Drawings reveal Victorian proposal for London’s own Grand Central station

A train in London, circa 1885. Under Parsons’ plans, various lines would have converged at a terminal near the modern-day Embankment tube station. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

The vaulted arches of New York’s Grand Central station are recognisable even to those who have never taken a train into the Big Apple. But they could very easily have been a sight visible in central London.

Shelved 172-year-old architectural drawings by Perceval Parsons show how he envisioned a new London railway connecting the growing number of lines coming into the city to a huge main terminal by the Thames.