Gothic Revival

Eurostar trains coming from Paris and Brussels carry passengers into London at speeds up to 300 kilometers per hour. Yet the most impressive feature of Britain's first high-speed rail line comes at the end of the ride—when the trains pull into St. Pancras International Train Station.

Built in the 1860s, the station was a bold architectural statement for a country then at the height of its power. At the time, St. Pancras was the largest enclosed structure in the world, with a massive arched roof and an ornate brick façade that led one historian to declare, "There is no other building, in London or anywhere else, that embodies more precisely the achievement of mid-Victorian Britain."

More than a century of constant use left St. Pancras in a state of neglect, but all that changed when planners decided to use the venerable station as the London terminus for High Speed 1, the high-speed rail project managed by Bechtel.

In 2004, work began on the restoration of St. Pancras and its famous Barlow Train Shed. The renovation complied with precise English Heritage specifications, and many building materials, such as the Welsh slate for the restored roof and the Ketton and Ancaster stones on the interior and exterior, came from the same quarries as the original stone.

St. Pancras, which had been closed during the renovation, reopened in November 2007, marking the completion of High Speed 1 and the inauguration of seamless high-speed train service connecting London to the continent.