If you have tears to shed, look up the photographs of the original entrance hall to Euston Station, and shed them right now. It was the creation of Philip Charles Hardwick, the son of the man who designed the original station building and the grand Euston Arch (the original Gateway to the North).
It was an imposing classical space with a distinctive double flight of stairs and allegorical statues of the cities served by the station – wouldn’t you like to see what Birmingham looked like? Even if you don’t have a penchant for mid Victorian classicism, you would have to admit that the space presented rail travel as an honourable mode of transport to be housed in a dignified fashion rather than a disagreeable, unavoidable necessity reflected in a hideous, shambolic concourse.
