St Pancras railway station

“ St Paul’s Station on the Holborn branch is also terminal in part. (4) Eastern. The principal terminus of the Great Eastern Railway is in Liverpool Street (City) , but the company also uses Fenchurch Street (City) , the terminus of the London, Tilbury & Southend railway, and St Pancras. These lines, especially the southern lines, the Great Eastern, Great Northern and South-Western carry a very heavy suburban traffic. Systems of joint lines and running powers are maintained to afford communication between the main lines. ”

“ Stephen's. Turning the corner by the gates of Palace Yard, I saw Parnell, ahead of me, cross the street and enter the railway station. He took an eastbound train. I was just in time to catch the same train but not to catch him.
He alighted at the next station, Charing Cross. So did I, intent on overtaking him. But there was {244} a blocking crowd at the exit stairs where tickets were collected, and he was away first. Up Villiers Street I followed him to the top at the Strand, where he turned into the South Eastern Railway station. This was interesting. ”

“ It was about eight o’clock on a certain November evening in the year 188-, that I found myself one of a number of passengers disgorged from a train on the platform of the St Pancras Station. I was just turned nineteen years of age, and this was the first time I had set foot in London. My journey had been a long and tedious one, and I was thoroughly chilled and worn out when I stepped out of the carriage. ”

“ Several streets were done away with, and the introduction of the station may be called the date point of the many town improvements that have since been carried out. The station, and the tunnels leading thereto, took seven years in completion, the opening ceremony taking place June 1,1853. The iron and glass roof was the largest roof in the world, being 1,080ft. long, with a single span of 212ft. across at a height of 75ft. from the rails. This immense span has since been surpassed, as the roof of the St. Pancras Station, London, is 243ft. from side to side. The roof of Lime Street Station. ”

“ And the large white granite station, with iron and glass roof, more resembles an aviary than a railway terminus, the sparrows assembling there in multitudes on the tie-rods, and chattering in almost deafening fashion. In those very considerable intervals between the coming and going of trains one may stand on the platform and not be able to hold a conversation, owing to the sparrows. ”

“ Thus have perished multiform openings for public expressions of interest, scenical yet natural, in great national tidings,—for revelations of faces and groups that could not offer themselves amongst the fluctuating mobs of a railway station. The gatherings of gazers about a laurelled mail had one centre, and acknowledged one sole interest. But the crowds attending at a railway station have as little unity as running water, and own as many centres as there are separate carriages in the train. ”

“ The new central railway station at Frankfort on the Main is one of the most imposing structures of modern times, not only as regards its dimensions, but also because of the effect which its architectural proportions produce upon the eye. Nobody looking at the long line of buildings surrounded by gigantic perron halls can help being impressed with their grandeur. ”

“ Pancras is now traversed by two lines of railway—more regard being paid to the 'sleepers' above than to the sleepers below. Passing trains ever and anon cause this resting-place of the dead to tremble violently as if by earthquake. ”

“ And here I'm standing in the open air!
Long is my dreary journey up to Town,
That is, alive, if ever I get there.
Oh! from the weather, when it snows and rains,
You might as well, at least, defend the poor;
It would not cost you much, with all your gains:
Cover us in, and luck attend your store.
[Pg 28]
A CAUTION
No wonder Miss Lavinia Stitchwort thought the people very rude at the station when she went for her "water-proof" (which she had lost on the railway some time before) . She found out when she got home she had not removed the "unclaimed property" label!
[Pg 29]
Nervous Party. ”

“ Blue Anchor station must in its time have misled many strangers, for where a railway station is, there one expects a town, or village, also. But here is a void, an emptiness, a vacuum. Only a solitary bay is disclosed before the astounded stranger’s gaze. It is a noble bay, it is true, and commands lovely views of the great North Hill at Minehead, with Dunster nestling midway; and the sunsets are magnificent. But railway companies don’t build railway stations merely for the convenience of those few people who would take a journey especially for sake of a view or a sunset ”

“ That charming writer Gustave Droz has said that railways are at once the symbol and the outcome of the vulgarity of the age; and that whoever lets himself be shot through space like a parcel through a tube, and condescends to eat in a crowd at a station buffet, cannot by any possibility retain dignity of appearance or elegance of manners. The inelegant scrambling and pushing, and elbowing and vociferating of a modern railway station form an exact and painful image of this restless, rude and gregarious century. ”

“ Among the numerous railway bills which Ordish and Le Feuvre brought into parliament, was one for constructing a line from Hampstead to Charing Cross, which, however, was lost in the notable year 1866, when railway enterprise was arrested throughout England.
He was entrusted by Mr. W. H. Barlow with the details of the roof of the London terminus of the Midland railway at St. Pancras. It cousists of an arch of 240 feet span, springing from a. level slightly below the platform, and is the largest work of the land in existence. ”

“ Thompson had appointed to meet me this morning in the Limerick station, from which we were to start together for his home at Shaunganeen, but as he was coming from the south, and I from Castle Connell, our trains did not fit in, and I had to wait nearly three-quarters of an hour. What can be done in a railway station, unless one dreams? ”

“ No railway company builds a large station for the express purpose of serving one farmhouse, and this is simply another instance24 of that intelligent anticipation of events for which railway companies are now showing an unwonted aptitude. Time was when the companies would tardily provide station accommodation ten years or so after the appearance of a thronged suburb, and then only after being memorialised to do so ”

“ On the Metropolitan Line, 667 trains pass a given point in one direction or the other during the eighteen hours of the working day, or an average of 36 trains an hour. At the Cannon-street Station of the Southeastern Railway, 527 trains pass in and out daily, many of them crossing each others' tracks under the protection of the station signals. Forty-five trains run in and out between 9 and 10 A.M., and an equal number between 4 and 5 P.M. Again, at the Clapham Junction, near London, about 700 trains pass or stop daily ”

“ And thus, when a train starts on a journey of it may be hundreds of miles, it is signaled on from station to station, and "lives along the line," until at length it reaches its destination, and the last signal of "train in" is given. By this means an immense number of trains can be worked with regularity and safety. On the Southeastern Railway, where the system has been brought to a state of high efficiency, it is no unusual thing during Easter week to send 570,000 passengers through the London Bridge Station alone; and on some days as many as 1200 trains a day. ”

“ Lord John Russell is welcome to them, if he likes.
Every passenger in the second or third class is to be allowed to carry a dark lantern, or a penny candle, or a safety lamp, into the train with him, as the directors have kept the public in the dark quite long enough.
No train is to travel slower than an omnibus, let the excursion be ever so cheap, or the occasion ever so joyful.
Cattle are to be separated from the passengers as much as possible, as it has been found, from experiments, that men and oxen do not mix sociably together.
No stoppage at a railway station is to exceed half an hour. ”

“ Down below it, indeed, and in direct communication, is the railway station, on the sands, beneath the cliffs. There is a forthright, downright manner about the railway company which rather challenges admiration, even if the slowness and unpunctuality of its trains and the filthiness of its carriages evoke our disgust. The Company seems to say, “You want to go to the seaside at Ramsgate?” ”

“ A PHOTOGRAPH. There are two railway stations in Sparkton, which is a town of sufficient size and importance to have two different railway companies competing for its patronage; and this circumstance rendered it all the easier for me to escape without leaving traces for any pursuers to follow. The train by which I intended to go to London would not leave until about two hours later than Miss Smith's train to the north, and did not start from the same station. ”

“ The last station, Peterborough, presents an instance of a city without population, without manufactures, without trade, without a good inn, or even a copy of the Times, except at the railway station; a city which would have gone on slumbering to the present hour without a go-a-head principle of any kind, and which has nevertheless, by the accident of situation, had railway greatness thrust upon it in a most extraordinary manner. ”

“ The railway station was at once the market, the park, the amusement hall, the shipping center, the business section, the social resort, the lounging place, the nursery and playground of all Montvale. The railway track, with the path beside it, was the main and only street of the “place.”
Just as the traveler was wondering if they were going to tramp down to the next station, the leader said, “Out this hyer way,” turning off to the right, through a sea of white-topped weeds. ”

“ In this respect public feeling has greatly changed, for now no railway is thought complete which has not a terminus in the heart of London; and it is considered an advantage for houses to be within easy reach of a railway station ”

“ Lose time in the customary manner, and allow the train to arrive at the stated station half an hour late. Permit the passengers to descend and to enter the refreshment-rooms. The moment they are served, drive them back hurriedly into the carriages with the threat that if they are not immediately seated in their places they will be left behind. When the passengers are once more in their compartments, the carriage-doors should be securely locked, and the train can then remain waiting beside the platform for three-quarters of an hour. ”

“ Mitcham station, beside the road, is a curious example of what a railway company can do in its rare moments of economy; for it is an early nineteenth-century villa converted to railway purposes by the process of cutting a hole through the centre. It is a sore puzzle to a stranger in a hurry. ”

“ The tyranny of the railway station will then be to a large extent mitigated, and suburban or country residents will no longer be practically compelled to crowd up close to each station on their lines of railroad. Under existing conditions many of those who travel fifteen or twenty miles to business every day live just as close to one another, and with nearly as marked a lack of space for lawn and garden, as if they lived within the city. ”

“ Yet the huge railway station was as full of people as ever. One could see no difference between this dreariest of days and the sunniest, so far as the crowd was concerned, except that fewer of the people wore fine clothes; perhaps, also, that their faces looked a little more sombre and weary than usual.
There is no place in the world where human nature shows to such sad disadvantage as in waiting-rooms at railway stations, especially in the "Ladies' Room." ”

“ Pancras Station, and booked for the station nearest Tom Temple's home. Although it was Christmas Eve, I found an empty first-class carriage, and soon comfortably ensconced myself therein. I don't know why, but we English people generally try to get an empty carriage, and feel annoyed when some one comes in to share our possession. I, like the rest of my countrymen are apt to do in such a case, began to hope I might retain the entire use of the carriage, at least to Leeds, when the door opened, and a porter brought a number of wraps and shawls, evidently the property of a lady. ”

“ District Railway, commenced in 1863 and opened in 1868. The line runs in a curve underground from Sloane Square, crossing Ebury Street at Eaton Terrace, and Buckingham Palace Road at Grosvenor Gardens. From the Underground Station a subterranean passage leads to the Victoria terminus, the starting-point of the London, Brighton, and South Coast and London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Companies. The present station, which has no pretension to architectural beauty, is being greatly enlarged and partly rebuilt. ”

“ It has been well said that a railway station is a fit emblem of human life, with its brief merriment and grief, its greetings and good-bys, its clamor of coming and going.
[Pg 9]
Be this as it may, it is probable that of the half a thousand people in the Lowell Depot that morning, but few abandoned themselves to moral reflections. Certainly Tom Percival was not occupied with philosophical meditation, as he stood on the lowest step of the car “Kamloops,” looking out eagerly over the crowd that surged to and fro on the platform beside the train. ”