Euston railway station ( ; or London Euston) is a major central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station managed by Network Rail in the London Borough of Camden. It is the southern terminus of the West Coast Main Line, the UK's busiest inter-city railway. Euston is the tenth-busiest station in Britain and the country's busiest inter-city passenger terminal, being the gateway from London to the West Midlands, North West England, North Wales and Scotland.
Intercity express passenger services to the major cities of Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and through services to for connecting ferries to Dublin are operated by Avanti West Coast. Overnight sleeper services to Scotland are provided by the Caledonian Sleeper. London Northwestern Railway provide commuter and regional services to the West Midlands, whilst the Lioness line of the London Overground provides local suburban services in the London area via the Watford DC Line which runs parallel to the West Coast Main Line as far as . Euston tube station is connected to the main concourse and Euston Square tube station is nearby. King's Cross and St Pancras railway stations are about east along Euston Road.
Euston, the first inter-city railway terminal in London, was planned by George and Robert Stephenson. It was designed by Philip Hardwick and built by William Cubitt, with a distinctive arch over the station entrance. The station opened as the terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) on 20 July 1837. Euston was expanded after the L&BR was amalgamated with other companies to form the London and North Western Railway, and the original sheds were replaced by the Great Hall in 1849. Capacity was increased throughout the 19th century from two platforms to fifteen. The station was controversially rebuilt in the mid-1960s when the Arch and the Great Hall were demolished to accommodate the electrified West Coast Main Line, and the revamped station still attracts criticism over its architecture. Euston is to be the London terminus for the planned High Speed 2 railway and the station is being redeveloped to accommodate it.
Name and location Unusually for a London terminus, the station is not based on its location, but after Euston Hall in Suffolk, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Grafton, the main landowners in the area during the mid-19th century. It is set back from Euston Square and Euston Road on the London Inner Ring Road, between Cardington Street and Eversholt Street in the London Borough of Camden. It is one of 20 stations managed by Network Rail. As of 20232024, it is the tenth-busiest station in Britain. Euston bus station is in front of the main entrance.
History Euston was the first inter-city railway station in London. It opened on 20 July 1837 as the terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR). It was demolished in the 1960s and replaced with the present building in the international modern style.
The site was chosen in 1831 by George and Robert Stephenson, engineers of the L&BR. The area was mostly farmland at the edge of the expanding city, and adjacent to the New Road (now Euston Road), which had caused urban development. The name Euston came from Euston Hall, the seat of the duke of Grafton, who owned the locality.
The station and railway have been owned by the L&BR (1837–1846), the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) (1846–1923), the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) (1923–1948), British Railways (1948–1994), Railtrack (1994–2002) and Network Rail (2002–present).
Old station
The plan was to construct a station near the Regent's Canal in Islington to provide a connection for London dock traffic. An alternative site at Marble Arch, proposed by Robert Stephenson, was rejected by a provisional committee, and a proposal to end the line at Maiden Lane was rejected by the House of Lords in 1832. A terminus at Camden Town, announced by Stephenson the following year, received royal assent on 6 May, before an extension was approved in 1834, allowing the line to reach Euston Grove where the original station was built by William Cubitt.
Initial services were three trains to and from with journeys taking just over an hour. On 9 April 1838, they were extended to a temporary halt at near Bletchley where a coach service was provided to . The line to Curzon Street station in Birmingham opened on 17 September 1838, the journey of took around hours.
The incline from Camden Town to Euston involved crossing the Regent's Canal on a gradient of more than 1 in 68 (1.47%). Because steam trains at the time could not climb such an ascent, they were cable-hauled on the down line towards Camden until 1844, after which bank engines were used. The L&BR's act of Parliament prohibited the use of locomotives in the Euston area, following concerns of residents about noise and smoke from locomotives toiling up the incline.
The station was built with space left vacant for extra platforms, as it was originally planned for the Great Western Railway (GWR) to use Euston, as the terminus of the Great Western Main Line. In the event, the GWR chose to build their own terminus at Paddington. The spare land was instead used for more platforms for ever expanding services as the railway network grew.
The station building, designed by the classically trained architect Philip Hardwick, had a trainshed by structural engineer Charles Fox. It had two platforms, one each for departures and arrival. The main entrance portico, the Euston Arch, also by Hardwick, symbolised the arrival of a major new transport system and was "the gateway to the north". It was high, supported on four by hollow Doric propylaeum columns of Bramley Fall stone, the largest ever built. It was completed in May 1838 and cost £35,000 (now £). The old station building was probably the first one in the world with all-wrought iron roof trusses.
The first railway hotels in London were built at Euston. Two hotels designed by Hardwick opened in 1839 on either side of the Arch; the Victoria on the west had basic facilities while the Euston on the east was designed for first-class passengers.
Between 1838 and 1841, parcel handling grew from 2,700 parcels a month to 52,000. By 1845, 140 staff were employed but trains began to run late because of a lack of capacity. The following year, two platforms (later 9 and 10) were constructed on vacant land to the west of the station that had been reserved for Great Western Railway services. The L&BR amalgamated with the Manchester & Birmingham Railway and the Grand Junction Railway in 1846 to form the LNWR. The company headquarters were established at Euston requiring a block of offices to be built between the Arch and the platforms.
The station's facilities were expanded with the opening of the Great Hall on 27 May 1849 replacing the original sheds. The Great Hall was designed by Hardwick's son Philip Charles Hardwick in classical style. It was long, wide, and high with a coffered ceiling and a sweeping double flight of stairs leading to offices at its northern end. Architectural sculptor John Thomas contributed eight allegorical statues representing the cities served by the line. The station faced Drummond Street, further back from Euston Road than the front of the modern complex; Drummond Street now terminates at the side of the station but then ran across its front.www.motco.com – 1862 map, showing position of 1849 station. A short road, Euston Grove, ran from Euston Square towards the arch.
A bay platform (later platform 7) for local services to Kensington (Addison Road) opened in 1863. Two new platforms (1 and 2) were added in 1873 along with an entrance for cabs from Seymour Street. At the same time, the station roof was raised by to accommodate smoke from the engines.
The continued growth of long-distance railway traffic led to major expansion along the station's west side starting in 1887. It involved rerouting Cardington Street over part of the burial ground (later St James's Gardens)Location of St James's burial ground of St James's Church, Piccadilly, which was located some way from the church. To avoid public outcry, the remains were reinterred at St Pancras Cemetery. Two more platforms (4 and 5) opened in 1891. Four departure platforms (now platforms 12–15), bringing the total to 15, and a booking office on Drummond Street opened on 1 July 1892.
The line between Euston and Camden was doubled between 1901 and 1906. A new booking hall opened in 1914 on part of the cab yard. The Great Hall was redecorated and refurbished between 1915 and 1916 and again in 1927. The station's ownership was transferred to the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) in the 1923 grouping.
Apart from the lodges on Euston Road and statues now on the forecourt, few relics of the old station survive. The National Railway Museum's collection at York includes Edward Hodges Baily's statue of George Stephenson from the Great Hall; the entrance gates; and a turntable from 1846 discovered during demolition.
London, Midland and Scottish Railway redevelopment By the 1930s Euston was again congested and the LMS considered rebuilding it. In 1931 it was reported that a site for a new station was being sought, the most likely option was behind the existing station in the direction of Camden Town. The LMS announced in 1935 that the station (including the hotel and offices) would be rebuilt using a government loan guarantee.
In 1937 it appointed the architect Percy Thomas to produce designs. He proposed an American-inspired station that would involve removing or resiting the arch, and included office frontages along Euston Road and a helicopter pad on the roof. Redevelopment began on 12 July 1938, when of limestone was extracted for the building and new flats were constructed to rehouse people displaced by the works. The project was shelved indefinitely because of World War II.
The station was damaged several times during the Blitz in 1940. Part of the Great Hall's roof was destroyed, and a bomb landed between platforms 2 and 3, destroying offices and part of the hotel.
New station
Passengers considered Euston to be squalid and covered in soot and it was restored and redecorated in 1953, when an enquiry kiosk in the middle of the Great Hall was removed. Ticket machines were modernised. By this time the Arch was surrounded by property development and kiosks and in need of restoration.
British Railways announced that Euston would be rebuilt to accommodate the electrification of the West Coast Main Line in 1959. Because of the restricted layout of track and tunnels at the northern end, enlargement only could be accomplished by expanding southwards over the area occupied by the Great Hall and the Arch.The New Euston Station 1968. British Rail information booklet. Permission to demolish the Arch and Great Hall was sought from London County Council and it was granted on condition that the Arch would be restored and re-sited. BR estimated it would cost at least £190,000 (now £) and was not viable.
The Arch's demolition, announced by the Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples in July 1961, drew objections from the Earl of Euston, the Earl of Rosse and John Betjeman. Experts did not believe the work would cost £190,000 and speculated it could be done more cheaply by foreign labour. On 16 October 1961, 75 architects and students staged a demonstration against its demolition inside the Great Hall and a week later Sir Charles Wheeler led a deputation to speak with the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Macmillan replied that as well as the cost, there was nowhere large enough to relocate the Arch in keeping with its surroundings.