Stand under it and there's nothing in the middle — about 240 feet of iron, wall to wall, the widest single span anywhere when they got it up in 1868. Then look down: the columns in the undercroft are spaced to the width of a Burton beer barrel, because the brewers' traffic came first and the floor was laid out to hold it. Barlow's roof is sitting on a grid measured in beer, and some gang of men set every rib of it.
Fabien, the first train out of there went at about half four in the morning with nobody to see it off — a Midland mail, and the station only properly opened later. No speeches, no band. And the clock on the end wall was wound and right, which is all I'd have asked.
Fabien, that undercroft has doubled for half of London on film — crews love it because you can light it hard and it still reads as somewhere else. The platforms have played Paris, a war departure, a wizarding station. Though the grid of columns is murder for a dolly track; you end up shooting down the beer barrels whether you meant to or not.