The Queen opens refurbished St Pancras Station
 

The Queen will open the refurbished St Pancras station later today, and next week Eurostar services will transfer there for services to France and Belgium.

There is a good report on the BBC website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7080278.stm, including a tour of the building and an interview with the architect.

I went today to be one of the guineapigs in their testing of systems. The station is every bit as imposing as the rave reviews say it is:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...s.architecture

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/archi...206075,00.html

The "undercroft" space where the freight used to be stored is now converted into the Eurostar check-in and departure lounges, combining exposed brickwork and cast-iron columns with woodblock floors, glass and steel and slate in the fashionable Docklands warehouse look. Waterloo seems cramped and tired in retrospect - not to mention the Gare du Nord.

Some photos at:

http://tinyurl.com/29c77k

The new line replaces a leisurely tour of the back-garden sheds and washing-lines of south London with a swoosh through anonymous concrete tunnels and cuttings and much briefer glimpses of lines of pylons marching across the warehouses and containers of Rainham and Dagenham. Even more depressing for arriving visitors must be the fact that, whereas on the approach to Waterloo you see the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye (for quite a long time if there's a queue to get into the station), on the run-in to St Pancras you see nothing of note and only the briefest glimpse of the towers of St Pancras Chambers at the last minute. On the other hand, getting into the tube is a much more "legible" process: and, once again, there is space for everyone.

But the users of existing national services aren't too happy at being a bit displaced:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/st...190280,00.html

Oh, and from 9 December, the First Capital Connect services from Gatwick and Luton will switch to St Pancras as well:

http://www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk...?iCmsPageId=77

I saw this building a couple of weeks ago (lower stories still scaffolded) and it was quite impressive and fantastical looking. Does anyone know what use is made of the upper floors? Was it always a railway station, or did it have some other purpose in the past?

It was the Midland Hotel. It's office space now.

It's being restored to a hotel (from memory whatever Marriot's ponciest brand is, opening 2009), though the very top storeys will be what the developers describe as "£10 mn penthouses".

Though whether by then, they'll be selling them off for a million or two, or £10mn will be the price of an Islington broom cupboard, who can tell?

ten large is a lot of money to live in King's Cross innit?

It's going to be a building site for the next ten years at least - especially around the station.

Patrick, did you get to test the champagne bar!?

Not open yet. But they did give us free tea, coffee and a sandwich lunch.

Oh, and a pen.

And there'll be a voucher for a free trip in due course...