Great Railway Stations of Asia – I feel a Series Coming on!!

I just read Simon Bradley’s wonderful book on St. Pancras railway station. Truly a great read. As a born and bred North Londoner the station has been part of my life as long as I can remember and was for most if it a wreck, though an impressive one. Its resurrection, refurbishment and new place as the Eurostar terminal is amazing and every visit to London now I make sure to pass through the station – the glass roof and the Sir John Betjemen statue are enough, let alone the idea that you could step on a train in St Pancras and get of in Paris!! If you’d told me that when I was a kid I would have called the men in white coats.

Anyway, Bradley’s book got me think that we are perhaps not appreciating the remaining railway station architecture of Asia as much as in Europe where various stations from Paris to Venice remain either as stations or for other uses. Europe has lost plenty too – Glasgow St Enoch, the arch at Euston for instance. In Asia some stunning railway stations remain while others have disappeared. So I’ll try and dig some up and root out some photos of stations that have been consigned to the bulldozer too. Any suggestions let me know – Kuala Lumpur’s Moorish architecture station is a must, the old Kowloon station too while some of China’s northern cities have terrific stations from the days of the China Eastern Railway.

Here’s a couple of links from previous postings to get things moving:

The old Peking railway station

Kunming’s crazy little station

Tokyo’s old Shimbashi railway station

The Kowloon-Canton Railway

Seoul’s marvellous old station