Terminal Addiction: Circling the Train

It has been quite a while since I went by train to a destination...  somewhere.  The last time I can remember is the 4th of April when I went with 2 of my friends to Portsmouth Harbour and they goddamn well paid for it!  Furthermore, it'll be another week before I have the capital to pay for another one (perhaps), so in the meantime I would like to give my review of all the London Termini I have been through; I have a whimsical fascination of these places - even when it is simpler to avoid them I will still seek them out!

Bear in mind there are 18 stations in the London Station Group, 13 of which I count as Termini to visit (more terminal platforms than through platforms), I haven't been to Moorgate (EDIT:  This station is now closed wrt national rail, so there is only 12 Termini with 1 left) and Charing Cross, .  With all this in mind, I begin in ascending order to my verdict:

London Euston

Oh how the mighty have fallen...  I am loath to say that this station was up there with Paddington, but it had a respectable look to it with it's Great Hall and Euston Arch:

Etch of the Great Hall

Euston Arch, 1896

Platforms, 1962 (Ben Brooksbank)

They took these magnificent, Avant-Garde features, bulldozed them in the 60s and replaced them with these:

Station Exterior, Rush Hour 2.10.2013 (My own photography)

Concourse, taken on the same day, before the blogger ate a burger the size of his face (My own photography)

Not so dingy as I seem to remember, but I dread to wait for the Caledonian Sleeper here (My own photography)

You probably wasn't expecting such a deluge of photography, but I feel quite repulsed by this "renovation"; I am hardly alone too, since I have here some very choice quotes from Wikipedia and other sites:

• "A dingy, grey, horizontal nothingness" - Andrew Martin, New Statesman
• "Opened in 1968, the new Euston certainly reflected the tawdry glamour of it's time" - Gavin Stamp, Apollo Magazine
• "What masterpiece arose on the site of the old station?  No masterpiece." - John Betjeman, campaigner for retention of the old arch

Where is the sense of the start of an epic adventure that the older, Victorian Terminus gives the traveller?  If I wanted to travel by air, London Gatwick is but a train away from Farnborough North, so to argue that it was meant to look like an airport is laughable; Airports completely fail to excite me, and so does this station.

Euston is a tragedy more than anything else, call it a victim of the 1960's blasé attitude towards the classical arts; art can be anything, I suppose...

London Fenchurch Street

Being goddamn careful to avoid a bollocking (My own photography)

Nothing much to say here, looks just like any other London station aside from the fact that it's a Terminus; incidentally, I came through here after visiting Burnham-on-Crouch (and it's remarkable Mangapps Railway Museum, didn't bother with the town :) ) to avoid bus travel, since the route I came there on was subject to engineering works.  Yep, that's how little I can stand buses.

Out towards Shoeburyness and Southend...  hmmm...

The super-compact concourse :D

Outside looks intimidated by Erno Goldfinger's Legacy...

London Cannon Street

This is what I have to make do with thanks to "terrorism" (Wjfox2005, Wikipedia)

One of the more spartan London Termini, with no concourse to speak of and Euston-esque trainshed.  This station is at least halfway over a bridge, so at least that's one notable feature.  Funny how google maps has no images of the interior of this station while most other stations do have such photos; this is probably due to the staff I met there who thought that my photos of the platforms and front of the station somehow made good recon material for nail-bombers...  cunts.

London Charing Cross

I passed this station on my way to the London Transport Museum and I've got to say I'm looking forward to being inside this station, with it's intricate cast concrete details it'd make a fine subject for a Z gauge layout.

Just move that office block and we're good to go ;)

London Bridge

Nuclear footbridge in the distance (My own photography)

This station quite fascinates me - on the one hand we have the greenhouse-like station concourse à la Waterloo, on the other hand we have this gigantic hunk of brown concrete masquerading as a footbridge!

Seriously, I feel like I'm entering Kelvedon Hatch! (My own photography)

Other than that, London Bridge is an average station in terms of London stations, the obligatory coffee shops are there as well as a cornish pasty shop (extreme left):

The sausage rolls are well worth plunderin' from that shoppe! (My own photography)

London Marylbone

I apologize for any blurriness, but this is the Exterior (My Own Photography)

Getting better, it at least it begins to look like a interesting place to wait for a train (or do what I do and grab fast food then scoff it on the train).  Turn of the last century architecture with some modern bits, goes to some interesting places like High Wycombe and Beaconsfield, line ends at Birmingham.

The Concourse, which seems to be unusually cramped for a Terminus this size (My Own Photography)

This station does have some fantastic ironwork, but it's not a very open station given that half the platform area is blanked off by the food court, a confusing decision if you ask me.

Yep, this is the area from which you access the platforms; seems like few people use this station and prefer the WCML to reach Birmingham (My Own Photography)

Admittedly what little roof area remains is well maintained and gives a bright interior which allows those red pillars to properly shine, but even Hull Paragon keeps most of it's platforms open (even though they can take HSTs while most trains have 2 carriages). The thing that strikes me here is that Marylbone has had it's heyday.

I will say that Marylbone is in a nice area, with less skyscrapers contributing to a more friendly feel to the platforms (My Own Photography)

London Liverpool Street

Frame-Laden roof neatly fits in with the positively ancient rolling stock of East Anglia (My own photography)

Class 90s hauling Mk3 stock heading to Norwich (My own photography)

Now we are getting somewhere, we are starting to gain some Architectural Merit, some idea that we are in a place where great journeys begin.  Just as well since it serves East Anglia, a place I would like to go to more often if I can brave the natives ;)

Stepping through the ticket gates to the platforms is like travelling through time here!  (My own photography)

This is all I could capture of the original exterior, it being encroached by modernity.  (My own photography)

London Waterloo

So this is the UK's busiest station?  (My own photography)

It is, apparently.  With over 91 million people moving through in one year, I am genuinely surprised that the platforms are frequently as empty as this; then again I actively avoid rush-hour for fear of being implosively compressed.  Still, I have never seen the concourse of this station in a quiet state, so it should come as no surprise that meeting "under the clock at Waterloo" is a tradition for Lambeth Londoners.

That's more like it! (My own photography)

London Kings Cross

Magnificence, as imagined by Poseidon (My own photography)

When you come into Kings Cross from the London Underground (and notice that St. Pancras shares this station), you expect the exact same place 4472 Flying Scotsman and 4468 Mallard enthroned themselves in history by making their respective speed records of 100mph and 126mph.  Instead, you come to exactly that, encased in this shroud of modernity which is a fantastic building in it's own right.  I'd say that checks out given that it is the longest single-span structure in Europe.

Platforms 9 through 11, local services (My own photography)

Platforms 0-8, with much appreciated clean glass in the roof (My own photography)

London Victoria

Points off for that Euston bit snuggled down under the half-hidden departure board (My own photography)

This is where the Brighton Belle left from; don't believe me do you?  Well, here is some grandeur to go with the train:

Perhaps now you can imagine pullmans being hauled away from here (My own photography)

Victoria is a splendid place, a miniature version of Paddington that seems to feel pissed off at being held back by 'only' going to holiday destinations like Brighton, Bognor Regis and the like instead of Industrial Powerhouses like Bristol and South Wales.  Gatwick Express also leaves from here, when I next fly I may consider buying a ticket from Farnborough Main, taking the loopiest route possible just to travel on it - especially since they now use Class 442 Wessex Electric Stock.

London St. Pancras

ICE train in St. Pancras, can you wait for trains to Germany? (mattbuck, Wikipedia)

I certainly can't, what really clinches the place at number 2 is the underdog story behind this glorious revival.  I couldn't find a copyright-accessible photograph of the station around 1990 to demonstrate the case before the revival, but this steam age photograph circa 1957 isn't much cleaner:

That is indeed a Caprotti-Valved Black 5 (Ben Brooksbank) 

The place where the shops are now was a gigantic Beer Cellar built by the Midland Railway, bet they couldn't have been sparkling either.

The Grade 1 Listed Midland Hotel, £325 a night in July 2013 (My own photography)

London Paddington

Best for last and all that; ladies and gentlemen, London Paddington!

... (My own photography)

I don't feel I even need to comment; the imperious iron roof, the gargantuan platforms and the sheer scale of the station all speak for me!

The platforms are a happy accident of the station's tenure as a Broad Gauge Terminus, 7 feet and 1/4 inches was the gauge so you can imagine how massive the trains would have been; they also reputedly averaged speeds of 50mph in service... in 1840!

Perhaps more humble is this view from the Circle Line Platforms (My own photography)

Fit to be a royal palace methinks...

Just to prove that this really is Paddington :D

Conclusion

I appreciate that most of these photographs are not mine, and where possible I sourced them from wikipedia under creative commons (in the links).  I hope to rectify this by adding my own photographs as I revisit these stations, as well as add the stations I have omitted as I visit these places.  Overall, I look forward to both completing my long-overdue photos of these places and visiting Moorgate in particular, which at 2 terminal platforms, is probably London's Smallest Terminus (EDIT:  Ahh, how dreams can be so callously dashed...).

Just for fun, let's end on a panorama shot of Paddington :)