On May 22, 10:48*pm, Mark Goodge
wrote:
On Tue, 22 May 2012 13:52:13 -0700 (PDT), 77002 put finger to keyboard and
typed:





On May 22, 7:50*pm, Neil Williams
wrote:
77002 wrote:
The mainline platforms at Euston are at street level. *It is the
Headhouse that is raised on an artificial plinth. *It is arty, 1960s
concrete commie stupidity.

It is a very practical station with a fine, high ceilinged, cool in summer,
warm in winter Great Hall. *Shame the late Mr Breen is no longer around to
add to my defence of it.

You would presumably prefer the freezing cold, stinking of diesel
Paddington, with its IMO not at all tasteful combination of old and new?

No Paddington has been ruined. *The degradation started with the
carbuncle on the north side.

Liverpool Street is rather good.

Why the dumb plinth at Euston. *One has to climb steps to enter, only
to descend ramps to the platforms.

It's to provide space under the concourse for service access and utilities.
It also allows direct access from the commuter platforms to the underground
via a passage which passes under the concourse, thus minimising congestion
at concourse level.

Functionally, Euston is very well designed. It hasn't been particularly
well used; the concourse has been cluttered by too many retail kiosks
(although they are now realising that's a bad thing and removing them) and
the tendency to leave platform announcements until close to departure times
creates too much of a scrum. Neither of those, though, are the fault of the
original planners. Visually, it's typical 1960s municipal modern with
piecemeal 1970s and 1980s additions, and is definitely showing its age now.

I think it will look a lot better once the planned refurbishment is
completed - looking at the artist's impressions, it will take it back a bit
to the original openness while at the same time updating the facilities. I
don't think Euston will ever be considered classic architecture, but,
provided they can carry out the makeover without negatively affecting the
functional aspects, it has the advantage that nobody is going to complain
that they've made it worse!

So it is no longer coming down as part of HS2? That, and the link to
OOC and the GW line to Birmingham were the best parts of HS2. I was
look forward to a decent looking station closer to Euston Road and
linked to Euston Square.