Great New Station - all we need now is to revive those areas on the East Midland Mainline route: Luton, Bedford, Wellingborough, Kettering, CORBY, Loughborough, Derby etc so that the residents of these towns can actually afford the exhorbitant fares and car parking fees to be able to get down to St Pancras in order to use Eurostar.

Natalie, Kettering,

it just goes to show what a bit of thought and imagination can do.
The only shame is that a bunch of nimbies delayed this project by at least 5 years which is why it has only just finished.
St Pancras was always the most logical location for an international terminal as it was the most underutilised station in London and in the right place for connections to the majority of the rest of the country.
France has done a fantatstic, if very expensive (tax money) job with the TGV due to a culture of long-term vision.
Were that high speed services in the UK could even hope to achieve what the TGV has done for France and western Europe - imagine the planning enquiries if anyone dared suggest building High Speed 2-50 across Britain...

Marios Patrinos, Reading, UK

Surely the best station in britain is Rannock Station.

Andy. , london, uk

Andy, you may be correct but your spelling is not RannocH

peter, singapore, singapore

"The Queen met the architects, railway chiefs and others who have toiled for nearly ten years to ensure that Par-is-bound trains can ..."

Hello! Architects may have had a hand in refurbishing - and having lived next door for 7 years I look forward to seeing the revived St.Pancras- BUT it was engineers which made this happen

peter, singapore, singapore

Just shows that British Rails' policy of putting office blocks on top of all our major railway stations was completely wrong. Network Rail almost got away with it last year at Paddington, using the excuse that the train shed to be swept away was built later than the originals by Brunel. (It was, but to the original design). That excuse was successfully used by BR to bury half of Liverpool St under offices back in the '80's/90's. If anyone fancies making Euston look at bit better, according to Dan Crukshank, the Euston arch largely still exists, as a (very large) rockery in the demolition contractors garden and at the bottom of the River Lea

Roy Winn, Brooklyn, NYC, USA

Would that we could recreate The Waverley express. St Pancras to Edinburgh, as well as the Thames Clyde express - as per the BR Scottish summer timetable of 1961. (J.Buchan,Garsdale - comment refers)
The Waverley was the only express that served breakfast, lunch, (with a fish course), Afternoon tea and Dinner!. One coach was a kitchen car, and the Diners were segregated into First & Second class Restaurant Cars. A slow speed classic train for those NOT IN A HURRY!
Sadly the line from Carlisle North through the Borders has not been recreated yet - but my Lib Dem colleague Lord David Steele is working on it.!!

John Merritt, Taunton, Somerset, UK

Martin, Brighton - lol, love that well travelled southern mindset. You should just catch a boat to France, n'est pas?

Tad, York, N Yorks

I think we are letting the French of lightly ... St Pancras should havee been renamed Trafalgar Junction !

andy james, Lyon, France

St Pancras looks stunning, although even in its most run down era, it had an amazing melancholy drama. The station is a monument to the ambition of the Midland Railway Company and dovetailed with its spectacular northern extension, the Settle to Carlisle route. Comparatively little effort has been devoted to improving domestic connections to the north. A 21st century Thames Clyde Express would remedy this and be a potent reminder of the station's original, principal route.

J Buchan, Garsdale , UK

Surely the best station in britain is Rannock Station.

Andy. , london, uk

One may rhapsodise about the blue-painted train shed roof but, the fact remains, the purpose of the span of the roof was to contain the smoke from steam locomotives. Now, after spending millions on the refurbishment of the shed and hotel, it remains a thing of beauty which is costly to cool in the summer and heat in the winter.

It would have been much more sensible to have torn down the entire complex and started again as we did with the St. Pancras Goods Yard. Had we done that, the wasteful use of surface area at Kings Cross would have been better used by building offices etc above the two principle stations. Do we never learn?

walter coleshill, Pittsboro, usa

Pity there wasn't this kind of vision when Beeching axed all the branch lines in the UK in the early 60s. The Victorians, who built all these lines as well as St. Pancras Station had a feel for the scale of the UK which the road builders have never had which is why the whole road network has ruined the countryside and is now heading for gridlock.

Mike Martin, Granada, Spain

To John of Manchester : have you ever lived in rural France? If you have, then you should know that the infrastructure is extremely well maintained, stations clean, staff civilised, and the trains on time. Our regional trains (TER) are mostly spanking new, with old rolling stock being replaced at incredible speed with very comfortable, clean and modern trains that put UK rolling stock to shame.

As for the huge sums of money which you rightly say have been poured into the TGV and the expansion of the rail networks - if only we had done the same at home! The outcome is a fantastically efficient, comfortable and competitively priced railway service, which not only serves the French well, but is now linking France at high speed to Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, & the UK - with Spain & Eastern Europe to come.

In France, it is a pleasure to travel by train, and affortable too. In the UK, it is often shambolic, frustrating, and totally unaffordable to all but the rich.

H Wagner, Argenton Sur Creuse, France

St Pancras is far more logical than Waterloo for the vast majority of Eurostar travellers from beyond the south east and its restoration shows what past glories railways once enjoyed, sadly it says nothing for modern railway design.

Where Martin does have a point is that the southern counties are faced with a double or triple whammy in also losing all meaningful services from Ashford (Interntional?) Station. Offering only Ebbsfleet as the alternative international station, leaves all who could use rail connections to Waterloo or Ashford now having an inconveneint drive to Ebbsfleet's park and ride station, which has no other hub function or rail connections to anywhere. Far from encouraging less car use and more use of railways, Ebbsfleet flies in the face of that philosophy.

The triple whammy comes from the re-routing of new fast Kent commuter services into St Pancras from 2009, diverting City workers for whom London Bridge & Cannon Street were convenient to the wrong place.

Alastair, Rye, UK

Victorian secular Gothic was Britain's finest contribution to architecture. It is wonderful that St Pancras has been saved. However, what a pity that the greatest 'new' architectural attractions in London are either revamped nineteenth century, or built for another purpose, i.e. power stations turned into leisure spaces. The revived St Pancras only serves to highlight the poverty of imagination and hideousness of boring, minimalist, brutalist buildings such as the British Library next door. The contrast could not be greater.

Glen

G. White, Milton Keynes, Bucks

What a fantastic rejuvenated station. I can't believe that this exciting project is actually taking place in Britain (where we seem to spend years fudging the issue, witness the fact that the French high speed link between the Chunnel and Paris opened when the tunnel did - 10 years ago).

Now is the time for an expansion of 186mph high speed rail services. Next stop St Pancras International to Birmingham and onwards to the north of England and Scotland??? I do hope so!

Andrew G, London, UK

The best parts of this "new" project are the old parts. They show that we can clean things and apply fresh paint jolly well. As for the designing new parts - well it's best not to look at the results. The extension to the station has all the aesthetic appeal of a damp shoe box. But as it was designed by "Genius" Foster, I expect that some people will delude themselves that it must be good.

Oliver Chettle, Bedford,

Martin probably hasn't been to King's Cross for years. It is no longer crime ridden, and is developing fast. The main multi-billion regeneration project now has planning permission.

Oliver Chettle, Bedford,

Marc Arnall's implied dismissal of everyone who will continue to fly is out of touch with the practical realities of travel for most people. Most people in France and England live nowhere near the centre of London or the centre of Paris, something which the metropolitan elite forget all too easily. Brighton happens to have a good connection to King's Cross, as does my town, but most places don't. Eurostar is great for city centre to city centre travel, but not for most people who don't live near the city centre. That is why the budget airlines have boomed and Eurostar gets about a third of the projected number of passengers.

Oliver Chettle, Bedford,

I agree that for some areas the move will be less convenient but St Pancras is the best connected station in London. Some will have to travel further but far more are now within a nearer reach. From Brighton, the Thameslink will drop you literally underneath Eurostar at the new station. Actually an easier journey than to Waterloo.

Certainly, Kings Cross is not the best area but not many travellers to London on Eurostar come to visit or stay in Waterloo. It is merely a starting point and the onward connections from St Pancras are excellent. Take a few steps away from the Kings Cross concourse and anybody can see that the area is already smartening up. Certainly not perfect but which area ever is ?

Of course there will be some who will think that flying may be a better option due to the move. Forgetting the 'green argument', Eurostar will offer at least an hourly service with over 700 seats. Which airline offers that on the route from a single airport in the SE ?

Craig, London,

Well done!!!
It reminds me," St George for England, St. Patrick for Ireland, St. David for Wales, and St. Pancras for Scotland and now Paris!"


David B. Monier-Williams Scottsdale Az

David B. Monier-Williams, Scottsdale, US/ AZ

John, from Manchester, what on earth are you talking about? The French railway system is excellent and it even allows you to travel from East to West, which is rarely possible in England. I can only presume that you had a bad experience, in a country that you do not know in the slightest.

Congratulations to all involved in the project. It's fantastic! If Martin wants to travel to an airport, arriving two hours early, then, sit in a tiny, uncomfortable, airplane seat and land at Charles de Gaul, or Orly, with another one hour journey into Paris, he is welcome to lose most of a day. For those of us who are more enlightened, this is a true joy. i ony hope that, before too long, the line will be extended to Scotland, allowing others to benefit. If Martin is an example of those in Brighton (I know that he isn't), Britain can save the cost of a connecting train from the south.

Marc Arnall, St. Barthelemy, France

Oh the poor downtrodden Southern Englanders Martin. If only nature had made the gap between Sussex and France shorter then the tunnel could have been placed much more centrally. Then you could have had a nice rail link from your dear old Gomorrah-on-sea.

Its a fantastic effort and I am sure not only the North Londoners enjoying the vibrant rebirth of the Kings cross area but also anyone living in the Midlands or North of England will appreciate the logical extension of this route in their direction.

Tom, London (North),

How is it in the wrong place?

Especially when you can get a direct train from Sussex (Brighton, Haywards Heath, Three Bridges)and pretty much from the whole of Surrey too via Victoria and a short walk from Kings Cross.

It has also opened up pretty much the whole of the North too through links into Kings Cross and St Pancras (GNER & Midlands Mainline).

Your view is narrow minded to those in a similar location to yourself. I'm travelling to Paris at the end of the month using St Pancras and it's made my life much easier even over in the West via Paddington.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing the station and using the service.

However, very much true about an inevitable regeneration of the area which the new station initiate.

JCS, Cheltenham, UK

The French may well have the best high-speed rail network in the world but they have one of the worst regional and local networks in Europe (with the possible exception of the Ile de France). Spending all their money on the TGV has led to atrophy on the rest of the network with little to no money for either infrastructure or carriages. It actually compares rather badly with the UK in this regard.

John, Manchester, UK

Bit narrow minded, Martin from Brighton. I am no fan of the Kings Cross locale, having had many close shaves there in it's less-than-salubrious past, but the regeneration of Regent Quarter is fantastic and as King's Cross Station itself gets redveloped the area will really shake off the remnants if its "tarts & crackheads" reputation. Don't forget that Sussex Gardens near Paddington was once an area of ill repute; stations will always to some degree attract business of a more nefarious type, being as they are hubs for huge numbers and, unlike airports, relatively central. As for "being in the wrong place" - what makes you think that Surrey and Sussex are more important than the 80% of the country that lies North of London? If a 15 minute tube ride from Waterloo is enough to make you prefer the horrors of airport check ins and security (environmental responsibilities notwithstanding), then I would think most people will be happy to leave you to your masochistic ways...

fergus, london, uk

Fantastic! Can't wait to board another eurostar again. Well done!

Mark, Barcelona ex-pat, Spain

Thanks Martin for seeing the bigger picture - what a small minded parochial view. Sorry, next time St Pancras will be relocated brick by brick to a more convenient location for you.

Simon, York,

So, the 'wrong place' is dictated by the fact a small minority south of the Thames will have to cross it. No thougt for the millions of others who, for the first time can now make it to a Eurostar terminal easily from Paddington, Euston, Kings X and Liverpool Street.

As I recall, St Pancras for many years was a dirty station next to a lorry park and unnofficial bus station (now the British Library). This decision was hte right one, and if it inconveniences a few south-siders, it's a shame - but for the greater good.

Peter Grant, GLASGOW, Scotland

A wonderful, wonderful station - but it is in the wrong place !

People I know from many parts of southern England - Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire just cant be bothered crossing London to get to St Pancras.

People I know from these parts wont 'drive past the door' at Gatwick or Heathrow airports either , to get to Ebbsfleet. They will get on a plane instead.

The grimy north London neighbourhood around King Cross and St Pancras needs to follow the example of the station and improve istelf, as it is currently a filthy, crime ridden slum..

Its not much of a welcome to visiting businessmen or tourists arriving from our neighbouring countries.

Martin, Brighton, UK