European Railroad Discussion > European Railway Stations Part 25

I posted most of the great London stations in my previous "Where is it?" series. Here's one that has clear identification...the current Euston Station. It is by far the least attractive of all London stations...at least of the one's I've seen. And the waiting room and track area isn't any better. Second photo is what's left of the original structure. Apparently the rest of it lies at the bottom of the Thames. 

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I'm always amazed how people witter on about the old Euston. It was a low roofed, rabbit warren of a station which had evolved piecemeal over 130 years, totally unsuitable for the amount of traffic which the modernised West Coast Mainline promised (and delivered). It had two architectural features, the Great Hall, which was also bang in the middle of the complex, and the decorative Doric Arch, which fronted Euston Road, the stones of the latter are supposedly in the River Lea, in East London. Whilst it was certainly possible to have saved the arch and erected it elsewhere the question you ask is, why? It's not a Greek or Roman artifact, it's an early 19th century pastiche. And how you could have kept the Great Hall and incorporated it into a modern station sympathetically, whilst maintaining an efficient circulation of passengers is difficult to envisage. What is not in dispute is that architecturally the replacement Euston was, and remains, pretty uninspired. But just because it is a poor design doesn't make what it replaced very much better.

I think both Bruce and Nick have summed up my thoughts on Euston. The one we knew prior to modernisation was dreadful, and replaced by the miserable edifice that's there today. I can never understand why it never gets in the shortlist of UK's worst stations. It should be there in the top five. It is such a dump I can't even follow up Bruce's photos of Euston, because I don't have any!! Best things at Euston are 1)  the exit,  and 2) the beer Taps outside.  chris uk.

I seem to recall there being beer taps inside as well.
Very interesting place for the afternoon peak period.
Graham.

Having never been in the old Euston I can't make a true judgment.  Like some other stations, perhaps some of the facade and certainly the arch of the station could have been incorporated into the new design. Many modern stations I've posted here look far more appealing. A worse example is the current Penn Station in New York City. Track layout was kept in tact. But the building destroyed and replaced by an underground rat (and now homeless) hole that makes Euston look good by comparison. To make matters worse, the new Madison Square Garden (actually a round building) was built above. Now antiquated, the city of NY want's it gone for different development.  On a positive note, the old post office building, same design as the original, is planned to be new Amtrak station at some point.  Thankfully, many of the other large stations in London have been preserved and even improved. St. Pancaras being a prime example. When I first saw it in 1999 it was down on it's heals. Now a beautiful station with original architectural elements preserved but the addition of retail, restaurants, and a high end hotel which actually uses most of the original hotel building. 

Many London terminal stations have had their air rights sold, the result being similar to Penn Station; Victoria (Brighton side), Fenchurch Street, Cannon Street, Charing Cross & Liverpool Street (south side) have all suffered although the circulating areas have generally been left untouched. Other than St Pancras the most complete London stations are Waterloo, Paddington, Marylebone and maybe best of all, King's Cross. In terms of modern station architecture London Bridge and Blackfriars are both good examples, especially the former, although it was sad to lose the semi-elliptical roof over the Brighton platforms.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/20 13:50 by 86235.