WHEN railroad passengers from Europe reach London these days, and emerge from the tunnels blinking into the sunlight, they may be forgiven for thinking they have arrived not at a train station, but in the chancel of a vast Victorian cathedral.
It is a holy-looking place with a holy-sounding name: St. Pancras. After 50 years of neglect, decay and the threat of demolition only a decade ago, this north London terminal has become once more a consecration of the railway art, a place of soaring ceilings, intricate inlaid stonework, scores of gargoyles, acres of stained glass, fluted iron columns, corbels, crocketed finials — all the components of ecclesiastic glory on splendid view, and yet for nothing more mundane than the arrival and departure of railway trains.
More than a billion dollars was spent on the refurbishment, and a year on from its opening, few are the Britons, fewer still the Europeans, who complain. St. Pancras International Station’s combination of imperturbable solidity, high church magnificence, much-loved statuary (including one of the poet, John Betjeman, who helped to save it) and the constant and very visible rush and rumble of its trains, has managed to bring flash and glamour and style back to the world of British railways.
Not for nothing was the terminal named for a patron saint of children: parents now bring hundreds of youngsters there each day to see and experience a monument to mechanized movement like few others in existence.
I'd dare say the reaction of many here after reading this well written piece will echo the author's sentiments of "If over there, why not here'?
Ocala Mike Member # 4657
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We have our own Cathedral of the Iron Horse in this country; it's called Grand Central Terminal, and it is and always will be an icon.
Lots of money was spent to refurbish it a while back (I believe the efforts were lead by the late Mrs. JFK).
I believe GCT would hold its own in any short list of "monuments to transportation" around the world.
ScottC4746 Member # 3323
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Many cities have their own Cathedrals (Chicago Union Station, Washing Union Station, NY Penn, LA Union, etc. then you have Parishes (all the other stations) and Missions (Amshacks).
palmland Member # 4344
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While that overworked word, awesome, is used far too easily today, certainly it is appropriate in describing some of the great terminals.
I'm glad to see there are still those who see the merit of restoring some of those 'cathedrals'. Perhaps some day we can again build a new terminal that is as inspirational as it is functional.
The cathedral comparison is certainly not new. A 1969 article by David Morgan (former Trains editor) commented: 'Replace the high-backed wooden benches with pews, add an altar or a pulpit, and you could have turned the waiting room of MKT's San Antonio passenger station into a church.......a civilized transition from one's taxi to the observation-lounge of the Texas Special.
Gilbert B Norman Member # 1541
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Got to agree with DPM on that point, Mr. Palmland:
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Weren't the great stations of the 19th and early 20th centuries deliberately patterned after Western European cathedrals?
Perhaps this was not an overtly spiritual idea, but rather an architectural echo of the great public gathering spaces that cathedrals had become during the millennium before the arrival of the iron horse.
Perhaps railroad magnates wanted the public to hold the railroads in the same awe and reverence they did their messiah. Grandiloquent railroad stations were a brilliant stroke of marketing psychology.
rresor Member # 128
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Actually, Mr. Kisor, train stations were as likely to be patterned after Roman baths (Penn Stations in NY and Chicago were modeled on the Baths of Caracalla) as cathedrals. Basically, any space designed for large numbers of people to congregate (baths, pagan temples, Christian churches) would serve.
The stations were usually divided between waiting rooms, which were heated and protected from the weather, and train sheds, which were not. I personally found the "balloon" train sheds of the late 19th Century to be the most impressive. St. Pancras has a nice example. So do Frankfurt and Milano Centrale. The only surviving balloon shed in the US is now the "grand ballroom" of the Pennsylvania Convention Center. It's the former Reading Terminal train shed, and it's worth a visit if you're in PHL.
The most impressive remaining stations in the US (in addition to Grand Central) include (in no particular order): PHL 30th Street, Washington DC, Chicago Union Station, St. Louis (not a rail station any more), Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Portland, OR, and Jacksonville, FL (also no longer an active station).
A special mention goes to Savannah, in 1971 the oldest station still in use for rail service, and now an excellent visitor center, and also to Baltimore Mt. Royal Station, now the Maryland Institute (art school), but with waiting room and trainshed intact.
palmland Member # 4344
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Mr. rresor, I think we must add Cincinnati Union Terminal to your list. While a newer terminal, I think it passes the test of architectural merit, inspirational, and functional (although less so since its concourse was truncated).
A couple years ago I attended a dinner in the rotunda and it was hard not to spend the time just admiring that magnificent structure. Too bad only the lowly Cardinal creeps through in the middle of the night.
Henry Kisor Member # 4776
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Thanks for the poke, rresor. I was so fixated on British railway terminals that I'd forgotten about Roman architecture.
Pagan temples? Is there a station that looks like Stonehenge?
rresor Member # 128
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Mr. Kisor, your Englishness is showing again. With my "pagan temples" comment, I was thinking of the Parthenon and similar structures, not Stonehenge.
Stations in the UK tend to have been built a bit earlier than those in the US and Canada. Mid-19th Century architecture was heavily influenced by the Gothic cathedrals, but starting with the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, "neoclassical" became the new fad in North America. The big train stations of the early 20th Century in both Canada and the US tended to look either like Roman temples or Roman baths, rather than like Gothic cathedrals.
That having been said, some of my favorite US stations are the earlier Gothic (or Norman) ones, like Indianapolis and St. Louis, as well as Dearborn and the (now gone) Grand Central in Chicago.
PullmanCo Member # 1138
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Maybe not stations, but certainly the roundhouse evokes Stonehenge.
Evanston, WY, UP house (now in re-use development) is one example...
Henry Kisor Member # 4776
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Rresor, I'm not a Brit but a Yank. The word "pagan" has different meanings to different folks, and to me it denotes blue-faced Celtic haystack wicca and the like -- not classical Roman architecture. "Pagan" doesn't seem to go with the Parthenon, but maybe that's just me.
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