Euston station’s marble columns ‘would fall off’ without bands, minister admits

Euston Station in central London has deteriorated to the point where its marble columns are held together by bands because “it would fall off without them”, the rail minister has said.

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, who is a former chairman of Network Rail, told the House of Lords that Euston Station, one of Britain’s busiest, is “no longer in fit condition”.

He said: “The station itself was very modern in 1968. It is no longer very modern.

“As a previous chair of Network Rail, I can tell you that if you look closely in the columns in the station, there are bands round the marble because it would fall off without them. It is no longer in fit condition.”

Lord Hendy, who is also a former Transport for London commissioner, told peers in Westminster about the Government’s 100-day rapid improvement plan for the station and hopes for the longer term.

He said: “I would like to take some modest credit for having re-included the concourse at Euston into the overall plan for the development of Euston and, now that the tunnels for HS2 will go there, I am very hopeful that all parts of the station will be fit for passenger usage in the future.

“In the meantime, the most important parts of the 100-day plan are these: the concourse is too small, so the logical thing to do on the concourse is to load the trains earlier, and yet the position up until very recently was that neither of the train companies was routinely managed there to do that, but they are now changing.

“So a significant proportion of Avanti trains will be loaded at least 20 minutes before departure and, for the more local services on the London Northwestern trains, platforms will be full of passengers even before the train has arrived.

“That will make a huge difference.

“There is a bookshop which is there currently but won’t be there shortly to create some space.

“I can recall we got criticism for removing Boots, but actually too many shops and not enough concourse space is not the right answer.

“And there will be some further improvements to signage and visibility.

“At least, when the last signage was done it was hoped to be the right job, but I’m afraid it turned out not to be.”