The London and North-Western Railway - Euston Station

Arthur H. Beavan had this to say in Imperial London, published in 1901, about Euston Station:

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The London and North-Western Railway claims to be the largest Joint Stock Railway Company in the world, with a mileage of 1900 odd.

It is an amalgamation of nearly fifty other railway companies, and celebrated its Jubilee in 1896.

Its well-known terminus at Euston, approached through a Grecian-Doric pillared gateway, is, in 1901, about to be altered almost out of recognition.

The offices and hotel are to be brought forward to the frontage of Euston Square, and the area thus gained will be utilized for the enlargement of the station, whose lines will be doubled; all at a cost of £2,000,000.

In the London and North-Western Company, as in the Great Western Railway, the employees generally remain a long time, as witness Mr. Thomas Beck, who recently retired on a good-service allowance, after being with the Company since 1848.

He was appointed engine-driver in 1852, and his engines have run upwards of 3,050,000 miles.

An individual closely connected with the Company was the late Sir Richard Moon, who, as Chairman for thirty years of this, the oldest railway main line of the kingdom, never ceased his exertions to bring its system to a state of the utmost efficiency.

One secret of his success was his strict punctuality, and his rigid attention to the matter in hand.

It is related that once when he had made an appointment to see in his private room a gentleman who had newly joined the Board, the Director was ten minutes behind time.

He apologized as he entered, saying, "I am afraid I am a few minutes late."

"It's a very bad habit," was the curt rejoinder.

At a certain Board-meeting a Director produced a newspaper, which, when the business began, he still kept on the table in front of him.

"It is not the practice at Euston," commented the Chairman, "to read newspapers at Board-meetings. John," turning to an attendant, "take away that gentleman's newspaper!"

Next: Locomotive London in 1900: St Pancras Station