It was a bitter winter afternoon in London as I made my first descent into the glistening maw of the refurbished Paddington railway station. A major stop on the new 118-kilometre-long Elizabeth Line, traversing the metropolis from east to west, Paddington was opened by the line’s royal namesake as part of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations last May. HHR was given an Oyster travel card and shown how to use it – although no sightings were made of the monarch navigating the pristine tunnel system in the four months before her death, aged 96.