Two Ways to Go

These train stations are iconic travel destinations - where will you go first?

One has American movie magic, the other is a British architectural landmark.

Two Ways to Go

Grand Central is full of romance (real and in the movies). Picture by Getty Images

By Amy Cooper and Mal Chenu

Updated June 5, 2026, first published June 4, 2026

In this article

Both boast cinematic romance - from Grand Central's star-sprinkled Kissing Room in New York City to St Pancras's Gothic grandeur in London - but which iconic railway hub wins your heart? Our duelling experts help you decide.

GRAND CENTRAL, NYC

Amy Cooper: "For we Brits, rail transport is like cricket: we invented it but can't seem to master it. It's why we love trainspotting."

In one of my favourite movie scenes ever, the Main Concourse at New York's Grand Central Terminal transforms into a ballroom. Orchestral music swells, hundreds of commuters start waltzing beneath the star-sprinkled ceiling, a mirror ball sparkling atop the golden clock as The Fisher King's lovelorn Robin Williams gazes at his dream girl.

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It's pure cinema magic, thanks to its station location. A beaux-arts beauty of glittering chandeliers, cathedral-scale windows, marble arches and colonnades, and that celestial sky-blue ceiling, Grand Central has starred in so many love scenes over 113 years it should be called Grand Passion. Just some of its leading men and ladies: Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck in Spellbound; Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Cary Grant fleeing with glamorous spy Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest.

Railway stations are steeped in romance and nostalgia, farewells and reunions, brief encounters, hopes and heartbreaks. They're our last connection (if you'll forgive me) to a golden era when we watched clocks rather than screens, and before texts replaced trysts.

Of all the glamorous gateways, Grand Central packs the most emotion. This is a station so loved-up it was built with a Kissing Room for travellers to smooch hello or goodbye without blocking the platforms, handy elevator ready to take things to the next level in a hotel above.

"Meet me at the clock," is Grand Central's own come-hither. Or you can rendezvous in the Whispering Gallery - where sweet nothings can be murmured from opposite corners and somehow heard over the hubbub.

Imagine the assignations witnessed by the Grand Central Oyster Bar, a New York institution where the four-martini lunch lives on under a vaulted ceiling. Or the promises made over Manhattans in Gatsby-esque speakeasy The Campbell, once a jazz-age tycoon's apartment.

Grand Central has inspired art, songs and literature, like Elizabeth Smart's 1940s tragic love story By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept.

I have sat down and wept by St Pancras - not from love's sweet sorrow but trains that run with the reliability of a baby's bowels. For we Brits, rail transport is like cricket: we invented it but can't seem to master it. It's why we love trainspotting - the thrill when you see one is exhilarating. It's just as well St Pancras is glorious. You might be there for days, depending on what's holding up the 14.26 to Sheffield.

Last month, I strolled into Grand Central's concourse and watched a red heart-shaped balloon drift up until it came to rest among the stars on that stunning ceiling. It was rush-hour, but people stopped to look. Some even smiled. I half expected them to start waltzing. And I fell in love with Grand Central all over again.

ST PANCRAS, LONDON

Mal Chenu: "A concourse is a concourse, of course, unless the concourse is the famous Arcade concourse at St Pancras International, where retail therapy in the forms of Calvin Klein, Coach and Kate Spade."

The Meeting Place is a St Pancras International icon. The nine-metre-tall statue in the main concourse depicts an embracing couple, portraying the tearful farewells and joyful reunions regularly played out at major train stations. Beneath the station clock on the Grand Terrace, a light installation spells out "I want my time with You". In 2011, Lonely Planet was on the right track when it described St Pancras as one of the most romantic meeting places in the world.

Harry Potter vibes at St Pancras. Picture by Getty Images

A concourse is a concourse, of course, of course, unless the concourse is the famous Arcade concourse at St Pancras International, where retail therapy in the forms of Calvin Klein, Coach, Kate Spade, Chanel, Hamleys, Neuhaus, Fortnum & Mason tempt travellers.

The Arcade is just part of the spectacular Grade I listed building that is St Pancras, the departure and arrival terminus for Eurostar's high-speed line through the Channel Tunnel to Belgium, France and the Netherlands.

Named for a Roman citizen who converted to Christianity and was beheaded at the age of 14 in 304CE, St Pancras also hosts a domestic railway station and a tube station on the London Underground.

The station was designed by William Henry Barlow, whose name lives on in the Barlow train shed and, more particularly, the Barlow roof. Wrought iron pillars support the single-span roof, which at 210 metres long, 73 metres wide and 30 metres high, was the largest enclosed space in the world when it opened in 1868, literally to great fanfare, as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performed.

The adjoining Midland Grand Hotel (now St Pancras London, Autograph Collection) was added in 1873, and the grand Gothic red brick masterpiece was complete. Harry Potter, Batman and the Spice Girls (singing Wannabe) have all been filmed in and around this work of architectural art.

The station's fascinating history doesn't end there. St Pancras was bombed in both world wars, but its closest call came at the hands of home-grown philistines in the 1960s, when a train of thought imagined London would be better off without Victorian architecture. St Pancras came within 10 days of being demolished. One of the saviours was Poet Laureate John Betjeman, whose statue gazes admiringly at the Barlow roof he helped preserve.

If you wanna chew chew before you train, St Pancras boasts dozens of bars and restaurants, including the elegant St Pancras Bar & Brasserie, and Searcy's Champagne Bar, the longest in Europe. Two public-use pianos sit in the main concourse and you could hear anything from Chopsticks to Moonlight Sonata.

Don't let Amy railroad you into believing Grand Central is a superior station. When she gets up a head of steam, she runs right off the rails.