Yet more Eurostar....

Following my last posting I went in hot pursuit of photos to show some of the building works at St Pancras station. Sadly as there is so much building work going on and closed roads it's hard to get too close so sadly these are just passing photographs.

This is part of what will be the platforms. It is a huge affair and mostly made of glass. After spending a fair amount of very hot and sweaty times inside Lille station waiting for Eurostar to come home on I can only take a guess as to how hot this place will be in summer.....pretty hot I'd say! There is a big "train shed" that was designed by William Barlow (who had worked with Joseph Paxton on the design of the building for the Great Exhibition of 1851). The shed had become very dirty and in need of repair and has now been returned to it's original condition.

Here is a photo of the inside of the shed. It is gigantic! The shed was buit in 1868. It is a single span of just over 243ft and is 689 foot long and is 100ft above ground level.

This photo is taken standing by that lampost in the above photograph. It is the oposite side of the road and you can see the wonderful colour of the bricks used in St Pancras station. This building used to be one of the coal bunkers that were across the road from the station. As far as I know there were 2 of these. One bunker was demolished to make way for the new British Library and the other (above) now is home for some shops. I wonder if they will be knocked down to make way for a new office block or whatever. I hope not!!