St Pancras Intl

[MidnightFlyer]

I was there on there on Saturday, looking around, wondering, did it actually need to be done up that much for Eurostar and going international. Waterloo seemed to cope alright with no major reconstruction. To be, being honest, it feelds like a posh sopping centre more than a railway station. . How about you guys?

 

[TheBigD]

I used to work at St Pancras in the early 1990's and yes, it did need money spending on it. Stunning building but signs of decay were everywhere, especially in non public areas.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Thanks, I feel its lost a sense of Britishness (even if to me the beautiful building does look Russian!), with all the fancy shops and public art etc (that statue of the kissers is godawful). Anyobne know where I can find photos of the STATION pre-redevelopment, I never got the chance to go down before they did the work

 

[tbtc]

did it actually need to be done up that much for Eurostar and going international. Waterloo seemed to cope alright with no major reconstruction

Putting Eurostar into Waterloo was a case of putting an additional couple of platforms into a station with dozens of other platforms

Putting Eurostar into St P meant tripling the size of the station, which required a fair bit of construction

Put it another way, if Waterloo was meant to be the permenant home for Eurostar, it'd have had a few quid more spent on it

 

[blackfive460]

St. Pancras probably did need to be done up for Eurostar but I can't help but feel that it could have been done so much better had they decided that it was going to be a railway station rather than a shopping mall with trains tucked away here and there.
People have been raving about it since it was finished but I had my first visit earlier this year and was less than impressed with the signage; I was trying to find the South Eastern bit (easy next time, just head for the larger M&S and you are nearly there) and as for Eurostar... Well, maybe it's nicer when you get through the gates (I should find that out in October) but what do you do if you have a while before your train is available for check in? Ah, of course, you are supposed to go and pay for an extortionately priced coffee to get somewhere to sit.
I wonder if the Kings Cross 'improvements' will be any better?

 

[EM2]

Just get a 99p coffee from Pret

 

[Wyvern]

It's the rental on shopping space that pays for the renovation.

It will the same with Birmingham New Street, also probably Notts and Derby

 

[MidnightFlyer]

EMT MML plats are easy to find, as are the TL, but SEHS is really poorly signed, and even though you caan get trains from there to Lyon, Avignon, Brussels and Paris, they didn't actually have a copy of the MML timetable when I looked on Saturday

 

[gordonthemoron]

I think the E* departure lounge at Waterloo was better than the one at St.P

 

[TheBigD]

...I wonder if the Kings Cross 'improvements' will be any better?...

Doubt it. Retail outlets bring in rent etc. Waiting rooms don't!

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I know there isn't a proper designated one on KGX, but is there a waiting room on STP? There's one on EUS I know

 

[gordonthemoron]

they should have more pubs, the Sir John Betjeman is good but a bit out of the way for most platforms at St.P

 

[MidnightFlyer]

they should have more pubs, the Sir John Betjeman is good but a bit out of the way for most platforms at St.P

Isnt where the concourse is now (under the platforms) where they used to store beer for the pubs?

 

[jopsuk]

Waterloo bascially had a whole extra station added to the side of it...

If it wasn't for the problems of land prices, money etc a better solution (from a "travelling by rail rather shopping" perspective) would have seen a whole new international terminal in the same area, with the EMT and SET platforms actually inside the old St Pancras.

 

[Invincibles]

I find that the new St Pancras gives much more of a sense of arrival at a meaningful destination than the old design. Because you have to walk the length of the trainshed to get to the underground from the MML platforms you really do get to see the size of the place.

When it used to just be MML there the train would arrive right up to the end wall and you would see very little before heading out on to Euston Road. Waiting for trains to go north was better but as others have said the thing was decaying a fair bit anyway.

While shops might not be everyones idea of what should be on a railway station the way it is done at St Pancras is not offensive and does not detract from the overall station (you could bring two platforms in where the undercroft is "opened up" to let light down to the lower level but MML has 4 so would not have fit) because at platform level they are not particularly visible.

Overall more platforms for MML would have been good but there was limits on the space available and making more use of the land between St Pancras and Kings Cross (there would be room for one or two more SET platforms on that side I think from looking at the overall redevelopment of the area plans) would not have eased the issues for MML.

 

[shinkansen1966]

Put it another way, if Waterloo was meant to be the permenant home for Eurostar, it'd have had a few quid more spent on it

Reckon that when Waterloo was being adapted for Eurostar, they did think it would Eurostar's permanent home.

 

[142094]

If you look at the plan for railways stations these days they are much more than simply somewhere to get on and off a train. A lot of money can be made from the rent from food/coffee/fashion/etc shops, and it seems like Network Rail are taking this revenue more seriously than say 10 years ago. A lot of stations have quite a lot of space which isn't used for anything else so shoving in a Starbucks stall or something similar means extra money for not a lot of work.

 

[Wyvern]

Isnt where the concourse is now (under the platforms) where they used to store beer for the pubs?

Yes. The dimensions of the undercroft as it was known, support pillars etc, is said to be based on the dimensions of a beer barrel.

 

[Aictos]

If you look at the plan for railways stations these days they are much more than simply somewhere to get on and off a train. A lot of money can be made from the rent from food/coffee/fashion/etc shops, and it seems like Network Rail are taking this revenue more seriously than say 10 years ago. A lot of stations have quite a lot of space which isn't used for anything else so shoving in a Starbucks stall or something similar means extra money for not a lot of work.

Which is why Peterborough gained a Starbucks where the old doors to the Platforms from the Cafe used to be.

Now if only they got on with providing a second entrance on the signalbox side of the tracks with a footbridge/lifts like Sheffield has then it will slowly be fit for purpose, providing of course they put in pick up/drop off points on that side as traffic can be worse the London at the front and that's from a former London bus driver!!!

 

[John Webb]

As someone who used St Pancras pre-electrification of the line to Bedford, I can confirm that it was badly in need of work even in the mid-1970s. The refurbishment of the original trainshed is excellent - the additional platform canopy in front is appallng, however and grossly detracts from the original Barlow shed by reason of its flatness and solidity. I'd have preferred to see something lighter in weight and preferably echoing the curves of the original.

 

[At_traction]

that statue of the kissers is godawful

Yes, but her derriere is accentuated very nicely.

It's the rental on shopping space that pays for the renovation.

They could rename the station "St. Pancras Shopping Centre (for London and Eurostar)"...
At the station website I guess the image links tell the management's preferred order of things: "Eat - Drink - Shop - Travel".

But it might indeed be better than a smoky cast-iron hulk in terms of facilities and "contemporarity of visual ambience". And more job for my profession.

I find that the new St Pancras gives much more of a sense of arrival at a meaningful destination than the old design. Because you have to walk the length of the trainshed to get to the underground from the MML platforms you really do get to see the size of the place.

Having been forced to walk endlessly once with a 30 pound rucksack from the Underground in search of left luggage (of course at the absolute end as seen from the LU), I may not personally like the idea of purposefully distancing the station from its connections elsewhere in the city. St. Pancras just seems so extreme an application - at Paddington or Euston, for example, the retail is inserted without a requirement for any additional trekking to the LU and bus connections (King's Cross is a bl**dy mess, so no comment on that. )

 

[Geezertronic]

I've done the Northern/Victoria Underground walk to Platform A/B (forget which one it is now ) to catch a service to St Albans and yes, it's a bit of a walk depending on which exit you take out of the Underground station but it's not too bad

 

[b0b]

I loved the old St Pancras in the 90s, sure it was in a bad state and pretty felt abandoned at the weekends, but you could feel a very genuine sense of history walking through the building.

 

[LE Greys]

I've dug up my old pictures from the beginning of the rebuild (not scanned in unfortunately) and the station looked decidedly shabby and unkempt. In fact, it looked as though it hadn't been cleaned since the last Royal Scot pulled out of it in 1962, and the roof-glass was the post-war version (meaning much less than in the original station). The platforms were very dark and badly needed resurfacing.

It's a pity they can't expand on the other side of Midland Road, or even move the road over about fifty yards (space for 3-5 more platforms) but I think there is too much on the other side to divert it. The only real alternative would be to dig some more platforms out at Thameslink level, although they would have to be electric only (assuming that the MML gets electrified at some point). The idea would be to fill in the gap, closing off the undercroft again, and extend Platforms 2&3 to increase space for international services.

It's only just been finished and I already want to rebuild it.

 

[EM2]

Let's start with the flat roof:
St Pancras is a Grade 1 listed building. That means that *every* change that they want to make to it must be approved by English Heritage.
They insisted that the original facade of the Barlow Shed must be visible from existing viewpoints (eg. from the NLL near Camden Road and from Primrose Hill & Hampstead Heath), so it was for this reason that a flat extension was chosen.

Moving onto the Undercroft:
As was previously stated, this was the original storage area for beer from Burton, and as was also mentioned the pillars and alcoves are three barrels wide. This was pretty much derelict before the rebuild.
If this hadn't been renovated where would the thousands of customers using the station be able to congregate (especially large tour groups using E*)?Remember that is it now a station serving four TOCs, not one as previously, and even that one original TOC has seen a massiv eincrease in passenger numbers, so there was a need for a massive increase in passenger facitilites.

The connections:
It's hardly St. P's fault that the Underground is where it is. Nor is it St.P's fault that the alignment for the Thameslink route is where it is. If anyone can come up with a better alternative, then I'm sure the DoT would have been glad to hear it.

The signage:
I really can't see how anyone struggles with it. My wife came into St. P for the first time (and she rarely travels by train), yet she managed to find her way to the ticket office to meet me.
Follow signs for National rail, then they separate into signs for the individual TOCs nearer their platforms. or use the touch-screen information points.

 

[38Cto15E]

As a life long resident of Leicester, I've had my station hijacked.
The trains used to arrive and depart from within 50 yards of Euston Road and the Tube, now if you have an Advance ticket at the country end of the train you're nearly in Kentish Town.

Concentrating just on the MML, the new barriers make it a bit of a scramble once a train is advertised for boarding, with having just the 4 platforms it is very hectic in the waiting area as trains have to be turned round quickly.
The seating is very poor, the lounge is a long walk away, as is the pub.

In February I returned home from Asia, it was very warm in Asia and extremly cold in London. I arrived at STP well before my 2125 EMT train to leicester, so I decided to have a nice hot cuppa in the Cafe nearest the platform, I think it may be called Camden something.
Well I soon got cleared out of there as it was nearly 2100, I had to sit outside in the freezing cold on those stupid Alloy seats, enough to freeze the ***ll***s off a brass monkey.
Damn eurocrats have nicked my station.

 

[LE Greys]

Let's start with the flat roof:
St Pancras is a Grade 1 listed building. That means that *every* change that they want to make to it must be approved by English Heritage.
They insisted that the original facade of the Barlow Shed must be visible from existing viewpoints (eg. from the NLL near Camden Road and from Primrose Hill & Hampstead Heath), so it was for this reason that a flat extension was chosen.

Pity they didn't insist on Midland-style columns under the flat roof, or at least on painting the columns to match the trusses under the arch (that pastel blue colour). As it is, they're stark white and slowly turning a grimy ochre.

 

[Lampshade]

It's a nice station to arrive at, I arrived on the MML platforms and you actually feel as if you've arrived somewhere rather than at Euston where it's just another station. However, I couldn't find the Southeastern platforms at all when I first went, to the point where I concluded they didn't exist.

 

[blackfive460]

However, I couldn't find the Southeastern platforms at all when I first went, to the point where I concluded they didn't exist.

I'm glad to hear it wasn't just me!

 

[mrcheek]

I used to think that the sheer distance between different areas of St Pancras (eg the MML platforms and the Tube) was a bad thing.

But, when I think back, it brings back fun memories of me sprinting through the station to try and catch a connection. And bear in mind, I am a fat git who never exercises.