St Pancras

[Penners]

Did anyone see the first half-hour episode of The 800-million pound railway station last night, on BBC2? It's a 6-part series about the restoration/construction of the new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras.

As is mandatory in TV programmes these days, it tended to concentrate on the "human drama" ( :roll: ) of problems that arose - including the architect weeping into his mobile phone (utterly wet and a weed). But if you can mentally filter out the crap, there's some interesting stuff in there.

The second part is tonight, at 10.00pm, BBC2.

 

[Flyfisher]

No, but I saw a news report this evening that said the entire British railway network could have been maintained for 5 years for the cost of this one project, before going on to complain that it would only benefit people in the southeast because it will remain quicker and cheaper to fly to Europe from 'oop north.

I also saw a report that the Waterloo Eurostar platforms are to be mothballed, despite a platform shortage for the region, because they need too much work doing to them to make them suitable for normal use. Unfortunately the article did not expand on the reasons. The platforms looked perfectly OK to me last time I used them. Are they a different height to normal platforms or something?

 

[Nemesis]

it would only benefit people in the southeast because it will remain quicker and cheaper to fly to Europe from 'oop north.

There are special deals being made from oop north.

 

[Nemesis]

it would only benefit people in the southeast because it will remain quicker and cheaper to fly to Europe from 'oop north.

There are special deals being made from oop north.

Yes, I saw it. I felt for the architect - I know what contractors are like! And the end result is wonderful I feel, a Grade I building re-used.


Anyone who hasn't- read Simon Bradley's book on St Pancs.

 

[michael]

Thank goodness they had the opportunity to build onto the existing St Pancras station hotel and station under croft. If they hadn’t, then I think we would have been dealing with a completely different kettle of Fish. Probably an ugly structure that wouldn’t have been much better than the current Euston station, another travesty in our architectural heritage.

In our simplistic, modern architectural world of glass, steel and plastic there is no way they could have created something as magnificent as that original Victorian structure.
Incidentally, why is the new canopy over the platform extensions, flat and square, contrary to the existing Victorian arched structure? A case of a square plug in a round hole I think.

One other point, I’m sure I heard somewhere that there were originally water tanks in the towers of the original hotel with pipe work connections to the railway buffers. The force of a train impacting with the buffers would be contained and controlled by the head of water rising up the building to the tanks. Great those Victorians. Clever and stylish.

 

[Nemesis]

I've thought about the extension, and I think it the right decison not to try to compete with the Barlow span. It's a different structure, clearly of our time, really, and leaves the screen of the Barlow shed looking out onto sky, rather than being enclosed. It doesn't shout for attention. In PPG15 and conservation terms, I think the right approach here.

I think we can make wonderful buildings, I wouldn't deride all contemporary architecture.

 

[DaveBrigg]

I was there two weeks ago and managed to miss seeing any of the old parts of St Pancras. King's Cross was pretty impressive though.
Managed to chat with one of the civil engineers working at Paddington recently. He told me that under the concourse the Victorian toilets still remain. The ladies has been stripped out, but the gents still has some of the Victorian furnishings. All the original plans and designs still exist.
Also under the concourse are the original track beds, from the days when a station was designed for trains to arrive and unload passengers, rather than being a shopping arcade with a transport hub attached. At the end of the track was a mechanical device which moved the rails, holding the engine, sideways. The uncoupled engine could then be backed up a parallel track leaving the coaches in position, without the need for points. The machinery has gone but the fixing points can be clearly seen.
The fire exit from Burger King leads directly into the disused Royal Mail rail tunnel system. This used conveyor belts and mail trains to move mail from Paddington to Liverpool St within 7 minutes, and before being mothballed also transported members of the Royal Family, thereby avoiding the need for road closures and police escorts above ground.
He also said that the impressive King's Cross hotel was so lavishly designed that once the building had been constructed, there was no money left to fit it out inside.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

The fire exit from Burger King leads directly into the disused Royal Mail rail tunnel system. This used conveyor belts and mail trains to move mail from Paddington to Liverpool St within 7 minutes, and before being mothballed also transported members of the Royal Family, thereby avoiding the need for road closures and police escorts above ground.

I hate to be a spoilsport (hmmm), but that one's a myth (unless you can imagine Her Maj lying flat on her back, arms tucked in close, in a little capsule, whistling through a very small-diameter tunnel)
http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/p/post_office_railway/index.shtml
On the other hand, the Victoria Line does run directly under Buck House and, erm, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. :wink: very handy for an evacuation to Brighton, though.

 

[Ian Millington]

On the other hand, the Victoria Line does run directly under Buck House and, erm, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. :wink: very handy for an evacuation to Brighton, though.

Some nights Prince Phillip has been know to use this as a crafty way of visiting the pub when 'er indoors is watching telly.

 

[Nemesis]

Seem to recall GH did some architectural work for HRH on Buck House - but no doubt has signed the Official Secrets Act.

 

[Nemesis]

'For me - and, as I know for many other people - St Pancras Station is a building that exercises the force of life itself. To remove it would be to impoverish not merely a street but a whole quarter of London. If we truly care for what we have inherited from the past, if our love for the Victorian age is real and not just a fashionable craze, then we must find the means to keep it.

Sir John Summerson agrees that the station and hotel should be preserved 'if they can be rendered useful'. It is there indeed that the heart of the problem lies. The demands of the 1860's have changed entirely by the 1960's. A railway exists to handle traffic, or its is nothing. If it can be demonstrated that the traffic of the old Midland Railway can be handled more efficiently and cheaply elsewhere, then St Pancras must cease to be a station. But it cannot remain empty, a vast, useless museum exhibit. Can the hotel return to its original purpose? Given capital, imagination, and technical skill, informed by a kindling enthusiasm, it might well be possible. If the train shed must cease to house trains, let it look back to the rock whence it was hewn. The Crystal Palace is gone. Its poor relation the Alexander Palace is moribund. Why should not Barlow's masterpiece supply some of the facilities they afforded, an epitome and an enduring memorial of the great age that conceived it?'

Jack Simmonds St Pancras Station pub 1968 George Allen and Unwin


'It is impossible to regard the vast buildings and their dependencies, which constitute a chief terminal station of a great line of railway, without feelings of inexpressible astonishment at the magnitide of the capital and boldness of the enterprise, which are manifested in the operations of which they are the stage.

Nothing in the history of the past affords any parallel to such a spectacle.'

Dionysius Lardner, Railway Economy (1850)


http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23418882-details/The+people+who+rebuilt+St+Pancras/article.do

 

[biffvernon]

In the 60s, as a short-trousered trainspotter (before my first anorak), I was impressed with the geraniums. The light levels, unlike in other terminuses, were sufficient for healthy hanging baskets.

 

[Nemesis]

St Pancras International - Europe's Destination Station


A talk by Alastair Lansley, lead architect for the reconstruction and rebuilding of the Victorian gothic St Pancras Station
Date: Thursday 13 December 2007

Time: 18.30

Location: The Royal Over-Seas League, Over-Seas House, Park Place, St James’s Street, London SW1
Cost: £10 including a glass of wine



Within a decade, St Pancras is expected to handle half a million passengers a day. Its transformation includes a modern extension to the Midlands main line, Eurostar platforms, a new Thameslink station serving the north of London and a high-speed commuter service from Kent will be introduced in 2009.

With over 35 years experience in the multi disciplinary design of transport interchanges, Alastair Lansley is Rail Link Engineering’s lead architect and the man responsible for transforming the grade I-listed masterpiece into a world-class station and the London Terminus of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

Please contact elinor@thevirtualpartnership.co.uk to reserve your place and send cheques payable to 'RSA London Branch', to The Virtual Partnership, 98 Elm Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey kT2 6HU. If you have any queries, please contact Elinor Pritchard on 07780 676976.


http://www.rsa.org.uk/fellows/london.asp

 

[Penners]

Well, having watched the second episode of the programme, I'm sorry to say that I was deeply disappointed.

I mentioned the "human drama" stuff in the first episode... well, the second had little else. Virtually no glimpses of the glorious building, or of the details of the work that's been done to conserve and restore it. We just got the usual tedious rubbish showing people shouting at each other, and cliffhanger treatment of the "will the new platforms be ready in time?" situation.

And why did we have to accompany the architect on his visit to the doctor, for goodness sake? OK, I'm sorry the man had a cancer scare, but what has that to do with the restoration of St Pancras?

Shame on you, BBC2. This was an opportunity to have an inside look at one of the most exciting civil engineering projects undertaken in Britain for decades. And all you could manage to give us was an ongoing dispute about which way up a drawing should be read.

I'm disappointed and angry. Maybe I'd make good television.

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

 

[Nemesis]

I'd join you - but I think Grumpy Old Women is already in production, alongside GOM.

A missed opportunity.

 

[Nemesis]

http://fortomorrow.eurostar.com/?paged=2

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Seem to recall GH did some architectural work for HRH on Buck House - but no doubt has signed the Official Secrets Act.

It isn't a secret to reveal that you don't actually sign the Act

 

[Nemesis]

Well - whatever strange initiation rite you enact...

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Well - whatever strange initiation rite you enact...

No, you're getting confused with trouser-rolling and bare moobs...

 

[worms]

It isn't a secret to reveal that you don't actually sign the Act

You used to! As a student I had to sign it each year before going to work for that secretive establishment, the Department of Ag and Fish!