Euston, we have a problem – we must learn to love you

Euston, you have a problem. Last month, Britain’s 10th busiest railway station – gateway to the West Midlands, the North West, north Wales and Scotland, and the London terminus of HS2 – was described on social media as “easily, easily, the worst in western Europe”. Anyone who has ever caught a train here will have experienced the “Euston rush” – the dash from concourse to platform when it appears that a train might actually be about to leave; one commentator recently described it “like Squid Game with a Boots”. Add to all this the fact that Euston has been under constant renovation since 2017, to get it ready to be the London terminus for the UK’s second high-speed rail link. But last year Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government pulled the plug on HS2 trains going anywhere north of Birmingham, leaving the masterplan for the new Euston in tatters – but not before £150m of taxpayers money had been spent.