Описание: With two friends visiting from the U.S. we dropped into three of London's mainline railway stations: Euston, St Pancras (above) and Kings Cross - just visible over the parked cars on right of the photo. Our visitors sometimes ask why there's no Grand Central Station in London. Instead we have a ring of mainline stations, sometimes next to, or just along the street from one another. The reason goes back to the first railway boom in the 1830's and 1840s. This led to intense competition by different railway companies to construct lines into London. Each put forward projects for terminals serving the capital. In 1846 one response by the Royal Commission on Metropolis Railway Termini (in effect an official Inquiry) was to recommend a 'central exclusion zone'. This sought to avoid vast building projects extending into the more prosperous areas in London's heart. The Exclusion Zone - "the ‘London quadrilateral’ - meant that Railway termini development was mainly bounded by: "The New Road" in the north (later renamed as Euston Road) ; east of the traditional City of London; south of the River Thames; and west of Park Lane. Much like today with large development and regeneration projects, residents and businesses in poorer areas of London were not so protected. It seems to me that there are quite a few parallels in the way rich corporations today use their money, access to professional expertise, political connections, and the law, to override the interests of residents and local businesses.
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