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Renting London
* Grand Northern. -a future operator which will be
running open access services to Bradford Interchange
from December 2009.
King's Cross was originally Renting London
designed and built as the London hub of the Great Northern
Railway and terminus of the East Coast Main Line. It
took its name from the Kings Cross area of London, which
itself was named after a monument to King George IV.
The monument was demolished in 1845.[3]
Plans for the station were first made in December 1848
by and under the direction of George Turnbull, Renting London who was the resident engineer for
construction of the first 20 miles of the Great Northern
Railway north out of London.[4][5] The detailed design,
by Lewis Cubitt, was constructed in 1851–1852 on the
site of a former fever and smallpox hospital. The main
part of the station, which today includes platforms
1 to 8, was opened on 14 October 1852. It replaced a
Renting London temporary terminus at
Maiden Lane that had opened on 8 August 1850.
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Renting London, The platforms have
been reconfigured several times. Originally there
was only one arrival and one departure platform
(today's platforms 1 and 8 respectively), with
the space between used for carriage sidings. In
later years, as suburban Renting London
traffic grew, space for additional platforms was
added with considerably less grandeur. The secondary
building now containing platforms 9–11 (and the
fictional Platform 9 3/4) survives from that era.
When the railways were privatised in 1996, express
services into the station were taken over by GNER.
Though they successfully re-bid for the franchise
in 2005, they were asked to Renting London
surrender it in December 2006. The incumbent operator,
National Express East Coast, took over the franchise
on 9 December 2007 after an interim period when
GNER ran trains under a management contract.
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