London King's Cross railway station

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

London King's Cross
Location
Place	Kings Cross
Local authority	Camden
Coordinates	51°31′56″N 0°07′24″W / 51.5321, -0.1233Coordinates: 51°31′56″N 0°07′24″W / 51.5321, -0.1233
Operations
Station code	KGX
Managed by	Network Rail
Platforms in use	11
Live departures and station information from National Rail
Annual Passenger Usage
2004/05 *	20.805 million
2005/06 *	20.302 million
Transport for London
Zone	1
History
Key dates	Opened 1852
Transport for London List of London stations: Underground | National Rail
* Annual passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at London King's Cross from Office of Rail Regulation statistics.
UK Railways Portal

King's Cross station is a major railway terminus opened in 1852. The station is located in northeast Central London, on Euston Road, in the King's Cross district and the London Borough of Camden.

King's Cross forms the southern terminus of the East Coast Main Line, one of the UK's major railway backbones. Immediately to the west is St Pancras railway station, the terminus for international Eurostar trains, and the two stations share King's Cross St. Pancras tube station on the London Underground network.

[edit] Location and Surroundings

West of King's Cross are, in succession, St Pancras station, the new British Library building and Euston station, all within a few minutes' walk. The former King's Cross Thameslink station is 5 minutes' walk to the east.

The reconstructed and restored St Pancras is the new London terminus of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, replacing Waterloo International from 14 November 2007. Eurostar trains serve Lille, Paris and Brussels, and from 2009 domestic SouthEastern services will serve Kent over the High Speed 1 route.

Considerable regeneration effort has gone into the area in recent years, with the opening of new hotels and office space under construction.

[edit] Services

The station is served by routes from the north and east of England and Scotland, connecting to major cities such as Cambridge, Peterborough, Hull, Doncaster, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness. King's Cross also incorporates the King's Cross St. Pancras Underground station, the biggest interchange station on the Underground network.

Four train companies currently run services into the mainline station:

• National Express East Coast: inter-city services on the East Coast Main Line to Peterborough, Doncaster, Leeds, York, Darlington, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness.

The departures board in the front of the station

National Express East Coast also has plans to operate a new service to Lincoln from 2010. National Express East Coast are known as the "lead operators" from the station.

• First Capital Connect: suburban and regional services to North London, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

• First Hull Trains: inter-city services to Hull via the East Coast Main Line. Unlike its sister company, First Hull Trains is not a franchised train operating company but operates under an "open access" arrangement.

• Grand Central: inter-city services to north-east Yorkshire and Sunderland, also along the East Coast Main Line. Grand Central is also an "open access" operator.

[edit] History

A view of King's Cross from the north

King's Cross was originally designed and built as the London hub of the Great Northern Railway and terminus of the East Coast Main Line. It was designed by Lewis Cubitt and constructed in two years from 1851 to 1852, on the site of a former fever and smallpox hospital. The main part of the station, which today includes platforms 1 to 8, was opened on 14 October 1852. It replaced a temporary terminus at Maiden Lane that had opened on 8 August 1850.

The platforms have been reconfigured several times; originally there was only one arrival and one departure platform (today's platforms 1 and 8 respectively), with the space between used for carriage sidings. In later years as suburban traffic grew, space for additional platforms was added with considerably less grandeur; the secondary building now containing platforms 9–11, (which would include the fictional Platform 9 3/4), survives from that era.

When the railways were privatised in 1996, express services into the station were taken over by GNER; though they successfully re-bid for the franchise in 2005, they were asked to surrender it in December 2006. The incumbent operator, National Express East Coast, took over the franchise on 9 December 2007, after an interim period when GNER ran trains under a management contract.

According to legend, King's Cross is built on the site of Boudica's final battle, or else her body is buried under one of the platforms. Platforms 8, 9 and 10 have been suggested as possible sites. There are also passages under the station which Boudica's ghost is supposed to haunt.^{[citation needed]}

The King's Cross fire of 1987, in which 31 people died, was at the adjacent King's Cross St. Pancras Underground station. A major redevelopment of this Underground station (partly influenced by the report issued after the fire) is currently in process. Phase One was completed in 2006; Phase Two is expected to be complete by 2011.

Three GNER InterCity 225s lined up at King's Cross in January 2006.

The original "King's Cross" was a monument to King George IV.

In 1972, a one-storey extension designed in-house by British Rail was constructed in front of the station. While the extension was intended to be temporary, more than thirty years later it still stands. Many consider the extension unattractive, not the least because it obscures the Grade I-listed façade of the original station. Prior to the construction of the extension, the station façade had already become hidden behind a small terrace of shops. This extension is scheduled to be demolished, revealing once again the full glory of the Lewis Cubitt architecture, when a new ticket hall and concourse area is built on the station's western side.

On 10 September 1973, a IRA bomb exploded in the booking hall at 12.24 pm, causing extensive damage and injuring six people, some seriously. The 3 lb device was thrown without warning into the station by a youth who escaped into the crowd and was not apprehended.^[1]

In days gone by, part of King's Cross was an intermediate station. On the extreme east of the site was Kings Cross York Road, with suburban trains from Finsbury Park calling here, then going underground using the York Road curve to join the Widened Lines to Farringdon, Barbican and Moorgate. In the other direction, trains from Moorgate came off the Widened Lines via the Hotel Curve, with platform 16 rising to the main line level.

[edit] Restoration

This 1852 illustration shows King's Cross without the concourse extension, which is currently scheduled to be removed.

In 2005, a £400m restoration plan was announced by Network Rail, which was approved by the London Borough of Camden in April.^[2] Planned is a thorough restoration of the arched roof of the station and the demolition of the 1972 addition, to be replaced by an open-air plaza. A semi-circular concourse (estimated completion date 2012) will be built in the space directly to the west of the station behind the Great Northern Hotel, which will have some outbuildings demolished. It will replace the current 1972 concourse, shopping area and ECML ticket office. The new western concourse will provide improved access to Underground services and direct link to Thameslink. The land between the domestic main lines leading from the two stations will be redeveloped with nearly 2,000 new homes, 486,280 m² of offices and new roads as King's Cross Central.

[edit] King's Cross St. Pancras tube station

Main article: King's Cross St. Pancras tube station

King's Cross St. Pancras tube station is the biggest station on the London Underground and one of the busiest, serving both King's Cross and St Pancras main line stations in the London Borough of Camden. It is in Travelcard Zone 1.

Major work is ongoing at the station to link the various entrances to two new ticket halls for London Underground and reduce overcrowding.

Preceding station		London Underground		Following station
Euston Square towards High Street Kensington		Circle line		Farringdon towards Liverpool Street
Euston Square towards Hammersmith		Hammersmith & City line		Farringdon towards Barking
Euston Square towards Uxbridge, Amersham, Chesham or Watford		Metropolitan line		Farringdon towards Baker Street or Aldgate
Euston towards Edgware, Mill Hill East or High Barnet		Northern line		Angel towards Morden
Russell Square towards Uxbridge or Heathrow (Terminals 1, 2, 3 or Terminal 5)		Piccadilly line		Caledonian Road towards Cockfosters
Euston towards Brixton		Victoria line		Highbury & Islington towards Walthamstow Central

[edit] King's Cross in fiction

[edit] Harry Potter

The Platform 9¾ sign occasionally causes congestion as tourists and Harry Potter fans stop to photograph it or try to push the rest of the luggage trolley through the wall.

King's Cross features in the Harry Potter books, by J. K. Rowling, as the starting point of the Hogwarts Express. The train uses a secret platform 9¾ located by passing through the brick wall barrier between platforms 9 and 10.

Unfortunately, platforms 9 and 10 are in a separate building from the main station; also, rather than being adjacent so that a barrier could be between them, they are separated by two intervening tracks. Rowling intended the location to be in the main part of the station, but misremembered the platform numbering. During an interview in 2001, she indicated that she had confused King's Cross with Euston. In fact, platforms 9 and 10 at Euston are also separated by two intervening tracks, so either she had yet another station in mind or else she simply did not consider or did not remember the physical arrangement of consecutively numbered platforms.

When the movies were filmed, the station scenes took place within the main station, with platforms 4 and 5 renumbered 9 and 10. In the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets film, the exterior of the adjacent St. Pancras railway station was used, as its Gothic façade was considered more impressive than the real King's Cross.

When the first film was released, a large floor panel was placed on the ground outside platforms 9 and 10 indicating the Hogwarts Express. It was later removed. Within King's Cross, a cast-iron "Platform 9¾" sign has been erected on a wall of the station's suburban building containing the real platforms 9 and 10. Part of a luggage trolley has also been installed below the sign; whilst the near end is visible, the rest of the trolley seems to have disappeared into the wall.

"Kings Cross" is the title of the 35th chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where a location resembling the station plays a significant role. The station is also featured in the epilogue of the same book, making it the final setting of the Harry Potter series.

[edit] Other fiction

• The station is mentioned as suggesting "infinity" to Margaret Schlegel and contrasted with the "facile splendours" of St Pancras in Chapter 2 of E.M. Forster's novel Howard's End.

• The Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures novel Transit features King's Cross as one of the main hubs of an interplanetary transit system based on the London Underground.

• In children's television programmes featuring the puppet Roland Rat, Roland is said to live in the sewers beneath King's Cross. In Roland Rat: The Series this was realised as the high-tech "Ratcave", accessed from a hidden lift in a workman's shelter.

• The twelfth and final episode of the anime Victorian Romance Emma prominently features King's Cross Station in 1885 with great historical accuracy and detail.

• Some of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories have the great detective and Dr Watson travelling by way of King's Cross. The following example is from The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter, Watson speaking first:

"And what have you gained?"
"A starting-point for our investigation." He hailed a cab. "King's Cross Station," said he.
"We have a journey, then?"
"Yes; I think we must run down to Cambridge together. All the indications seem to me to point in that direction."

• The station, its surrounding streets and the railway approach feature prominently in scenes from the 1955 Ealing comedy, The Ladykillers.

• Scenes from the 1995 Bollywood film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) were filmed at this station.

• There is an underground station called King's Cross on the North London System in the novel The Horn of Mortal Danger (1980). It corresponds to this station rather than the Tube one.

• In the Rev. W.V. Awdry's Railway Series of children's books, Gordon, Duck and an engine from "the Other Railway" have a lengthy argument about the name of the London station (King's Cross Paddington or Euston), apparently not realizing that there is more than one railway station in London.

• In Eva Ibbotson's children's book The Secret of Platform 13, there is a door between worlds called a "Gump" under the fictitious and abandoned platform 13.

• "R.S.V.P. Part 1", an issue of the comic book Hellblazer begins with a shot of the Platform 9¾ sign; appropriate, because the story itself concerns a gathering of magicians—albeit a less palatable one than Hogwarts.

• In the film Green Street (released as Hooligans in the USA), King's Cross station can be seen in the background of its now abandoned car park.^{[citation needed]}

• In the film Friday the Thirteenth (1933), King's Cross is used as the location to introduce two of the main characters. The name of the station is emphasised in the dialogue.

[edit] Spelling

This sign includes an apostrophe

The station name, King's Cross, is seen spelt both with and without an apostrophe:

• King's Cross is the signage used in the Network Rail and London Underground stations and on the tube map.
• The official Network Rail webpage uses the "King's Cross" spelling.^[3]
• Kings Cross is used in the National Rail timetable database, as well as on other National Rail railway pages, and the usage is also seen on the TheTrainLine online booking system. However, other stations such as King's Lynn and Hall i' th' Wood also lack apostrophes, suggesting that this is a software limitation.
• Kings Cross is spelled without apostrophes in National Rail printed Timetables.
• Kings X or London KX are abbreviations seen in space-limited contexts.

[edit] References

1. ^ BBC On This Day 1973:Bomb blasts rock Central London, Retrieved on 27 February 2007
2. ^ Camden Council planning application 2006/3387/P. Retrieved on 2007-03-19.
3. ^ Station information on King's Cross railway station from Network Rail

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Kings Cross railway station

• King's Cross Central developer