St Pancras

The station is the terminus for East Midlands Trains services from London to Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield, and smaller towns en route.

The simulation

I have used a track plan for 1982 but have reinstated platform 1 at St Pancras and platform 3 at Kentish Town so earlier WTT can be used, the line through platform 3 at Kentish Town I have named Up/Down Relief line, on the 1982 plan it is down as Up/Down Carriage line.

Brief History of St Pancras

St Pancras is often termed the "cathedral of the railways", and includes two of the most celebrated structures built in Britain in the Victorian era. The train shed, completed in 1868 by the engineer William Henry Barlow, was the largest single-span structure built up to that time. The frontage of the station is formed by the former Midland Grand Hotel, designed by George Gilbert Scott, an example of Victorian Gothic architecture, now occupied by the five-star Renaissance London Hotel and apartments. 

The 20th century did not serve St Pancras station well. The Railways Act of 1921forced the merger of the Midland with the London and North Western Railway(LNWR) into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), and the LMS adopted the LNWR's (the "Premier Line") Euston station as its principal London terminus. The Midland Grand Hotel was closed in 1935, and the building was subsequently used as offices for British Railways. During the Second World War, bombing inflicted damage on the train shed, which was only partially reglazed after the war. In 1947 the St. Pancras junction was relaid with prefabricated trackwork, along with associated changes to the signalling system. On 6 October 1957 three signal boxes were replaced by a power box controlling 23 colour-light signals and 33 points.

On the creation of British Railways in 1948, the previous services continued to run. Destinations included the London area services to North Woolwich, St Albans and Bedford. Long-distance trains reached Glasgow, Leeds, Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester.

After the sectorisation of British Rail in 1986, main-line services to the East Midlands were provided by the Inter City sector, with suburban services to St Albans, Luton and Bedford by Network South East. In 1988 the Snow Hill tunnel re-opened resulting in the creation of the Thames link route and the resultant diversion of the majority of suburban trains to the new route. The station continued to be served by trains running on the Midland main line to Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield, together with a few suburban services to Bedford and Luton. These constituted only a few trains an hour and left the station underused.

Following the privatisation of British Rail, the long-distance services from St Pancras were franchised to Midland Mainline, a train operating company owned by the National Express Group, starting on 28 April 1996. The few remaining suburban trains still operating into St Pancras were operated by the Thames link train operating company, owned by Govia, from 2 March 1997.

A handful of trains to and from Leeds were introduced, mainly because the High Speed Train sets were maintained there and were already running empty north of Sheffield. During the 2000s major rebuild of the West Coast Main Line, St Pancras again temporarily hosted direct and regular inter-city trains to Manchester, this time via the Hope Valley route (via the Dore South curve) under the title of Project Rio.

Platform lengths in number of coaches:

St Pancras

Platform                          coaches
1                                  10
2                                  14
Sdg A                              13
3                                  14
4                                  14
5                                  15
6                                  14
7                                  14
Churchyard Sdg 1                   20
Churchyard Sdg 2                   14
Churchyard Sdg 3                   14
Between sig 526 and 515            10

Kentish Town
1                                  14
2                                  14
3                                  14
4                                  14
Take off one coach for each loco

Eng Sdg 1                          4 locos
Eng Sdg 2                          4 locos 

Start up screen picture

The new greets the old at St Pancras on April 23rd 1983 as the 'new' - a rather smokey HST keeps company with the 'old' - 45131, a sprightly twenty two years old in this view and still good for six more years! Photograph courtesy Robert Inns and David Hills.

Acknowledgments

Thanks goes to Richard Wade for all his help in getting this simulation up and running, Martin Elms for the track plan, and all the PC Rail testing team.

David Palmer
2016
