page_title: Euston railway station
section_title: Criticism
hierarchical_section_title: Euston railway station / Criticism
caption_attribution_description: English: Euston railway station from the 5th floor of One Euston Square. Used ehre: https://regnum.ru/news/2315295.html
context_page_description: Euston railway station is a central London railway terminus on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden, managed by Network Rail. It is the southern terminus of the West Coast Main Line to Liverpool Lime Street, Manchester Piccadilly, Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central. It is also the mainline station for services to and through Birmingham New Street, and to Holyhead for connecting ferries to Dublin. Local suburban services from Euston are run by London Overground via the Watford DC Line which runs parallel to the WCML as far as Watford Junction. There is an escalator link from the concourse down to Euston tube station; Euston Square tube station is nearby. King's Cross and St Pancras railway stations are further down Euston Road.
  Euston was the first intercity railway terminal in London, planned by George and Robert Stephenson. The original station was designed by Philip Hardwick and built by William Cubitt, having a distinctive arch over the station entrance. The station opened as the terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway on 20 July 1837.
context_section_description: Euston's 1960s style of architecture has been described as "hideous",, "a dingy, grey, horizontal nothingness" and a reflection of "the tawdry glamour of its time", entirely lacking in "the sense of occasion, of adventure, that the great Victorian termini gave to the traveller". Writing in The Times, Richard Morrison stated that "even by the bleak standards of Sixties architecture, Euston is one of the nastiest concrete boxes in London: devoid of any decorative merit; seemingly concocted to induce maximum angst among passengers; and a blight on surrounding streets. The design should never have left the drawing-board – if, indeed, it was ever on a drawing-board. It gives the impression of having been scribbled on the back of a soiled paper bag by a thuggish android with a grudge against humanity and a vampiric loathing of sunlight". Michael Palin, explorer and travel writer, in his contribution to Great Railway Journeys titled "Confessions of a Trainspotter" in 1980, likened it to "a great bath, full of smooth, slippery surfaces where people can be sloshed about efficiently".
  Access to parts of the station is difficult for people with physical disability. The introduction of lifts in 2010 made the taxi rank and underground station accessible from the concourse, though customers found them unreliable and frequently broken down. Wayfindr technology was introduced to the station in 2015 to help the visually impaired navigate the station.
  The demolition of the original buildings in 1962 has been described as "one of the greatest acts of Post-War architectural vandalism in Britain" and is believed to have been approved directly by Harold Macmillan, the first of a line of Prime Ministers who championed motorway building. The replacement trainshed has a low, flat roof, making no attempt to match the airy style of London's major 19th century trainsheds. The attempts made to preserve the earlier building, championed by Sir John Betjeman, led to the formation of the Victorian Society and heralded the modern conservation movement. This movement saved the nearby high Gothic St Pancras station when threatened with demolition in 1966, ultimately leading to its renovation in 2007 as the terminus of HS1 to the Continent.
caption: Euston station seen from above, in 2013
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