Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 8, 2018

St Pancras railway station, also known as London St Pancras and officially since 2007 as St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus located on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden. It is the terminal station for Eurostar continental services via High Speed 1 and the Channel Tunnel. It also handles East Midlands Trains main line services, Southeastern high-speed trains, and local Thameslink suburban services. It stands between the British Library, Regent's Canal and King's Cross railway station, with which it shares a London Underground station named. Built by the Midland Railway (MR), the station was designed by William Henry Barlow and constructed with a single-span iron roof. Following the station's opening on 1 October 1868, the MR built the Midland Grand Hotel on the station's facade, which has been widely praised for its architecture and is now a Grade I listed building along with the rest of the station. By the 1960s, St Pancras was seen as redundant, with services being diverted to King's Cross and Euston, and there was fierce opposition against proposed closures of the station and hotel. It was reinvented in the late 20th century as the terminal of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link as part of an urban regeneration plan across East London. The complex was renovated and expanded from 2001 at a cost of £800 million, reopening on 6 November 2007 by Queen Elizabeth II. A security-sealed terminal area was constructed for Eurostar services to continental Europe via High Speed 1 and the Channel Tunnel, with platforms for domestic trains to the north and south-east of England. The restored station has 15 platforms, a shopping centre, and a coach facility. St Pancras is owned by London and Continental Railways (LCR) and is managed by Network Rail (High Speed), a subsidiary of Network Rail.