I must admit, I love travelling by rail. It just seems so much more glamorous than travelling by bus. I love it so much that even when I took a rickety, crowded, overnight train from Surat Thani to Bangkok, I reveled in every bumpy moment. My love of rail, I suspect, is a direct result of the fact that I never take real trains except when travelling. Here in Western Canada, travel by rail is almost non-existent, unless you’re wealthy.
But for people who take trains frequently, it might no seem so romantic as I make it out to be. That’s why British Rail is investing so much money into renovating their stations, according to this article. St. Pancras station in London, for instance, just got a $1.6 Billion facelift, designed to make it a deluxe state-of-the-art building, which acts not only as a train depot but also as a dining and shopping destination. There’s even a 300-foot champagne bar that overlooks the platform and a clock that’s an exact replica of the stations original clock. What’s more, St. Pancras is set to become to main terminal for trains between Paris and London.
I, for one, would love to see train travel become more glamorous, but I’d also like it to stay affordable, if that’s possible.