Database: St. Pancras Station

Named after the patron saint of children, St. Pancras station was built by the Midland Railway Company on a disreputable slum - not to be confused with those reputable slums you hear so much about. Landlords were happy to sell their property for a pretty penny, and inhabitants of the neighborhood were driven out of their homes without compensation. Building the station required moving a church and excavating its graveyard, disturbing many people from their eternal rest. Lovely.

The Midland Railway Company held a contest in 1865, as St. Pancras was being built, to find the best design for a hotel the company intended to attach to the station. The winner was the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, despite - or perhaps because - his submission was greater and more expensive than the specifications the MRC called for.

The first train to leave St. Pancras in 1868 was bound for Manchester and did not stop until it reached Leicester, 97 miles away. At the time, it was the longest continual train run in the world. I bet it never stopped there again.