Drawings reveal Victorian proposal for London’s own Grand Central station

Perceval Parsons’ plans for station put on sale to mark 200th anniversary of first public passenger railway

The vaulted arches of New York’s Grand Central station are recognisable even to those who have never taken a train into the Big Apple. But they could very easily have been a sight visible in central London.

Shelved 172-year-old architectural drawings by Perceval Parsons show how he envisioned a new London railway connecting the growing number of lines coming into the city to a huge main terminal by the Thames.