Booze might now be banned on public transport, but that doesn't stop us getting trolleyed in the stations. The Betjeman Arms recently opened at St Pancras, bringing a much-needed touch of class to London's catalogue of terminus taprooms. To celebrate, we decided to go on a campaign for rail ale. Despite objections from our livers and serious renal remonstrance, we spent last Saturday working our way though a laevorotatory pub crawl of the major......

Nathan Horton: Controlled Explosion Number 2 Last time we talked about St Pancras Crypt, we were considering buying a London Borough. This week, the tone was rather more sombre with a group show, Responses to Conflict and Loss installed in these meditative, subterranean vaults. The Crypt is nigh on perfect for this sort of show. Its damp, fusty smelling waft and many vaulted rooms, nooks and crannies, with displaced gravestones lying around and family tombs......

Colour us surprised: those original 2012 Olympic costs were totally unrealistic Hounslow residents, consider yourselves warned: a teachers strike this Thursday means the yoof will be on the loose Arrests have been made in a 21-year old murder case Here comes the bat cab! That's, um, a battery-powered cab, not the kind of motor Bruce Wayne would be seen in. Pubs are closing at frightening rate. Do your bit, people - get plastered in......

What with all the whinging we've done about the comical opening of T5, and the state of British infrastructure in general, it seems we've forgotten about the smooth, stress-free move that Eurostar made from Waterloo to St. Pancras last November. Fortunately, travellers to the continent have been quick to take advantage: the operator has recorded a 21% passenger rise in the first three months of 2008. The world's largest inter-capital rail service could welcome......

The clearest thing to emerge from the mayoral race this week is that no one can agree about buses. The arguments began last Wednesday when Boris Johnson told Vanessa Feltz that the '21st Century' Routemasters he wants to replace bendy buses with would all have conductors and that these would cost 'eight million quid'. Ken Livingstone went on the show next day to say Boris’s figures were fine except he’d left a nought off......

As a parochial and unglamorous antidote to the Hollywood Oscars that took place last weekend, London Underground was crowned Public Transport Operator of the Year at what LUL are desperately trying to sex up as the "transport Oscars" but are actually more prosaically known as the London Transport Awards. The MD of LUL explained they had scooped the gong for: delivering a record volume of service, carrying more passengers than ever before, while at......

In the late 90s, I knew a bloke who cut up an A-Z, and wallpapered the hall of his flat with the pages. It was great for checking where you were headed before popping out to meet someone. Artist Stephen Walter's gone a step further, drawing his own, unique, geographically accurate version of London. The Island: London Series is a graphite drawing of our fair city comprised of cartoon-ish buildings, signposts, historical details and quirky......

That's right. As from today, King's Cross Thameslink is no more. The outmoded station on Pentonville Road closed for business yesterday. Services now stop beneath St Pancras International on new platforms (pictured). It seems to be the law these days that anything recently opened must be trumpeted as 'shiny new'. Not so with these platforms. IanVisits describes a 'clinical grey feel', but with much widened access. Diamond Geezer, meanwhile, gives a fitting eulogy to......

A group of men robbed a St Pancras telecommunications firm on Thursday evening by dressing up as policemen, in a plot bearing a touch of Alanis Morissette about it. The thieves were let into the building by one of the firm’s employees, after claiming to be investigating reports of people on the roof. Once inside, they ditched their pretensions to law and order and tied up five members of staff. They then made off......

The trains have been re-routed, the signage amended, the tube announcements re-recorded (completed, luckily, before the woman behind them was given the heave-ho). The re-opening of St Pancras means that Waterloo's reign as Britain's main international train station, a duty it fulfilled without complaint for thirteen years, is well and truly over. But what to do with those elegant Eurostar platforms, so admired in their mid-Nineties infancy? The plan in the short term is......

Toot toot! And honk, honk! For the London Transport Museum has finally reopened after two years and £22 million of renovation. Hot on the (w)heels of St Pancras. Typical: you wait years for a major nexus of transport heritage to open, and then two come along at once. The Covent Garden attraction tells the story of the trotting, crawling and whizzing of our city over the past 200 years. There’s also a section looking......

Time Out recently presented St Pancras Station as their inaugural 'Wonder of London'. Profile Books goes a couple of stages further by including the terminus in its 'wonders of the world' series - buildings and monuments, such as the Colosseum, Stonehenge and the Forbidden City, whose 'names will be familiar to almost everyone'. We're not sure if the station is quite in that category yet. It's doubtful it has anything like the global and......

Another dip into a parallel London, in which this week's opening of St Pancras took a sinister and surreal twist. Got a f*cked up image of the capital? Send it to londonist at gmail dot com Background image manipulated from Malias' Flickr photostream.......

Having visited the new-look station at lunch time, we can confirm: that's one bastard of a roof. Such is the scale and magnificence of St Pancras International, the cleaners will be sweeping up a fine collection of dropped mandibles this evening. We've compiled a few images of the opening, for those of you who couldn't get there. This place really has to be seen to be believed. But first a video. Qype visits St......

Unless there were leaves on the line, not enough station staff, delays at Paris holding everything up or industrial action on either side of the Channel, the first Eurostar train should be pulling into its new station at St Pancras this morning. We've had a sneak preview of what it's like and have been terribly excited about it so far, and at last, today, we get to see it in its full glory. We......

A week after opening for the Queen, St Pancras International is finally ready for the likes of us. The station has been restored beyond its former glory. Britain's answer to Central Station is ready for business. Everyone knows by now that the sumptious Euston Road frontage to the station was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott. But what else in London did the Great Scott design? Time to dust off our old 'Stalks' series,......

Due to earlier technical vexations of a non-Stratford-related variety, Monday Miscellanea is a bit later than usual today... This Week In London’s History Monday – 12th November 1974: A 9lb salmon is caught in the Thames – the first time that such a fish has been caught in the dirty old river since 1834 – and sent to the British Museum for identification. Improvements in the water quality are hailed. Tuesday – 13th November......

It’s cold outside this week, so it seems like the best plan is to cozy up on the couch and watch some telly. Why would you want to risk frostbite? On TV, Londonist likes: Monday, 12 November I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here (ITV1, 21:00-22:30) It’s off to the jungle yet again with Ant & Dec as they guide a new group of “celebs” through as many disgusting tasks as you’d......

With the opening of St Pancras and its high-speed line to the continent, the approval of Crossrail, and glimpses of the futuristic bullet trains that will soon call London home, there are plenty of encouraging signs that Britain's rail network is in good health. They don't come much more inspiring than the former railway man who has set up his own rail service. Grand Central Rail was established in 2000 by former British Rail......

Queen Liz officially re-opens St Pancras station Having nabbed a flash foreign manager, Spurs continue to ape Arsenal with new stadium plans Meanwhile, Gunners fans are accused of abusing shrinking violet Sir Alex Ferguson Smithfields Market to be butchered in redevelopment? Londonist hopes it can be saved Image courtesy of buckaroo kid via the Londonist flickr group.......

Forget supping champagne as you hurtle from shiny new St Pancras to Gare de Nord by Eurostar, soon we'll be considering a picturesque pedal to Paris. No doubt inspired by this summer's Tour de France prologue in England which took an ultra scenic route to the French capital, three County Councils have signed an agreement with Transport for London to back the development of a cycle route to span both sides of the Channel......

Updates from a Londonista at today's Integrated Volume Testing at St Pancras International, the new Eurostar terminal. (A sneak preview of the new station before it opens on 14th November, with Eurostar moving from Waterloo overnight.) 7.15am. Early start, ugh. 8.00. It's quite a privilege to be here and get a sneak preview of the place. But they'd better have coffee. 8.30. The first queue of many - most of the participants (300 of......

Depending on how much Internet reading you do, you may or may not be aware that today is Blog Action Day – a day on which bloggers around the web unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind. This year it’s the environment. And in honour of this, Londonist could think of nothing more appropriate than to suggest ideas for a greener day in this fair city of ours. 1. Get on......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 1st October 1868: St. Pancras Station is officially opened as the London terminus for the Midland Railway, despite its construction being incomplete. Part of the buildings would form the iconic gothic St. Pancras Chambers, which housed the Midland Grand Hotel. Tuesday – 2nd October 1909: Twickenham Stadium hosts its first ever rugby match, with Harlequins beating Richmond 14-10. Wednesday – 3rd October 1975: After three days of......

If train-spotting be your bag, then you can soon enjoy it with bubbles. Set to open alongside the new London terminus for Eurostar in St Pancras Station is the 'world’s longest champagne bar'. The 78 m expanse – brainchild of catering company Searcy, operator of the restaurant roofed in the Gherkin, and designer Linda Turner (Inature) of Arbutus and Wild Honey fame – will run parallel to the tracks and is designed to fit......

London has as many hotel projects underway as the whole of Spain and five times as many as the second busiest city in Europe in terms of hotel development, Moscow. Surprising, innit? This is the opening message of the latest temporary exhibition at New London Architecture, that wonderful and free gallery on Store Street. By focusing on just one building type, Away From Home - New Hotels in London reminds us of the huge......

One of Londonist’s fave websites is seat61.com. Now this is not because we are closet anoraks, or are forever secretly planning our escape from the capital – it is just a damn fine website. Everything that you ever wanted to know about trains but were afraid to ask. Not just London, but worldwide. Journey to plan? We bet your travelling conundrums are already addressed on the man in seat 61’s site. It is a mammoth......

Hello Jack! I've not blogged here for a couple of weeks. Did you miss me? ...what do you mean you've forgotten that this column even existed? Damn your face, and all it stands for! Actually, that's nasty of me. I apologise profusely and unreservedly. You've got a lovely face, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, least of all David Milliband. It would be a terrible shame to cast your face asunder from the......

In 2012, eight out of ten London tourist sites will be inaccessible to people who can’t use stairs. So reckon the Liberal Democrats in the London Assembly. Their Olympic spokesperson, Dee Doocey, told the BBC: Disabled athletes and visitors to the Games travelling on the Javelin trains from Stratford to St Pancras will not be able to continue their journey into central London to visit the capital's top attractions because most of the Tube......

Environmental winner. Eurostar aims for carbon neutrality. Good on 'em. Environmental loser. The freesheets are in trouble over their lack of recycling facilities. Goldsmith's University appoints professor of computer games. (Take a look; isn't he the guy out of Status Quo?) 21/7 guy plays the antihero card. Mormon children force-fed chillies and whipped with nettles. 'Motives were Christian', says defendant. Lobster on St Pancras Way courtesy of dartar via the Londonist flickr group.......