Station to Station

This text is a celebration of the life and architecture of the railway station and its evolution. It provides an informative account of the social and political context of stations over the last 150 years, and examines the background of some of the world's major stations. Railway stations have always held a special place in the public's affection. The lure of the great railway terminus has been especially strong, with the grandeur of the architecture fused with the prospects for adventure, escape or challenge promised by far-flung destinations. The many stations featured in this book cover a wide spectrum of architectural styles and developments and important historic events, from the early provincial and colonial railways, the Victorian Gothic of London's St Pancras and the Beaux-Arts splendour of Grand Central Station in New York, to the modern structural feats of Nicholas Grimshaw's Waterloo International Terminal and Santiago Calatrava's Lyon Satolas. Other stations from all over the world include the Union Stations in St Louis, Washington, DC, Chicago and Toronto; Pennsylvania Station, New York; Helsinki, Finland; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Howrah Station, Calcutta and more.

This thoroughly readable, irresistible volume on railroad-station architecture is so inclusive that it even has a still from Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. Filled with such memorabilia, Station to Station is like a long, wonderful journey in which the stations themselves--our destinations--are simply the high points. There are early timetables, plans, and elevations for many of the most famous stations; antique baggage-claim checks; and sepia prints of ribbon-cutting ceremonies. The volume also includes such mementos as a shot of the Howrah Station in Calcutta, India, with the note that the architect "was well-known for English suburban housing," and painful-to-see photographs of New York's Pennsylvania Station--with "the largest and most monumental single room in the world today," as the grand, light-strewn space was advertised--before its remodeling.