When it opened, this was the largest railway station in the world. When the station opened in 1877 it had 13 platforms, a great covered train shed, station buildings and a hotel attached to the station.
The new station allowed trains to pass straight through York for the first time, which is why the tracks, the platforms and the roof all follow a curve.
The design was so ambitious that it was called a “monument to extravagance” — but the irony is that by 1910 around 350 trains a day were passing through, and the extravagance quickly turned into justified infrastructure.