Everyone knows the Victorian Euston station was bulldozed to make way for a controversial 1960s replacement. But in this extract from London's Great Railway Stations, we learn the old station was actually supposed to be ousted by an American art deco dreamboat of a design.
By the time it was celebrating Euston's centenary in 1937, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) had announced new plans to rebuild its main London station, using a government loan guarantee.
An architect's perspective was released showing a giant American-influenced building in monumental art deco style, which would combine station facilities, railway offices and even a heliport on the roof.
The c.1937 proposal by Percy Thomas to demolish and replace both Euston and @StPancrasInt stations with a vast US-style "union" terminus. pic.twitter.com/M85Qj31VYg
— Tim Dunn (@MrTimDunn) October 15, 2017
Unlike London Transport, who had moved fast with new tube extensions and stations funded in the same way in the 1930s, the LMS only managed to build a chunky new nine-storey art deco-ish head office building to house 1,300 of its own admin staff at Euston in 1934. But nothing to improve the travelling experience of passengers.
The office block, named Euston House, still stands just east of the station on Eversholt Street, but is no longer a railway property. War broke out before any work on the grand new terminus scheme had even started.
A smaller-scale version of what a 1930s-style Euston might have been like can still be experienced at Leeds station, where the LMS in-house architect William Henry Hamlyn designed the Queens Hotel with a stylish new station entrance concourse alongside, all opened in 1938.
London's Great Railway Stations by Oliver Green & Benjamin Graham, published by Frances Lincoln, RRP £35
