Thursday, October 1, 2026

LUPI VIEJO 2026 (BICOL) - PART 2

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Lupi Viejo – A Pleasant Surprise Before The Storm

Every now and then, while wandering around the Philippine railway system in search of history, photographs and whatever remains of my sanity, you find somewhere that genuinely restores your faith in humanity.

Lupi Viejo was one of those places.

Unfortunately, it would also turn out to be the last such place for quite some time.

Before leaving for the Philippines, I spent some time trying to work out exactly how to reach the newly reinstated Lupi Viejo railway station.

The answer was relatively simple: find the turnoff and keep going until either you reach the station or your vehicle lodges a formal complaint.

The turnoff is along the Quirino Highway, roughly seven kilometres north-west of Sipocot. Seven kilometres doesn't sound like much, but rural Philippine distances are measured less in kilometres and more in how many potholes your spine can absorb before surrendering.

Fortunately, the effort was well worth it.

At the end of the road was a charming little railway station surrounded by a wonderfully authentic township, complete with a small plaza, local activity and that relaxed provincial atmosphere that makes these places so enjoyable to explore.

Lupi Viejo itself also contained a surprising amount of railway history.

But the greatest discovery wasn't actually the station.

It was the security guard.

Yes, the security guard.

He saw us photographing the railway, acknowledged our presence and simply allowed us to explore and photograph.

No interrogation.

No suspicion.

No assumption that two people carrying cameras had arrived to overthrow the Philippine government using a railway photograph as a weapon.

We were treated with courtesy.

GASP.

It was almost as though basic human decency was still legal.

The gentlemen we would encounter further north over the following twenty-four hours might have benefited from attending his training course:

"Security Guarding 101 – How Not To Be An Cretin."

A Little Railway History

Lupi Viejo, in the municipality of Lupi, Camarines Sur, is one of the historic stations on the Philippine National Railways South Main Line.

Originally opened in 1931, it formed part of the expanding railway network serving Southern Luzon. Like many stations along the line, decades of declining services and deteriorating infrastructure eventually reduced regular passenger operations to little more than a memory.

Then, in November 2025, the trains returned with the introduction of the Naga–Lupi Viejo commuter service.

Today, Lupi Viejo serves as the northern terminus of the Bicol Commuter network and represents the northernmost point currently reached by regular commuter rail services in the region.

For a railway system that has spent decades being declared dead, dying, abandoned and resurrected several times over, that's actually quite encouraging.

Our visit was therefore a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

We arrived, explored, photographed and left with a very positive impression of both the station and the township.

It is somewhere I would happily return to — assuming I can ever find two tosses to give about railway heritage research in that part of the country again.

For something a little more pleasant, you might also want to have a look at the railway history and operations on Negros.

Unfortunately, Lupi Viejo turned out to be the calm before the storm.

Within the next twenty-four hours, the pleasant railway adventure would descend into a spectacular combination of ignorance, hostility, arrogance and people apparently treating basic courtesy as some sort of dangerous foreign concept.

So enjoy this one.

It is probably the last genuinely positive PNR story in this particular series.

What followed was less railway research and more:

"Oh heck, here we go again."