KING'S CROSS STATION Group: British Railways Purchase price: £200 Rent: £25 Annual passengers: 23 million Borough:Camden Postcode: N1
The first of the four railway stations on the Monopoly board is London's prestigious gateway to Yorkshire and the North. It's the station Waddington's boss Victor Watson would have arrived at when he came down from Leeds in 1935 to research locations for the UK version, indeed it's said this is why he chose to include four LNER termini and nothing heading south of the river. In today's post I'm going to focus solely on King's Cross mainline station - not the tube, not St Pancras, nor the expansive redevelopment whipping up outside.
A (very) brief history:King's Cross station opened in 1852 to replace a temporary terminus on York Way. It's named after an ostentatious statue of King George IV briefly installed at a nearby road junction, before which the area had long been known as Battle Bridge. The two arched trainsheds and lofty clock tower have been there since day 1, gradually augmented by adjustments to accommodate more platforms and additional suburban railways. The most significant redevelopment of the station took place in 2012, removing the 40-year-old 'temporary' structure tacked on the front and replacing it with a spectacular semi-circular concourse bolted on the side. 100 words, tick.
King's Cross looks pretty wow these days, not least the swooshinglattice that pours from the ceiling like an onion bag sucked into a plughole. This metal vortex draws the eye towards the ground floor ticket office, or what's left of it, the bank of desks having been sequentially narrowed since 2012 to an ill-frequented rump. To either side are lengthy departure boards, thankfully not yet replaced by blazing adverts, announcing destinations as farflung as Inverness, Hull, Harrogate and King's Lynn. If it'll be dark by the time you reach Berwick maybe pop into Little Waitrose for canned cocktails and WHSmiths for a good book.
The thing about the new King's Cross station is that it's been divided very deliberately into arrivals and departures. When you arrive on a mainline train, somewhere within Cubitt's glorious trainshed, you're unceremoniously ushered forwards off the platforms and out onto the piazza in front of the station. You could turn right under cover but the architects' clear intention was to funnel everyone towards the bus stops and the external entrances to the tube, perhaps pausing to buy streetfood from the maze of stalls outside, and if it's raining bad luck.
By contrast if you're here to catch a train you get the dry route, the amazing ceiling and multiple opportunities for grazing. This is the inevitable consequence of a departure point where most travellers have bought advance tickets so tend to arrive early, because to arrive late risks being fleeced for a monumental walk-up fare. Once you're here you might as well settle down with a drink, perhaps a snack, or even a full-on meal in one of a dozen refreshment outlets. Top of the shop is The Parcel Yard, an extensive Fullers pub, but you might also succumb to a Prezzo, Wasabi, Giraffe or unapologetic pasty outlet offering a slab of warmed pastry you'll have wolfed down before passing Finsbury Park.
While you wait it's very tempting to head up to the mezzanine, either for the food or for the excellent overview. But station staff have obviously had previous trouble with inappropriate access because the steps on the escalators have been sequentially labelled No luggage/No bicycles/No pushchairs/No wheelchairs in screeching yellow-edged letters urging you to use the lifts instead. As well as catering outlets and little silver tables, the mezzanine also provides access to award winning toilets, or at least they earned Platinum Plus status in the Loo Of The Year Awards in 2022 and nobody's yet taken down the signs.
I particularly like the arc of elevated walkway that curves round from the mezzanine, which I suspect the architects hoped would be busy with refreshed punters waddling off to catch their trains. Instead it's generally ignored and overlooked, so much so that the gateline leading onto the overbridge is regularly unstaffed. The first platform crossed is number 8, one of two original platforms from 1852 and also the site of the lovely brassclock. The other original is platform 1 on the far side, where you might spot an bullet-headed Azuma nosing in or a budget blue Lumo 803 waiting to depart. You only properly hit the novelty jackpot if your train is scheduled at Platform 0, a late addition shoehorned under National Rail offices in 2010.
King's Cross's most famous platform of course doesn't exist. That's Platform 9¾, departure point of the termly Hogwarts Express, whose fictional existence doesn't stop hordes of fans turning up to see it. For this they all queue patiently to appear in a choreographed scarf-dropping photo in front of half a trolley, so great in number that even the queue has an overflow queue outside the main building. The entire P9¾ set-up has been hijacked by The Harry Potter Shop whose wizarding emporium is normally adjacent but is currently closed for a refit so they've had to open a pop-up beside Boots instead. And alas none of this is anywhere near the actual platforms 9 and 10, nor is there a magic pillar between them because the two tracks are adjacent.
For the best exterior overview you should exit the station and head up York Way, walking almost the entire length of Platform 0 to the top of the goods yard ramp. Here you can peer through the mesh and see the twin-humped trainshed and several trains poking out of it, modern rolling stock being a tad longer than Victorian engineers anticipated. Mere commuter routes are located on the far side in inferior architectural accommodation. And beyond that runs the enormity of Google's groundbreaking groundscraper, a headquarters they seem to have been building forever and which might just be finished at the end of next year. Grab yourself a hotdesk on the station-facing flank of the building and you could trainspot to your heart's content.
Personally I'd have put King's Cross a lot further round the Monopoly board, somewhere amid the better-off properties, but as things stand we've hit railway royalty early. I doubt I'm going to be able to make Fenchurch Street sound this interesting.
