St Pancras train station

St Pancras London St Pancras International
St Pancras from Euston Road
Data
Location in the network	Long-distance train station
Design	Terminus
Platform tracks	15th
abbreviation	STP
IBNR	7004721
opening	October 1, 1868
Website URL	stpancras.com
Architectural data
Architectural style	Victorian architecture
architect	William Henry Barlow
location
Place / district	St Pancras
London Borough	London Borough of Camden
Part of the country	England
Country	United Kingdom
Coordinates	51 ° 31 '48 "  N , 0 ° 7' 30"  W Coordinates: 51 ° 31 '48 "  N , 0 ° 7' 30"  W.
Railway lines
Midland Main Line High Speed ​​One Widened lines Canal Tunnels (to the East Coast Main Line ) Connection to the North London Line
List of train stations in the United Kingdom

St Pancras train station with clock tower

The neo-Gothic facade and clock tower of the closed Midland Grand Hotel are the most outstanding features of St Pancras train station

St Pancras is one of the main train stations in London . It is located in the London Borough of Camden between the new building of the British Library in the west and King's Cross station in the east. In 2013, 24.298 million passengers used it.

The station is in TfL tariff zone 1 and is the starting point for trains on the Midland Main Line . It is considered an architectural masterpiece of the Victorian era . The main hall, also named Barlow Trainshed after its builder William Henry Barlow , was the largest single arch hall in the world at the time of its construction. In front of it stands St Pancras Chambers , the former Midland Grand Hotel , one of the most impressive examples of neo-Gothic architecture designed by George Gilbert Scott .

business

St Pancras is the London terminus for the East Midlands Railway express trains . These operate to the East Midlands and Yorkshire , including Luton , Bedford , Leicester , Nottingham , Derby and Sheffield . Occasional trains also run to Burton-upon-Trent , Leeds , Barnsley , Scarborough and York .

The station concourse was closed until November 2007 due to extensive renovation work. From April 12, 2004 to July 14, 2006, the trains stopped in a temporary station further north. The platforms in the temporary station were accessible via elevators and escalators. Access to King's Cross St. Pancras Underground Station is under the main hall .

Tracks 11 to 14 are intended for the 225 km / h regional trains to Kent and, during the 2012 Olympic Games, also for the Olympic Javelin shuttle train to Stratford International station with the Olympic village and sports facilities.

Tracks 5 through 10 are part of the High Speed ​​1 line , owned by the Union Railway (North) , and only managed by National Rail . The KVB train protection system is required for these tracks .

Tracks 1 to 4 serve as the terminus of the Midland Main Line and are entirely managed by Network Rail. Train protection and signaling according to British standards are required here.

The international platforms with tracks 5 to 10 are 760 millimeters above the upper edge of the rail (SOK), the platforms intended for national traffic have the standard British height of 915 mm above the SOK.

A new station for the Thameslink trains, which is partly next to and partly under the tracks belonging to HS1, replaced King's Cross Thameslink station on December 9, 2007 . The entrances to the London Underground stations have also been redesigned.

International transport

Since November 14, 2007, St Pancras is the new end point of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link , on which the Eurostar trains to Paris and Brussels run. These use the central tracks 5 to 10 in the main hall. Since special security precautions apply to the Eurostar, it is necessary that passengers check in with their ticket before boarding the train and go through a person and baggage check, similar to an airport. The check-in area provided for this purpose was set up below the platforms, which are six meters above street level. Originally, the vault was used to store beer kegs that were transported here from Burton-upon-Trent . The tracks used by the Eurostar are separated from the rest of the station by glass walls and can only be reached by escalators and elevators from the check-in area.

On October 19, 2010, an Intercity-Express drove into the station for the first time after it had crossed the Eurotunnel. On June 14, 2013, Groupe Eurotunnel SA granted Deutsche Bahn approval for passage as part of a test program. It was planned to offer ICE connections between London and Cologne, Frankfurt and Amsterdam, but this was postponed. Instead, the new Eurostar multiple units are to be used for these routes in the longer term .

history

The construction of the station goes back to the initiative of the Midland Railway . Before the 1860s, this company had numerous routes in the Midlands and north of London, but no route to the capital. Since 1840, the Midland trains ran between a branch at Rugby and London on the route of the London and North Western Railway . With the steady growth in traffic, this route was soon congested and delays were the order of the day.

Around 1845, towards the end of the era of " railway mania ", a new railway line to London was planned. 1846 approved Parliament the route of the Great Northern Railway and in 1847 those of the Midland Railway from Leicester to Hitchin . While the first line was being built, the Midland line had to be postponed due to financial difficulties. Companies in Leicestershire , Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire were exerting pressure to build the line, most notably William Whitbread , who owned 12 percent of the land concerned. In 1853 the parliament approved the revised plan and in mid-1857 the line could be opened. The Midland Railway secured the operating rights for the next seven years. The company now had a route to each of Euston and King's Cross stations .

In mid-1862, the limited capacity of the access lines led to clashes between the Midland Railway and the Great Northern Railway. The Midland Railway took this as an opportunity to build its own access line. The survey work for the 80 kilometer stretch between Bedford and London began in October 1862. However, the company had already started in 1861 to acquire land in the area of ​​the then independent parish of St Pancras .

St Pancras was an unattractive area at the time with slums, a gas works, Regent's Canal and an old church with a cemetery. The Midland Railway chose a site immediately west of King's Cross station as the location for the terminus. The landowners cleared the site for £ 19,500 and evicted the residents who received no compensation for an additional £ 200. The church was demolished and rebuilt piece by piece in Wanstead in 1867 . In 1868/69 a £ 12,000 new building was built in Kentish Town for the parish of St Pancras .

The planning for the station took some time. The gently sloping terrain made construction somewhat difficult and the directors of the Midland Railway wanted to leave a lasting impression on the Londoners with the new building. Chief engineer William Henry Barlow designed the station concourse with a single 74-meter-wide arch, at that time the largest structure of its kind in the world. The design followed purely economic principles, the existing space should be used as well as possible, without disruptive structural elements in between. In front of the hall, space was provided for the front with the hotel, the plan was finally approved in early 1865.

An architecture competition was held for the design of the additional buildings and the hotel. Eleven architects submitted their designs in August 1865. In January 1866, the choice fell on a brick building in neo-Gothic style , designed by the prominent architect George Gilbert Scott . Scott's design was by far the most expensive, costing £ 315,000 to build. But this was definitely in the interests of the Midland Railway directors, as this magnificent building allowed them to surpass all other main stations. The roof was advertised separately and cost £ 117,000.

Construction work began in the autumn of 1864, initially with the construction of a temporary bridge over the canal and the clearing of the housing estates. The foundation stone of the station was laid in July 1866. On October 1, 1868, the station was inaugurated, even if it was not yet completely finished. The first express train to Manchester went to Leicester without stopping . At the time, it was the longest train ride in the world without a stop (156 km).

The Midland Grand Hotel did not open until May 5, 1873. The total cost for the entire station ended up being £ 438,000. The hotel was closed in 1935 and then used as an office building until the mid-1980s. After that, it served several times as a location for film and television recordings, including Batman Begins and the first video of the Spice Girls .

Appropriate planning approval was granted in 2005 for the building that would later be vacant. In May 2011, the Marriott group finally reopened the hotel under the name St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel .

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  Main hall (2008)

• 

  Midland Mainline train at St. Pancras Station (June 2007)

• 

  Eurostar

• 

  British Library and St Pancras Station (southwest elevation)

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  Renovation work at the entrance to the subway station (north-east view)

various

• The station scenes in the Harry Potter films were partially filmed at St Pancras station.
• In Douglas Adams ' novel The long dark five o'clock tea of ​​the soul , the train station is the “earthly” counterpart of Walhall .

Movie

• Railway station cathedrals - Europe's travel palaces. London. (OT: Gares d'Europe, les temples du voyage. Londres. ) Documentary, France, 2018, 43:05 min., Script and director: Jeremy JP Fekete , production: Yuzu Productions, arte France, ServusTV , series: Bahnhofskathedralen - Europe's travel palaces (OT: Gares d'Europe, les temples du voyage ), first broadcast: October 24, 2018 on arte, synopsis by ARD .

Web links

Commons : St Pancras Train Station  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• stpancras.com - St Pancras International
• Departure times and travel information from National Rail

Individual evidence

1. ^ Estimates of station usage. (Excel, 1.1 MB) In: Office of Rail Regulation. 2014, accessed July 28, 2014 . 
2. ^ Keith Fender: DB unveils plans for London services . In: Modern Railways . Vol. 67, No. 747, 2010, ISSN  0026-8356 , p. 68 f.
3. ↑ From Frankfurt to London in 5 hours. In the future, Deutsche Bahn will be allowed to drive through the channel tunnel In: FAZ.net , June 14, 2013.

Previous station	National Rail			Next train station
final destination		Eurostar High Speed ​​1		Ebbsfleet International
				Ashford International
		Southeastern High Speed ​​1		Stratford International
		East Midlands Railway Midland Main Line		Leicester or Market Harborough or Luton Airport Parkway or Luton
Farringdon		Govia Thameslink Railway Thameslink		St Albans City or West Hampstead Thameslink or Kentish Town or Finsbury Park
Future development
final destination		Deutsche Bahn ICE		Ebbsfleet International
Historic railways
final destination		Midland Railway Midland Main Line		Camden Road line open, station closed
		London Midland Region of British Railways		Kentish Town line and train station open