Monday, October 01, 2018

Happy birthday St Pancras


St Pancras railway station opened 150 years ago today.

To those of us who remember it in the 1970s - grimy, with few catering facilities and GPO vans tearing through its centre - its recent transformation is little short of miraculous. Most of all, the restoration of the station hotel.

These days if I am in London for the day, I naturally think: "I can have something to eat at St Pancras on the way back." You wouldn't have formed that thought 40 years ago.

The only people to have lost are those of us who use the place for its original purpose: catching a train to Sheffield or the East Midlands.

We face a long walk to reach our platforms and little in the way of comfort when we get there. These days at St Pancras, just like everywhere else, if you are not spending money you are nobody.

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