St Pancras.....good or bad?

[peekay76]

I like the fact that the station brings France closer to the north although living in Nottingham I suppose I am slightly biased on that one.

The new station does look much better than at Waterloo in my opinion. It seems more inviting that the rebuilt station combines both international and internal travel rather than the international terminus tucked out of the way in the corner of Waterloo station. Getting out and being confronted by a mass of people trying to get to the eurostar when in a rush for another train was never much fun.

I'm looking forward to trying out the new station to get to Brussels when I do the Tour of Flanders cyclosportive next year. I'd much rather put the bike in a bag and take it on a train than risk giving it to baggage handlers at an airport so although the bike space at St Pancras may be questionable it actually makes it easier for me to take my bike to Belgium or France so I'm happy.

 

[marinyork]

I have no idea whether it was money well spent. St Pancras before was very beautiful and people seem to forget this. It needed more money spending on it for sure. IMHO it actually looks worse than it did before and certainly is from a practicality point of view, particularly inside. The diversions and building works to get to an ordinary midland mainline train were dreadful, a huge long walk to get there and very unwelcoming, I don't know whether its easier getting in anymore but I doubt it with how it looked shortly before it was finished.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

It is absolutely beautiful, and the only sorry thing is that we were so close to destroying half the complex in the 1960s and that's is taken so long to refurbish it.

The big fiasco with Eurostar however is that originally the plan was the have the high speed lines running all the way up to Edinburgh and Liverpool and Bristol but we just can't seem to build proper railways any more...

 

[marinyork]

I am glad they've renovated the hotel though. Might as well use it, buildings are after all functional. I just find it amazing you have to have a eurostar there for people to start talking about it. Perhaps they'll renovate VT in Bombay next!

 

[vbc]

Yes, that would be cool. Getting on a Eurostar at Bristol Templemeads station heading for Europeside would be how travel really should be.

 

[Aperitif]

Going to try all the 'facilities' next Thursday ...annual wine tasting expo at Porte de Versailles
But I used to be able to get on a South West train, arrive Waterloo after 30 mins or so and shimmy down the escalators...

 

[Pete]

As well as the South West Train area, people from Kent and E Sussex are going to feel hard done by, especially if they chop the number of Eurostar stops at Ashford. You used to be able to get off at Waterloo East, walk across the footbridge and you're right there at the terminal. Now it means an uncertain tube connection and a longish walk.

 

[SamNichols]

Far easier from the North now, which is nice - same station from Midlands, and about 200 metres from Euston/one stop on the Northern line. Great stuff, not that I'll ever use it.
I wonder who'll buy the absurdly priced apartments though? One of them is a million quid...

 

[palinurus]

Very nice for me. Ticket to Euston, walk round the corner..

 

[Melvil]

Great for London and South-East, not terribly useful for elsewhere for a variety of reasons of which my main ones are:

1) No through-ticketing I know of as yet, therefore, journey from the North uses old UK ticketing structure (ridiculous prices) before you get on the Eurostar.

2) No high speed line before 2030 from the north...so, say I want to get from Edinburgh to Lyon:

Edinburgh to London: 4.5 hours, London to Lille, 1:05 (approx), Lille to Lyon, 2.5 hours...Spot the weak link? Yes, you guessed it, slow slow slow UK!

3) Since Eurostar will soon have a complete monopoly on the London to Paris market its likely they'll increase the prices - who is going to pay for an expensive Eurostar ticket on top of the already expensive domestic tickets? What's the point since the journey will take longer than the plane anyway?

In short, High Speed One should have been integrated with a UK high-speed network and the fact that there IS no high speed network is entirely the fault successive governments who have been more concerned with lining their pockets with the 'inducements' of the motor industry and just sticking a band-aid on the cancer of the UK rail network. Travel long-distance in France and you'll see what I mean...it's so disappointing of the government to effectively rule-out high speed rail before 2030 when Spain, Germany, France and Italy are steaming ahead (if you'll pardon the expression) with their high-speed networks.

 

[Fnaar]

3) Since Eurostar will soon have a complete monopoly on the London to Paris market its likely they'll increase the prices

Hence the bl00dy champagne bar!