Marylebone was originally the terminus of the Great Central Railway which did link to the cities of Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester, and later on by the LNER and British Rail regional services until the late 1960s, but the station doesn't serve any of those places these days. Chiltern Railways, which operates from the station nowadays, serves Aylesbury, Bicester, Banbury Birmingham, Oxford, Leamington, Kidderminster and Stratford upon Avon.
St Pancras was very different before the millennium. Direct services to Scotland ended in the 1970s, Glasgow's St Enoch terminus having closed in the 1960s. The former Midland Railway route through the Peak District to Manchester was also abandoned in 1968, and glamorous named trains and sleepers were a distant memory, leaving a connection to the East Midlands and a Bedford commuter service. Outside of rush hours, St P was a fairly quiet place, and plans to close it were underway as Victorian architecture was held in contempt by modernists. Unthinkable now, but it could have easily followed Euston to the wrecking ball.
I recently realised that London just love building many hubs for their transportstion with 14 train terminals and 6 airports. I do miss Marylebone though. I used to use the station monthly when I went down to London during my time in Oxford.
Tourist Advice: The Heathrow Express is a waste of money. The Elizabeth Line is only 8 minutes slower from Heathrow to Paddington and half the price, and it also takes you directly into other parts of central London. You can also take the Piccadilly line for even cheaper prices which is slower but takes you to different parts of London
Excellent video, and I've subscribed to your channel to make sure I catch more. An interesting fact is that it wasn't just London that had multiple mainline terminus stations, most of the big cities did, just that London had the most. I live in Manchester now and it still has three terminus stations (though the 3rd is very small). Victoria and Piccadilly are the main ones, but Oxford Rd is still technically a terminus as well. At its peak, Manchester had 6 terminus stations, Victoria, London Rd (now Piccadilly), Exchange Station, Mayfield, Central and Oxford Rd! In fact, inbetween these, Manchester also had no fewer than 15 goods stations also circling the city centre in addition to those passenger stations. Manchester was one hell of a railway town Liverpool had 5 terminus stations, Lime Street, Central, Exchange, Riverside and Woodside (which despite being on the other side of the Mersey, faced Liverpool and was used as a terminus for Liverpool with most passengers disembarking and taking a direct ferry waiting for them) Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow and many more cities also had multiple terminus stations, some of which still has more than one. It's an amazing thing about UK cities.
Thanks for the share. Didn't realise how many cities have so many terminus stations.. Gives me a good excuse next time back in the UK to head north to check them out.
I believe it wasn't entirely the fault of the old private companies. In the early Victorian period when the original railways were being authorised, Parliament decided they didn't want railways from the north coming further towards the centre than Marylebone Road/Euston Road/Pentonville Road, then quite recently laid out as part of a ring road around the central area which was even more congested back then. This is essentially the line of the northern side of the Circle Line. There were occasional proposals for a grand central station, but these never came to anything, largely due to the amount of property demolition that would have been needed. Alan Jackson wrote a book called 'London's Termini' some years ago which details the history of all these stations. Copies are fairly easily available secondhand.
Thanks for the information - really interesting. I'll add that to the next videos on make on the remaining lines. And thanks for the heads up on the book. Appreciate it.
It’s really not possible to say how many terminus stations London has, because it depends on how you count them. I used to reckon fifteen: Paddington Marylebone Euston St. Pancras Kings Cross Moorgate Broad Street Liverpool Street Fenchurch Street Victoria Waterloo Charing Cross Holborn Viaduct Cannon Street London Bridge Broad Street and Holborn Viaduct have since been closed and demolished; that leaves thirteen of my ones still open. There are a number of reasons why some people came up with different numbers: Some counted Victoria as two stations. Some counted Bank because it is the terminus of the Waterloo and City line, which at that time was operated by British Rail. Some counted Blackfriars, I didn’t because it had bay platforms, which were on the East side until the last rebuild, but trains only used these at times when Holborn Viaduct was closed. Some counted Kensington Olympia because it used to have some terminal platforms, there was the !otorail terminal in the North West corner, where the car park is now. There ware also bay platforms at both ends on the East side; I once saw Bertram Mills circus loading up in one of the Northern bays, probably in the early ‘60s. Some didn’t count Moorgate because it wasn’t a BR station. There were also some long closed termini: Spa Road was a retains for a time until the line was extended to London Bridge. It later closed completely but the buildings survive at street level and there are traces at track level where there is access for engineers. Some years ago passengers were evacuated there after an accident. Bricklayers Arms became a goods station for many years until it closed. It saw occasional passenger trains, may mother remembered having caught a special train from there to go hop picking a xlikd, probably in the 1930s. Shoreditch, later renamed Bishopsgate, was the terminus of the Eastern Counties Railway until it was extended to Liverpool Street. It then became a goods station until destroyed by a fire in 1964. Shoreditch High Street Overground Station now stands on the site, with parts of the old walls and Viaduct still visible. I think one thing is certain, we had too many stations.
Thanks for taking the time to explain this to me. So interesting! I knew I was getting into a bit of mine field with this topic - as I was researching it, I was confused to how many there were - and also could a terminal station only have through platforms? I would love to use a bit of this commentary in my next video. Hope that is OK.
Of course, Marylebone station is the only one that never features in the Sherlock Holmes stories, even though it’s just round the corner from Baker Street, because it was the last terminus to be built, after the stories were written.
Sir Gilbert Scott may have worked on some extensions to Westminster Abbey, but the majority of that building existed 500+ years before Scott worked there.
Thanks for the correction. Yes sorry I now realise that he only designed some extensions to it. I have deleted that section of the video to avoid more confusion that he built the original structure. Thanks for watching.
St Pancras Station and the Midland Grand Hotel in front of it was designed by Sir (George) Gilbert Scott. His grandson, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed the red telephone box (K2), Liverpool Cathedral, Battersea Power Station, Bankside Power Station (now known as the Tate Modern) and several major University building in both Oxford & Cambridge.
And that's before you consider the suburban termini on the outer edge of the metropolis. Places like Chingford, Enfield Town, Elmers' End, Bromley North, there's dozens of them.
@@BackTracks.SideTracked One of the developments worldwide is the Antwerp/St Pancras mutation into through-running, cutting out the turn-around delays. This will, I think, see the HS1-2 connectivity augmented, for example, with the city centres served by shuttles like the Elizabeth Line.
Thanks for the correction. Yes sorry realise that he only designed some extensions to it. I have deleted that section of the video to avoid more confusion that he built the original structure. Thanks for watching.
Another factor to consider is that, when the railways began, London did not have a "center": It had at least two: The City and Westminster. Consequently, KX, StPan, Euston, CharX, etc. were seen as comfortably in the middle of the two centers, while Paddington and Victoria were considered suitable for access to the West End. Liverpool St., Fenchurch St., Blackfriars, etc. were seen as serving The City. Waterloo was built as a temporary terminus south of the Thames, but LSWR was never allowed to bring its trains into The City. Although proposals were doubtlessly made for connecting the two downtowns with a central steam-powered railway cutting through the center of London, only the Metropolitan and the District were ever built, and only the Metropolitan ever hosted long-distance trains, eventually even building the City Widened Lines now used by Thameslink.
@@BackTracks.SideTracked - You're welcome. In my grad school days, I came across a map of London in the 1700s, and you could plainly see that "London" was The City and Westminster connected by The Strand, and everything else around it was farms and docks to supply the Capitol. For example, a 17th century source of bawdy tunes includes one about a farm maid carrying food for sale from Islington, the first neighborhood north of The City's walls. 18th century London shows the limits of urban living before modern transportation.
I would add Baker Street (between Marylebone and Euston) to the list, as the terminus of the Metropolitan Railway, now the Metropolitan Line of the Underground. That it is considered "underground" rather than "overground" is more down to 1930s politics than any actual characteristics of the line, and the decision to group it with London Transport rather than LNER or LMS. The Metropolitan Railway also owned the East London Line and Northern City Line, which were later reclassified as "Overground". The South Western Railway owned the Waterloo & City Line which was considered "overground" up until the end of the Network South East era, even though it is the most underground line in the entire network.
Sir George Gilbert Scott actually designed the current houses of parliament after a blaze that consumed most of the buildings on that land. Westminster Abbey had been there nearly 1000 years befire so he did not design that.
Thanks for the correction. Yes sorry realised that he only designed some extensions to it - and I should have realised the dates wouldn't have worked out. I have deleted that section of the video to avoid more confusion that he built the original structure. Thanks for watching. It will take a few hours for the new edit to appear.
The narration is a bit unclear for the Marylebone portion. It does say in the subtitle that it serves Birmingham and the Chiltern Mainline (technically it also goes on the branch to Aylesbury which isnt classed as the Chiltern Mainline) but the narration talks about the GCR serving Leicester, Nottingham, etc. as if the station still serves these. Chiltern Railways do not serve these stations and you cannot get a train direct from Marylebone to any of these cities.
Sorry for slow reply. Yes after the first video I realised I need to ensure I was looking at updated info (not just third party websites) so I from then on I only referenced the latest operator map by Network Rail. Sorry for the confusion. Cheers M
Thanks. yes I was wondering the same after watching a recent Jago Hazzard video on the topic. Doesn't seem very good value - unless in a hurry and Paddington is your final stop.
@@BackTracks.SideTracked exactly. If u ve got a train to catch departing from paddington syncronised with timetable and transfer time, it seems to b useful in that way. Whereas before because of its fastness it was somehow more useful to save sometime than Tube.
Agree.. My 'day job' company's office is near Bond Street.. so Heathrow Express is likely even longer trip taking into account changing to Elizabeth Line. I wonder as GWR is the part owner (got this from WIKIPEDIA so may not be correct) they don't care - as long as they are getting a piece of the Heathrow Traffic - as if they stop its all TfL on the line? Am sure there is some 'bigger discussion' going on...
@@chavandposh It is difficult to think of a scenario where that would happen, and Heathrow Express would be the best option. If you are taking a long-distance service, it is probably better to take the RailAir bus to Reading and catch the train there. If you are taking a more local service, then Elizabeth Line to a point closer to your destination would be better. Paddington is a mostly residential area with a big hospital, so people who actually want to go there will be mostly local people.
@@BackTracks.SideTracked As I understand it, Heathrow Airport "own" the Heathrow Express, and contract out the running of the actual services to GWR. I'm not sure if the contract gives GWR a cut of the fare income, or if it is a fixed-price contract to maintain the trains and provide the drivers. Heathrow Airport also owns the section of track between Airport Junction and Heathrow, so TfL has to pay them to run their trains over that section of track. Hence if you go to Heathrow on the Elizabeth Line, it cost a bit more than a standard Zone 6 fare.
Not any more. During the pandemic, Stratford took the top spot, then following that and the opening of the Elizabeth Line, Liverpool St took it with Paddington in second place.
Marylebone was originally the terminus of the Great Central Railway which did link to the cities of Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester, and later on by the LNER and British Rail regional services until the late 1960s, but the station doesn't serve any of those places these days. Chiltern Railways, which operates from the station nowadays, serves Aylesbury, Bicester, Banbury Birmingham, Oxford, Leamington, Kidderminster and Stratford upon Avon.
St Pancras was very different before the millennium. Direct services to Scotland ended in the 1970s, Glasgow's St Enoch terminus having closed in the 1960s. The former Midland Railway route through the Peak District to Manchester was also abandoned in 1968, and glamorous named trains and sleepers were a distant memory, leaving a connection to the East Midlands and a Bedford commuter service. Outside of rush hours, St P was a fairly quiet place, and plans to close it were underway as Victorian architecture was held in contempt by modernists. Unthinkable now, but it could have easily followed Euston to the wrecking ball.
I recently realised that London just love building many hubs for their transportstion with 14 train terminals and 6 airports. I do miss Marylebone though. I used to use the station monthly when I went down to London during my time in Oxford.
Well, loved in the past tense. The latest was Marylebone in 1900.
Tourist Advice: The Heathrow Express is a waste of money. The Elizabeth Line is only 8 minutes slower from Heathrow to Paddington and half the price, and it also takes you directly into other parts of central London. You can also take the Piccadilly line for even cheaper prices which is slower but takes you to different parts of London
Excellent video, and I've subscribed to your channel to make sure I catch more.
An interesting fact is that it wasn't just London that had multiple mainline terminus stations, most of the big cities did, just that London had the most.
I live in Manchester now and it still has three terminus stations (though the 3rd is very small). Victoria and Piccadilly are the main ones, but Oxford Rd is still technically a terminus as well. At its peak, Manchester had 6 terminus stations, Victoria, London Rd (now Piccadilly), Exchange Station, Mayfield, Central and Oxford Rd!
In fact, inbetween these, Manchester also had no fewer than 15 goods stations also circling the city centre in addition to those passenger stations. Manchester was one hell of a railway town
Liverpool had 5 terminus stations, Lime Street, Central, Exchange, Riverside and Woodside (which despite being on the other side of the Mersey, faced Liverpool and was used as a terminus for Liverpool with most passengers disembarking and taking a direct ferry waiting for them)
Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow and many more cities also had multiple terminus stations, some of which still has more than one. It's an amazing thing about UK cities.
Thanks for the share. Didn't realise how many cities have so many terminus stations.. Gives me a good excuse next time back in the UK to head north to check them out.
I believe it wasn't entirely the fault of the old private companies. In the early Victorian period when the original railways were being authorised, Parliament decided they didn't want railways from the north coming further towards the centre than Marylebone Road/Euston Road/Pentonville Road, then quite recently laid out as part of a ring road around the central area which was even more congested back then. This is essentially the line of the northern side of the Circle Line. There were occasional proposals for a grand central station, but these never came to anything, largely due to the amount of property demolition that would have been needed. Alan Jackson wrote a book called 'London's Termini' some years ago which details the history of all these stations. Copies are fairly easily available secondhand.
Thanks for the information - really interesting. I'll add that to the next videos on make on the remaining lines. And thanks for the heads up on the book. Appreciate it.
Yep. Came here to say that. Though instead of "parliament" I was going to say "the privileged classes"…
Great video. Lots of interesting information, well presented and narrated.
Your enthusiastic and gentle tone, easily makes up for the little slips.
Great video. Very interesting and informative. Looking forward to the other episodes.
Beautiful building
Great video talking about the terminals
Great video. Love running into Aussies in London, there are so many of you here :)
But good news for you guys, I went back home :)
When I first commuted to work back in the 80s it was to Holborn Viaduct, which is a London Terminus no more!
It’s really not possible to say how many terminus stations London has, because it depends on how you count them. I used to reckon fifteen:
Paddington
Marylebone
Euston
St. Pancras
Kings Cross
Moorgate
Broad Street
Liverpool Street
Fenchurch Street
Victoria
Waterloo
Charing Cross
Holborn Viaduct
Cannon Street
London Bridge
Broad Street and Holborn Viaduct have since been closed and demolished; that leaves thirteen of my ones still open. There are a number of reasons why some people came up with different numbers:
Some counted Victoria as two stations.
Some counted Bank because it is the terminus of the Waterloo and City line, which at that time was operated by British Rail.
Some counted Blackfriars, I didn’t because it had bay platforms, which were on the East side until the last rebuild, but trains only used these at times when Holborn Viaduct was closed.
Some counted Kensington Olympia because it used to have some terminal platforms, there was the !otorail terminal in the North West corner, where the car park is now. There ware also bay platforms at both ends on the East side; I once saw Bertram Mills circus loading up in one of the Northern bays, probably in the early ‘60s.
Some didn’t count Moorgate because it wasn’t a BR station.
There were also some long closed termini:
Spa Road was a retains for a time until the line was extended to London Bridge. It later closed completely but the buildings survive at street level and there are traces at track level where there is access for engineers. Some years ago passengers were evacuated there after an accident.
Bricklayers Arms became a goods station for many years until it closed. It saw occasional passenger trains, may mother remembered having caught a special train from there to go hop picking a xlikd, probably in the 1930s.
Shoreditch, later renamed Bishopsgate, was the terminus of the Eastern Counties Railway until it was extended to Liverpool Street. It then became a goods station until destroyed by a fire in 1964. Shoreditch High Street Overground Station now stands on the site, with parts of the old walls and Viaduct still visible.
I think one thing is certain, we had too many stations.
Thanks for taking the time to explain this to me. So interesting! I knew I was getting into a bit of mine field with this topic - as I was researching it, I was confused to how many there were - and also could a terminal station only have through platforms? I would love to use a bit of this commentary in my next video. Hope that is OK.
Really nice work, Marty. You’ve got a good eye and a very good narration. I’m looking forward to more of your reports.
Of course, Marylebone station is the only one that never features in the Sherlock Holmes stories, even though it’s just round the corner from Baker Street, because it was the last terminus to be built, after the stories were written.
Sir Gilbert Scott may have worked on some extensions to Westminster Abbey, but the majority of that building existed 500+ years before Scott worked there.
Thanks for the correction. Yes sorry I now realise that he only designed some extensions to it. I have deleted that section of the video to avoid more confusion that he built the original structure. Thanks for watching.
St Pancras Station and the Midland Grand Hotel in front of it was designed by Sir (George) Gilbert Scott. His grandson, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed the red telephone box (K2), Liverpool Cathedral, Battersea Power Station, Bankside Power Station (now known as the Tate Modern) and several major University building in both Oxford & Cambridge.
And that's before you consider the suburban termini on the outer edge of the metropolis. Places like Chingford, Enfield Town, Elmers' End, Bromley North, there's dozens of them.
Sounds like I could go a few more videos. Thanks for the tip.
@@BackTracks.SideTracked One of the developments worldwide is the Antwerp/St Pancras mutation into through-running, cutting out the turn-around delays. This will, I think, see the HS1-2 connectivity augmented, for example, with the city centres served by shuttles like the Elizabeth Line.
I think you might’ve meant westminster cathedral, as westminster abbey is almost 1,000 years old
Thanks for the correction. Yes sorry realise that he only designed some extensions to it. I have deleted that section of the video to avoid more confusion that he built the original structure. Thanks for watching.
I used to live in Berkshire and get the train into Paddington until I discovered you could buy a single ticket and never left London again.
Marylebone does have intercity mainline train services to Birmingham.
Another factor to consider is that, when the railways began, London did not have a "center": It had at least two: The City and Westminster. Consequently, KX, StPan, Euston, CharX, etc. were seen as comfortably in the middle of the two centers, while Paddington and Victoria were considered suitable for access to the West End. Liverpool St., Fenchurch St., Blackfriars, etc. were seen as serving The City. Waterloo was built as a temporary terminus south of the Thames, but LSWR was never allowed to bring its trains into The City.
Although proposals were doubtlessly made for connecting the two downtowns with a central steam-powered railway cutting through the center of London, only the Metropolitan and the District were ever built, and only the Metropolitan ever hosted long-distance trains, eventually even building the City Widened Lines now used by Thameslink.
Thanks for the additional information. Great. I didn't know that. Appreciate it.
@@BackTracks.SideTracked - You're welcome. In my grad school days, I came across a map of London in the 1700s, and you could plainly see that "London" was The City and Westminster connected by The Strand, and everything else around it was farms and docks to supply the Capitol. For example, a 17th century source of bawdy tunes includes one about a farm maid carrying food for sale from Islington, the first neighborhood north of The City's walls. 18th century London shows the limits of urban living before modern transportation.
And New Yorkers thought two terminus stations were a lot 👻
Really great video. Very impressive detail for a non Brit to be aware of 👏
I would add Baker Street (between Marylebone and Euston) to the list, as the terminus of the Metropolitan Railway, now the Metropolitan Line of the Underground.
That it is considered "underground" rather than "overground" is more down to 1930s politics than any actual characteristics of the line, and the decision to group it with London Transport rather than LNER or LMS. The Metropolitan Railway also owned the East London Line and Northern City Line, which were later reclassified as "Overground". The South Western Railway owned the Waterloo & City Line which was considered "overground" up until the end of the Network South East era, even though it is the most underground line in the entire network.
The Metropolitan Line terminates at Aldgate.
@@richardhastie1432 Yes, but most of the trains terminate at Baker Street.
Sir George Gilbert Scott actually designed the current houses of parliament after a blaze that consumed most of the buildings on that land. Westminster Abbey had been there nearly 1000 years befire so he did not design that.
Thanks for the correction. Yes sorry realised that he only designed some extensions to it - and I should have realised the dates wouldn't have worked out. I have deleted that section of the video to avoid more confusion that he built the original structure. Thanks for watching. It will take a few hours for the new edit to appear.
The narration is a bit unclear for the Marylebone portion. It does say in the subtitle that it serves Birmingham and the Chiltern Mainline (technically it also goes on the branch to Aylesbury which isnt classed as the Chiltern Mainline) but the narration talks about the GCR serving Leicester, Nottingham, etc. as if the station still serves these. Chiltern Railways do not serve these stations and you cannot get a train direct from Marylebone to any of these cities.
Sorry for slow reply. Yes after the first video I realised I need to ensure I was looking at updated info (not just third party websites) so I from then on I only referenced the latest operator map by Network Rail. Sorry for the confusion. Cheers M
@@BackTracks.SideTracked Ah that makes sense then.
Pedant
St Pancras, train shed and hotel, best building in london,
Good video......however...why do Australians end each statement or phrase as though it were a question?
I can't believe you mis-pronounced St. Pancras.
Thanks. Must be my Aussie accent. We barely speak English properly at the best of times :)
@@BackTracks.SideTracked I was in a bad mood; sorry!
Someone still used Heathrow express?
Thanks. yes I was wondering the same after watching a recent Jago Hazzard video on the topic. Doesn't seem very good value - unless in a hurry and Paddington is your final stop.
@@BackTracks.SideTracked exactly. If u ve got a train to catch departing from paddington syncronised with timetable and transfer time, it seems to b useful in that way. Whereas before because of its fastness it was somehow more useful to save sometime than Tube.
Agree.. My 'day job' company's office is near Bond Street.. so Heathrow Express is likely even longer trip taking into account changing to Elizabeth Line.
I wonder as GWR is the part owner (got this from WIKIPEDIA so may not be correct) they don't care - as long as they are getting a piece of the Heathrow Traffic - as if they stop its all TfL on the line? Am sure there is some 'bigger discussion' going on...
@@chavandposh It is difficult to think of a scenario where that would happen, and Heathrow Express would be the best option.
If you are taking a long-distance service, it is probably better to take the RailAir bus to Reading and catch the train there. If you are taking a more local service, then Elizabeth Line to a point closer to your destination would be better.
Paddington is a mostly residential area with a big hospital, so people who actually want to go there will be mostly local people.
@@BackTracks.SideTracked As I understand it, Heathrow Airport "own" the Heathrow Express, and contract out the running of the actual services to GWR. I'm not sure if the contract gives GWR a cut of the fare income, or if it is a fixed-price contract to maintain the trains and provide the drivers.
Heathrow Airport also owns the section of track between Airport Junction and Heathrow, so TfL has to pay them to run their trains over that section of track. Hence if you go to Heathrow on the Elizabeth Line, it cost a bit more than a standard Zone 6 fare.
London Paddington and Liverpool Street isn't the top twi busiest train in London. The busiest is London waterloo.
Liverpool St has taken Waterloo's crown since the Elizabeth Line was built
Not any more. During the pandemic, Stratford took the top spot, then following that and the opening of the Elizabeth Line, Liverpool St took it with Paddington in second place.
You might want to clarify which Brunel built Paddington.
Much better than Chi Na🎉