Rosie Niven

With its record breaking champagne bar, its bronze sculptures and clutch of high street names, St Pancras International is unrecognisable from its former life before its £800m redevelopment.

By the time First Capital Connect services start calling at the station next week, travellers will be able to change easily between regional, national and international rail services. And the station is proving to be something of a money spinner, with the champagne bar taking its projected amount for 2007 just one week after opening.

At a conference held this week on stations and regeneration, St Pancras project director, Michael Luddy said the reason behind the success of the redevelopment is the fact the new station is very customer focused. He claimed that traditionally, the rail industry has not been customer focused and worries that if this culture does not change, St Pancras could go the way of other stations.

To some extent the revamp of St Pancras has already raised the bar for stations. A £1bn redevelopment is proposed for Euston station and there is £150m of funding allocated in the Rail White Paper for station improvements across England. However, Alistair Lansley, the chief architect on the St Pancras project, is pessimistic about the impact of this money. He says it will merely go on ‘tarting up stations in a drip feed way’.

But perhaps we should not be worrying about the St Pancrases of this world. The likes of London Victoria, Manchester Piccadilly and even Birmingham New Street, are recognised rail hubs and will attract investment for redevelopment. It is the stations that intercity commuters rarely see that are suffering most from under investment.

Cambridge Heath station in east London is one place you would not want to go given a choice. Walking in, you are hit with the stench of urine, vomit and white cider. And it gets no better when you leave the entrance area up a narrow flight of dirty steps to the platform.

To say the station information is misleading would be an understatement; instead of a map of the surrounding streets of east London you have a map of the area around Cambridge station – just 50 miles up the M11.

Somehow I don’t think Cambridge Heath station will be getting a champagne bar any time soon.