This article explores the transformation of London’s railway termini from relatively simple, often provisional structures, designed to meet the essential practical requirements of travel, to extensive multi-functioning passenger environments in which commercial, civic, and leisure activities intersected and overlapped. Focusing on developments after 1870, it examines the ways in which expanding rail services, growing passenger numbers, new opportunities for leisure and competition from other forms of public and private transport shaped their development. Against that background it considers some of the tensions that arose as the railway companies sought to regulate their sites and exploit their commercial potential, balancing the efficient management and circulation of travellers and their belongings with the commercial opportunities afforded by a vast passenger traffic. With reference to often overlooked aspects of their visual, material and spatial culture — barriers, signage, kiosks, showcases and penny-in-the-slot machines, among others — it points to the practices and processes that influenced the growth of London’s terminal stations as socially and spatially complex commercial environments whose legacy is evident in the capital’s transport hubs of today.

中文翻译：

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伦敦铁路总站内，约 1870–1939 年

本文探讨了伦敦铁路总站从旨在满足旅行基本实际要求的相对简单、通常是临时结构的转变，转变为商业、公民和休闲活动交叉和重叠的广泛的多功能客运环境。它以 1870 年之后的发展为重点，考察了扩大铁路服务、增加乘客数量、新的休闲机会以及来自其他公共和私人交通形式的竞争影响其发展的方式。在这种背景下，它考虑了铁路公司试图规范其站点并开发其商业潜力时出现的一些紧张局势，平衡旅客及其财物的有效管理和流通与庞大客流量提供的商业机会。参考经常被忽视的视觉、物质和空间文化方面——障碍、标牌、售货亭、陈列柜和一分钱老虎机等——它指出了影响伦敦终点站发展的实践和过程作为社会和空间复杂的商业环境，其遗产在当今首都的交通枢纽中显而易见。