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It’s been two months since Queen Elizabeth 2nd opened the new St. Pancras International Station, now London’s fast-track doorway to Paris (2hr.15min) and Brussels (1hr.51min). However, winsome nostalgia meets grim reality for the Christmas traveler.Oddly, the shift from South London’s Waterloo to the new north London location means that passengers arriving from Paris or Brussels in the south actually arrive from the north.
Since the 1970s the station lay in darkened waste, supplanted by nearby stations, Euston and King’s Cross. More recently it has been a key film location site - appearing in Harry Potter, Batman Returns and even a Spice Girls video. Now passengers are the real stars, as they disembark into a marvelously open but enclosed environment enlivened by the light filtering through the overhanging 243-foot spanning glass dome. They are also the subject of interested onlookers whose attention is also drawn to The Meeting Place, Paul Day's 9 meter, one million pound bronze sculpture of an embracing couple. The scuplture is based on Day and his half-French wife Catherine and brilliantly and immediately meets the required remit, "to represent the romance that train travel used to have", before, that is, passengers became mere "customers". The sculpture literally stands as a focal point beneath the newly restored Barlow Shed - 14,080 glass panels - which, in 1868, comprised the world's largest enclosed space. >
The couple's contemporaries however, should not expect too much as they swish smoothly from their glistening Eurostar and enter London’s cramped darkened underground labyrinth, where another, more uncomfortable, version of modern travel lies in wait. Literally. On the occasion when Weltexpress paid a visit on the morning of December 8th 2007, both King’s Cross and St. Pancras were both choked with lines of weary travelers, all queuing patiently at ticket windows and automatic machines for the pleasure of securing a single travel ticket. The contrast - from aboveground to underground - could not have been greater. Those wishing to relieve themselves of their heavy baggage for a few hours would have to struggle their way to the station's only storage facility - that, due to security measures - now charges 6 pounds per item. Perhaps it was the wrong time of the season (December), and the wrong time of the week (Saturday morning), but with the urgent momentum building towards the 2012 London Olympics, London Transport officials will need more than a stationary sculpture to placate the attempted journeys of millions. All photographs by the author.
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