely at Waterloo, with London workers rushing to catch the last train back to lovely Alton for the Christmas holidays!