St Pancras railway station (since 2007 also known
as
St Pancras International) is a major railway
station situated in the United Kingdom that is celebrated for its
Victorian architecture.
The Grade I listed
building stands on Euston Road
in St Pancras, London
, between the British Library
, King's Cross station
and the Regent's
Canal. It was opened in 1868 by the Midland Railway as the southern terminus of
that company's Midland Main Line,
arriving from the East Midlands and
Yorkshire
. At the time of opening, the arched
Barlow train
shed was the largest single-span roof in the world.
After avoiding demolition in the 1960s, the complex was
renovated and expanded during the 2000s at a cost
of £800 million with a ceremony attended by
HM The Queen and
extensive publicity introducing it as a public space.
A security-sealed terminal area was
constructed for Eurostar services to
Continental Europe—via High Speed 1 and the Channel Tunnel
—along with provisions made for domestic connections
to the north and south of England. The restored station
houses fifteen platforms, a shopping mall and bus station, in
addition to London Underground
services from King's Cross St Pancras tube
station
. St Pancras is owned by
London and Continental
Railways along with the adjacent
urban regeneration area known as
King's Cross Central.
Background
The
station is the terminus of East
Midlands Trains for services from London to the cities of
Derby
, Leicester
, Nottingham
, Sheffield
, and smaller towns in between. The station provides
direct passenger interconnection with Eurostar’s high-speed services to Paris
, Brussels
and Lille
, and
First Capital Connect trains
on the cross-London Thameslink route,
which stop at platforms beneath the station and offer services
going south to Gatwick Airport
and Brighton
, or north as far as Bedford
. Domestic services to Kent (run by
Southeastern) are
running preview services since 29 June, full services are due to
start in December 2009.
St Pancras is often termed the ‘cathedral of the railways’, and
includes two of the most celebrated structures built in Britain in
the
Victorian era. The main
train shed, completed in 1868 by the engineer
William Henry Barlow was the
largest single-span structure built up to that time. The frontage
of the station is formed by St Pancras Chambers, formerly the
Midland Grand Hotel (1868–1877), an impressive example of
Victorian gothic
architecture.
Location and layout
St Pancras station occupies a long thin site orientated north
south.
The
south of the site is bounded by the busy Euston Road, with the frontage along that road provided by the
former Midland Grand Hotel. Behind the hotel, the main
Barlow train shed is elevated 6 m (20 ft) above street
level, with the area below forming the station
undercroft.
To the west the station is bounded by Midland
Road, with the new British Library on the other side of the road. To the east the
station is bounded by Pancras Road, with King's Cross
station on the far side of the road. To the north is
King's Cross Central, formerly
known as the Railway Lands, a complex of intersecting railway lines
crossed by several roads and the
Regent's
Canal.
The main entrance from St Pancras
Road
The upper level of
The
Arcade, looking south under Barlow's roof, just after opening
to the public and just prior to Christmas 2007
The platforms used by Eurostar extend back into Barlow's train
shed, whilst the other platforms terminate at the southern end of
the extension. The Eurostar platforms do not occupy the full width
of the Barlow train shed, and sections of the floor of this area
have been opened up to provide natural light to the new
international concourse, named
The Arcade, that lies
below. This has been fashioned from the undercroft and runs the
length of the Barlow train shed to the west of the Eurostar
platforms. Arrival and departure lounges lie below these platforms,
and are accessed from the international concourse.
The southern end of
the international concourse links to the western ticket hall of the
King's Cross St Pancras tube
station.
The various domestic service platforms, both above and below ground
level, are accessed from a new street level domestic concourse,
named
The Market, that runs east west across the station
below the point where Barlow's train shed meets the new extension.
The domestic and international concourses meet at a right angle.
The main
pedestrian entrance to the station is at the eastern end of the
domestic concourse, a location that will eventually link to the
planned new concourse for King's Cross
station and the planned northern ticket hall for the tube
station. However until these are completed, access to the
tube station for domestic passengers involves either an outdoor
walk to the main ticket hall, or a walk of similar length along the
concourse of the international station to the western ticket hall.
Eurostar trains in the renovated train shed, January
2008
At the south end of the upper level of the station, a nine-metre
high, 20-tonne bronze statue named
The Meeting Place
designed by British artist
Paul
Day is intended to evoke the romance of travel. A nearby statue
of
John Betjeman, gazing in apparent
wonder at the Barlow roof, recognises his successful campaign to
save the station in the 20th century.
History
Requirement for a new station
The interior of the Barlow Trainshed,
circa 1870
St Pancras clocktower rises above
tenement blocks in King's Cross in the 1980s.
The station was commissioned by the
Midland Railway. Prior to the 1860s, the
company had a concentration of routes in the Midlands and north of
London but not its own route to the capital.
From 1840, Midland
trains to and from London ran from Euston using the London and North Western
line via a junction at Rugby
. Congestion and delays south of Rugby
quickly became commonplace as services expanded.
A new London line was proposed around 1845, towards the end of the
period of speculation later dubbed "
Railway Mania".
The Great Northern line
was approved by Parliament in 1846 and a Midland Railway spur from
Leicester to Hitchin
was agreed in 1847. While the Great Northern
line was constructed, the Midland spur was quietly abandoned in
1850 due to financial problems.
Pressure from businesses in Leicestershire
, Northamptonshire
and Bedfordshire
(notably from William Whitbread,
who owned roughly 12% of the land over which the line would run)
revived the spur scheme. The line was re-presented to
Parliament and approved in 1853. Building began quickly but did not
proceed at any great pace: the line was opened in mid-1857. The
Midland Railway secured initial running power for seven years at a
minimum of £20,000 a year. The Midland Company now had two routes
into London, through Euston and King's Cross, and traffic quickly
expanded to take advantage, especially with the coal trade, with
the Midland Railway transporting around a fifth of the total coal
to London by 1852.
In mid-1862, due to the enormous traffic for the second
International Exhibition,
the Great Northern and the Midland companies clashed over the
restricted capacity of the line. This was regarded as the stimulus
for the Midland Company to build its own line and surveying for a
49.75-mile (80 km) long line from Bedford to London began in
October 1862.
However, the Midland Company had been buying
large portions of land in the parish of St
Pancras since 1861.
Closeup view of the clock tower
St Pancras was an unprepossessing district, with notorious slums.
The
area's other landmarks were the covered River Fleet
, Regent's Canal, a
gas-works, St
Pancras Old Church
(after which the district is named), and an old
church with a large graveyard. For the terminus the
Midland Railway chose a site backing
onto New Road (later Euston
Road) bounded by what are now Midland Road and Pancras
Road, a few hundred yards to the east of Euston and immediately to the west of
King's Cross station. The initial plan was to take the station's
approach tracks under the canal in a tunnel, as was done for King's
Cross, although the churchyard and the gas-works were added
problems.
(Thomas Hardy,
then a junior architect before he turned to literature, supervised
the exhumations.) The site was occupied by housing, the estates of
Somers
Town
and the slums of Agar Town
. The landlords sold up for £19,500 and
cleared out the residents, without compensation, for a further
£200.
The
church was demolished and a replacement built for £12,000 in
1868–69 in Kentish
Town
. The demolished church, St Luke's, was
re-erected piece by piece in 1867 as a Congregational church in Wanstead
, and still exists (now a United Reformed church).
The
company intended to connect from the site through a tunnel (the St
Pancras Branch) to the new Metropolitan Line, opened in 1863 running
from Paddington
to Farringdon Street
below the Euston Road, providing for a through
route to Kent
.
Design and construction
The sloping and irregular form of the site posed certain problems
and the Midland Railway directors were determined to impress London
with their new station.
They could see the ornateness of Euston
, with its famous arch
; the functional success of Lewis Cubitt's King's
Cross; the design innovations in iron, glass and layout
by Brunel at Paddington; and, significantly, the single span roof designs
of John Hawkshaw being built at
Charing
Cross
and Cannon Street
.
The initial plan of the station was laid out by
William Henry Barlow, the Midland's
consulting engineer. Barlow persuaded the company to modify its
original plans, raising the station 6 m (20 ft) on iron
columns, thus providing a usable undercroft space and also allowing
the approach tracks to cross the Regent's Canal on a bridge rather
than a tunnel. The single span roof of 74 m (243 ft) was
a collaboration between Barlow and
Rowland Mason Ordish and was the
greatest built up to that time. It allowed the station to make
maximum use of the space beneath without obstructions. A space for
a fronting transverse hotel was included in the plan and the
overall plan was accepted in early 1865.
A close-up of some of the intricate
decoration used in the station
A competition was held
for the actual design of the station buildings and hotel in May
1865. Eleven architects were invited to compete, submitting their
designs in August. In January 1866 the brick
Gothic revival designs of the
prominent
George Gilbert Scott
were chosen. There was some disquiet at the choice, in part because
Scott's designs, at £315,000, were by far the most expensive. The
sheer grandeur of Scott's frontage impressed the Midland Railway
directors, achieving their objective of outclassing all the other
stations in the capital. A subsequent financial squeeze trimmed
several floors from the frontage and certain ornateness but the
impressive design largely remained.
Construction of the station, minus the roof which was a separate
tender, was budgeted at £310,000, and after a few problems
Waring Brothers' tender of £320,000 was
accepted. The roof tender went to the
Butterley Company for £117,000. Work began
in the autumn of 1864 with a temporary bridge over the canal and
the demolition of Somers Town and Agar Town. Construction of the
station foundations did not start until July 1866 and delays
through technical problems, especially in the roof construction,
were commonplace.
The former Midland Grand Hotel at the
front of St Pancras railway station
The graveyard posed the initial problems - the main line was to
pass over it on a girder bridge and the branch to the Metropolitan
under it in a tunnel. Disturbance of the remains was expected but
was, initially, carelessly handled.
The tunnelling was especially delayed by
the presence of decomposing human remains, the many coffins
encountered, and a London-wide outbreak of cholera leading to the
requirement to enclose the River Fleet entirely in iron. Despite this the
connection was completed in January 1867.
The company was hoping to complete most essential building by
January 1868. The goods station in Agar Town received its first
train in September 1867, but passenger services through to the
Metropolitan line did not begin until July 1868. However, the
station was not finished when it opened, to little ceremony, on
1 October. The final rib for the trainshed
roof had been fitted only in mid-September and the station was a
mass of temporary structures for the passengers.
The first train, an
express for Manchester
, ran non-stop from Kentish Town
to Leicester - the longest non-stop run in the
world at 97 miles (156 km).
The
undercroft of the station was used to store beer barrels brought by train from Burton-upon-Trent
, a major brewing town served by the Midland
Railway.
Work on the Midland Grand Hotel did not begin until mid-1868.
Designed by architect
George
Gilbert Scott and with construction in a number of stages, the
hotel did not open to customers until
5 May
1873. The process of adding fixtures and
fittings was contentious as the Midland Railway cut Scott's
perceived extravagances and only in late 1876 was Scott finally
paid off. The total costs for the building were £438,000. The hotel
building initially appears to be in a polychromatic Italian Gothic
style – inspired by
John Ruskin's
Stones of Venice – but on a closer viewing, it
incorporates features from a variety of periods and countries. From
such an eclectic approach, Scott anticipated that a new genre would
emerge.
Following construction services were provided by the
Midland Railway. This was a period of
expansion as the major routes to Manchester, Nottingham, Sheffield
and Carlisle opened.
Grouping, nationalisation and privatisation
The 20th century did not, on the whole, serve St Pancras station
well. The
Railways Act of 1921
forced the merger of the Midland with the
London and North Western
Railway (LNWR) into the
London, Midland and
Scottish Railway (LMS), and the LMS adopted the LNWR's
Euston station as its principal London
terminus. The Midland Grand Hotel was closed in 1935, and the
building was subsequently used as offices. During the
Second World War, bombing inflicted damage on
the train shed, which was only partially reglazed after the
war.
At the creation of
British Railways in
1948, the previous LMS services continued to run. Destinations
included the London area services to North Woolwich, St Albans and
Bedford. Long distance services reached Glasgow, Leeds, Nottingham,
Sheffield and Manchester, with famous named trains including:
The 1960s
electrification of the WCML
between London and Manchester saw the Manchester Pullman running from St
Pancras via Derby and Matlock. These trains and those to
Glasgow were withdrawn following the completion of the rebuilding
of Euston and the consolidation of these services.
By the 1960s, St Pancras station came to be seen as redundant, and
several attempts were made to close the station and demolish the
hotel (by now known as St Pancras Chambers). These attempts
provoked strong and successful opposition, with the campaign led by
the then
Poet Laureate,
John Betjeman.
During the sectorisation of British Rail in 1986, mainline services
were provided to the East Midlands by the
InterCity sector (Midland
Division), with London suburban services to St Albans, Luton and
Bedford being provided by
Network
SouthEast.
It was during this period (in 1988) that the
Snow Hill
tunnel
re-opened resulting in the creation of the Thameslink route and the resultant diversion of
the majority of suburban trains onto the new route. However
the station continued to be served by trains running on the old
Midland main line to Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield, together
with a few suburban services to Bedford and Luton. This constituted
only a few trains an hour and left the station underused and
empty.
Following the
privatisation of British Rail,
the long distance services from St Pancras were franchised to the
Midland Mainline, a
train operating company owned by the
National Express Group, with
a franchise start date of 28 April 1996. The few remaining suburban
trains still operating into St Pancras were operated by the
Thameslink
train operating company, owned by
Govia, from
2 March 1997.
Midland Mainline had initial plans for regular trains from St
Pancras to Newcastle and Manchester but these were quickly and
quietly dropped. A handful of trains to and from Leeds were
introduced, mainly because the High Speed Train sets were
maintained there and were already running the route but empty from
Sheffield.
During the 2000s major rebuild of the
WCML history repeated itself with St Pancras hosting
trains to Manchester, this time via the Hope Valley route, under
the title of Project Rio.
A new role is planned
New signage at St Pancras reflects the
international status of the station
The
original plan for the Channel Tunnel Rail
Link (CTRL) involved a tunnel from somewhere to the south-east
of London, and an underground terminus in the vicinity of Kings Cross
station
. However a late change in the plans,
principally driven by the then Secretary of State for
the Environment Michael
Heseltine's desire for urban
regeneration in East London
, led to a change of route, with the new line
approaching London from the east. This opened the
possibility of reusing the largely redundant St Pancras station as
the terminus, with access via the
North London Line that crosses the throat
of the station.
The idea of using the North London line proved illusory, and it was
rejected in 1994 by the then
transport secretary,
John MacGregor, as
difficult to
construct and environmentally damaging.
However the idea of
using the underused St Pancras station as the core of the new
terminus was retained, albeit now linked by 20 km of specially
built tunnels to Dagenham
via Stratford
.
London and Continental
Railways (LCR), which was created at the time of British rail
privatisation, was selected by the UK government in 1996 to
undertake the reconstruction of St Pancras, the construction of the
CTRL and the takeover of the British share of the
Eurostar operation,
Eurostar (UK). LCR has
had ownership of St Pancras station since the privatisation of
British Rail in order to allow for the station's redevelopment to
take place. Financial difficulties in 1998, and the collapse of
Railtrack in 2001, caused some revision of
this plan, but LCR retain ownership of St Pancras station.
The design and project management of reconstruction was undertaken,
on behalf of LCR, by Rail Link Engineering (RLE), a consortium of
Bechtel,
Arup,
Systra and
Halcrow. The original reference design
for the station was by
Nick
Derbyshire, the former head of
British
Rail's in-house architecture team. The master plan of the
complex was by
Foster and
Partners, whilst the lead architect of the reconstruction was
Alistair Lansley, a former
colleague of Nick Derbyshire recruited by RLE.
In order to accommodate the unusually long
Eurostar trains, and to provide
capacity for the existing domestic trains to the Midlands and the
proposed domestic services on the high speed rail link, the
existing station train shed was extended a considerable distance
northwards, by a new flat roofed shed. As extended the station was
planned to feature 13 platforms under this extended train shed.
Services
to the East Midlands would use the
western platforms, Eurostar services would use the middle
platforms, and domestic high-speed services to Kent would occupy
the eastern platforms. The Eurostar and one of the Midland
platforms would extend back into the Barlow train shed. Access to
the Eurostar platforms for departing passengers would be via a
departure suite on the west side of the station, and then to the
platforms by a bridge above the tracks within the historic train
shed. Arriving Eurostar passengers would leave the station by a new
concourse at the north end of the station.
This original design was later modified, with access to the
Eurostar platforms from below, utilising the station undercroft and
allowing the deletion of the visually intrusive access bridge. By
dropping the extension of any of the Midland platforms into the
Barlow train shed, space was freed up to allow wells to be
constructed in the station floor, which provided natural daylight
and access to the undercroft.
The station is rebuilt
The reglazed and repainted Barlow
trainshed in September 2007
Shortly before the station rebuild commenced, the overhead wiring
used by the electric suburban trains was removed, in order to allow
construction to start on the eastern side of the train shed
extension.
As a consequence, all suburban trains from
Bedford and Luton were diverted to Kings Cross
Thameslink
and beyond, and the Thameslink train operating
company ceased to serve St Pancras for a period. (In fact
these trains only used St Pancras if there was engineering work
further south on the Thameslink line.)
By early 2004, the eastern side of the extended train shed was
complete, and the Barlow train shed was closed to trains. From 12
April 2004, Midland Mainline trains terminated at an interim
station occupying the eastern part of the extension immediately
adjacent to the entrance.
As part of the construction of the western side of the train shed
extension, which now began, a new underground 'box' was constructed
on the Thameslink route, which at this point ran partially under
the extended station. This box was intended to eventually house new
platforms for the Thameslink service.
In order for this to
happen, the existing Thameslink tunnels between Kentish
Town and King's
Cross Thameslink
had to be closed between 11 September 2004 and 15
May 2005 while the works were carried out. As a result,
Thameslink services from the north terminated in the same platforms
as the Midland Mainline trains, while services from the south
terminated at King's Cross Thameslink.
After the blockade of the route was finished, the new station box
was still only a bare concrete shell, and could not take
passengers. Thameslink trains reverted to their previous route, but
ran through the station box without stopping. The budget for the
Channel Tunnel Rail Link works did not include work on the
fitting-out of the station, as these works had originally been part
of the separate
Thameslink 2000
works programme. Despite lobbying by rail operators who wished to
see the station open at the same time as St Pancras International,
the Government failed to provide additional funding to allow the
fit out works to be completed immediately following the line
blockade. Eventually, on 8 February 2006,
Alistair Darling, the then Secretary of
State for Transport, announced £50 million worth of funding for the
fit-out of the station, plus another £10-15 million for the
installation of associated
signalling and other lineside works in
the area.
In 2005 planning consent was granted for a refurbishment of the
former Midland Grand Hotel building, which will be refurbished and
extended as a hotel and apartment block.
By the middle of 2006, the western side of the train shed extension
was completed, and on 14 July 2006 the Midland Mainline trains
moved from their interim home on the east side to their ultimate
home on the west side of the station.
According to a
BBC 2 series broadcast in
November 2007, the rebuilding cost was in the region of £800
million, up from an initial estimate of £310 million.
The international station opens
From 30 October to early November 2007 Eurostar conducted a testing
programme in which some 6000 members of the public were involved in
passenger check-in, immigration control and departure trials,
during which the 'passengers' each made three return journeys out
of St Pancras to the entrance to the London tunnel.
On 4 September 2007,
the first test train ran from Paris Gare du Nord
to St Pancras. Children's illustrator
Quentin Blake was commissioned to
provide a huge mural of an "imaginary welcoming committee" as a
disguise for one of the remaining ramshackle Stanley buildings
immediately opposite the station exit.
St Pancras station was officially re-opened as
St Pancras
International, and the High Speed 1 launched, on Tuesday 6
November 2007, by
HM
The Queen accompanied by her consort,
HRH The Duke of
Edinburgh.
During an elaborate opening ceremony, Henry Barlow, played by actor
Timothy West, addressed the audience,
who were also entertained by the
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
and the singers
Lemar and
Katherine Jenkins. In a carefully staged
piece of railway theatre, the first
Class 395 train set and two
Eurostar train sets arrived through a
cloud of
dry ice in adjacent platforms
within seconds of each other.
There are ticket barriers to all the international platforms of
different design to those in general use in the national railway
stations. This is partly due to the different standards of ticket
size and magnetic strip placement.
The Meeting Place
Public service by Eurostar train via the completed High Speed 1
route started on 14 November 2007. In a small ceremony, station
staff cut a ribbon leading to the Eurostar platforms.
The layout of the station is essentially as designed, although the
platforms for the high speed link to Kent will remain unoccupied
until that service starts in 2009. In the same month that the
station opened, the station's traditional services to the East
Midlands were transferred to a new franchisee,
East Midlands Trains.
The low
level platforms for the Thameslink services opened on 9 December
2007, and at the same time the former King's
Cross Thameslink station closed. Since Thameslink trains last used St
Pancras station, the franchise had changed hands (on 1 April 2006)
and services were now operated by
First Capital Connect. While platforms
for High Speed 1 domestic services opened on 29 June 2009 for
Southeastern Highspeed 'preview' services.
Since June 2009, tickets have been required to access all platforms
in the station, with the East Midlands Trains platforms the last to
have barriers installed.
Services
Domestic
East Midlands Trains (Midland Main Line)
From the
11 November 2007, St Pancras International is the terminus of the
Midland Main Line and the services
operated by East Midlands
Trains, with routes to the East
Midlands and Yorkshire regions of England
. Towns and cities served include Luton
, Bedford
, Wellingborough
, Kettering
, Market Harborough
, Leicester, Loughborough
, Nottingham, Derby, Chesterfield
and Sheffield. Occasional trains also run to Newark
, Lincoln
, Doncaster
, Wakefield
, Leeds
, York
and
Scarborough
.
There are
currently four services an hour (three fast, one stopping) to
Leicester
station
, half hourly services to Nottingham
station
, half hourly services to Derby
station
(with hourly continuations to Sheffield) with
interval stops as mentioned above. There is a fifth
train each hour which calls at intermediate stations to Corby
station
and peak times to/from Melton
Mowbray station
calling at Oakham
.
First Capital Connect (Thameslink route)
The new Thameslink platforms at St
Pancras
On 9
December 2007, as part of the Thameslink Programme, St Pancras
International gained platforms on the Thameslink network operated by First Capital Connect (FCC), replacing
the King's Cross Thameslink station further down the line. In line with
the former station, the Thameslink platforms are designated A and
B. The new station has met with some criticism due to the extended
length of the route from the Thameslink platforms to the
underground when compared to Kings Cross Thameslink.The Thameslink
Programme involves the introduction of 12-car trains across the
enlarged Thameslink network, and as extending the platforms at the
existing King's Cross Thameslink station was thought wholly
impractical (requiring alterations to the Clerkenwell tunnel and
the
Circle/
Hammersmith & City/
Metropolitan Underground lines, which would be
extremely disruptive and prohibitively expensive), a new Thameslink
station was proposed, to be situated under the existing St Pancras
station. There are ticket barriers to the Thameslink
platforms.
The
station allows passengers to travel to destinations such as
Bedford, Luton
and St Albans
in the north, and to places like Wimbledon
, East Croydon
and Brighton in the south. There are also direct
services to London Gatwick
and London Luton
airports. The Thameslink Programme will
enlarge the Thameslink network more than threefold from 50 to 172
stations.
After the
bay platforms at London Blackfriars
closed in March 2009 Southeastern services which previously
terminated at Blackfriars were extended to Kentish Town (off-peak),
or to St Albans, Luton or Bedford (peak-hours only), calling at
this station. Trains services south of Blackfriars are
operated by Southeastern, north of Blackfriars by First Capital
Connect. Both Southeastern and FCC drivers cover the route from
Bedford to Sevenoaks.
Southeastern (High Speed 1 and Kent Coast)
The Southeastern platforms shortly
after the launch of the High Speed Preview service to Ashford
Southeastern
run High Speed Domestic services at on
High
Speed 1 and up to on normal speed tracks in Kent, allowing
passengers from travel to London in 37 minutes. High-speed services
go to , , , , , , , Ashford, Ebbsfleet and other Kent
destinations.
The first domestic service carrying passengers over
High Speed 1 ran on 12 December 2008, to mark
one year before regular services were due to begin. This special
service carrying various dignitaries ran from Ashford International
to St Pancras.
Southeastern have provided a service since 29 June 2009, starting
with a week day preview service between London St Pancras and
Ebbsfleet, extending to Ashford International during peak hours. On
7 September 2009 Southeastern extended the peak time services to
Dover and Ramsgate and on 21 November 2009 Southeastern introduced
services to Faversham. From 13 December 2009 a full commuter
service is planned.
International
Eurostar (High Speed 1)
Eurostar train at St Pancras having
just arrived from Brussels Midi
The full
Eurostar timetable came into
operation on 9 December 2007.
The basic service provides 17 pairs of
trains to and from Paris
Gare du Nord every day,
10 pairs of trains to and from Bruxelles-Midi/Brussel-Zuid
, and 1 train to and from Marne-la-Vallée
for Disneyland Paris
. Additional services run to Paris on
Fridays and Sundays, with a reduced service to Brussels on
weekends.
Additional weekend leisure-oriented trains
also run to the French Alps during the
skiing season, and will run to Avignon
in the summer.
Trains
observe a mixture of stops at four intermediate stations (Ebbsfleet
International
, Ashford International
, Calais-Fréthun and Lille-Europe
) with some trains running non-stop. Non-stop
trains take 2 hours 15 minutes to Paris, and just under 1 hour 50
minutes to Brussels, with stopping trains taking 5 or 10 minutes
longer depending on whether they make one or two stops.
Service patterns
Platform usage
| Platforms |
Operator |
Use |
| 1–4 |
East Midlands Trains |
Mainline services to Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln,
Sheffield, Corby, Leeds etc |
| 5–10 |
Eurostar |
International services to Paris and Brussels |
| 11–13 |
Southeastern |
High Speed to Kent Coast |
| A-B |
First Capital Connect |
"Thameslink" Bedford and Luton to Brighton and Sevenoaks |
Future developments
St Pancras station spires; in the
foreground is the trainshed when it was undergoing renovation
Midland Grand Hotel extension under
construction
From
December 2009, Southeastern services
to Kent over High
Speed 1 will run a full service to the Kent
Coast.
A
five-star hotel operated by
Marriott International will
occupy parts of the original hotel, including the main public
rooms, together with a new bedroom wing on the western side of the
Barlow trainshed. Though originally scheduled to open in 2009, the
Marriott Renaissance St Pancras has been delayed to 2011. The
apartments, which are being developed by the
Manhattan Loft Corporation, are
starting to occupy the majority of the upper floors of the main
block of the original hotel.
Eurostar is only considering calling at Stratford
International
as the first stop from St Pancras International,
once the Docklands Light
Railway extension is completed. Presently there is no
fixed connection between the International and domestic (Regional
) stations at Stratford. The DLR extension is
due to be completed in 2010.
In 2011, the pedestrian
subway
under Pancras Road from the eastern entrance of the St Pancras
domestic concourse, built as part of the station extension, will be
opened.
This will connect St Pancras International
station to the new northern ticket hall of the King's Cross
St. Pancras tube station and the new concourse of King's Cross
railway station, both of which are currently under construction and
due to open in that year.
During
the 2012 Olympic Games, St
Pancras International will be the terminus for the "Javelin", a seven-minute duration shuttle
service designed to ferry spectators between the Olympic
Park
in Stratford and Central London.
In 2010, the European railway network will undergo a liberalisation
that will allow greater competition. Both
Air France-KLM and
Deutsche Bahn have indicated their desire to
take advantage of the new law to run new services via High Speed 1
that will terminate at St Pancras.
King's Cross St Pancras tube station
King's Cross St Pancras tube station is the station on the London
Underground serving both King's Cross and St Pancras main line
stations in the London Borough of Camden. It is in Travelcard Zone
1.
Major
work is ongoing at King's Cross St Pancras tube
station
to link the various station entrances to two new
ticket halls for London
Underground and reduce overcrowding.
Fictional uses
Notes and references
- Official name of the station according to the
Department of Transport, released in response to a
Freedom of Information Act
request at Whatdotheyknow.com retrieved
2008-12-02.
- Official name of the station according to the
London Borough of Camden released in response to a Freedom of
Information Act request at Whatdotheyknow.com retrieved
2008-12-02.
- (After Lord Palmerston vetoed Scott's Gothic
designs for the Foreign Office) "At St Pancras, however, Scott got
his chance. This time he decided to play down the Italian element.
The polychromy is still there, but the skyline is no longer
rectangular but syncopated, no longer Italian but Dutch or Flemish;
and some of the details are Early English or Early French. The
Cloth
Hall at Ypres is the origin of the station entrance tower;
Oudenaarde town hall probably supplied
the inspiration for his gabled and pinnacled hotel entrance; the
mouldings around the great entrance are Early French; the
first-floor oriel windows incorporate distant echoes of Bishop
Bridport's tomb at Salisbury Cathedral; other windows just
as clearly, are Anglicised Venetian. With a pedigree like that —
Pugin,
Ruskin and
Viollet-le-Duc — no wonder Scott
thought his design 'almost too good for its purpose'." J Mordaunt
Crook, The Dilemma of Style, John Murray, London 1989
p93
- "Classic and Gothic will probably run on for many years
collaterally ... til at length ... they will unite in style
infinitely more Gothic than Classic" Scott, Secular and
Domestic Architecture, 1858 p277 cited in Mordaunt-Crook
- "The 800 Million Pound Railway Station"
http://www.my-bbc.com/program/The+800+Million+Pound+Railway+Station/
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3618213.stm
- The Independent Cover-up! Quentin Blake drafted in to hide
'unsightly' buildings, 21 October 2007
- 'New station sets the standard' 10 December
2007
- First Capital Connect site on St Pancras
International
External links
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