What a disappointment it must be for French passengers arriving at the new St Pancras terminal and considering a little shopping.

A couple of branches of M&S, one inside the terminal and one on its exterior, a branch of Monsoon and a good-looking creperie and that’s pretty much it. And then a shed-load (railway terminus shed, that is) of hoardings saying “unwrapping soon” stretching away into the distance.

Nothing wrong with that perhaps if expectations had not been set so high by all the press relating to the first trains speeding their way across Kent to smash all previous records. Given this and the restored Victorian splendour of the building, you might have thought that it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for the retail offer to be up to scratch.

Rather more importantly, as the bulk of passengers, initially, are likely to be UK joy-riders for whom a visit to St Pancras will be as much a part of the journey as the actual trip itself, the sense of being let down will be even more palpable.

All of which serves to illustrate that, for retailers looking to make an impression, there are few things more important that setting expectations. The serried ranks of hoardings at St Pancras, each of which bears the name of the retailer that will, at some indeterminate point in the future, welcome shoppers, can only serve to irritate and frustrate. It’s also worth bearing in mind that this particular project has been a long time coming and a quick peek behind the hoardings reveals that very little, if anything, has even been started.

Even allowing for the alacrity with which most shopfitters seem to be able to turn things around these days, the chance of there being many additions to the select retail gathering this side of Christmas looks slim.

Now contrast this with that other civil engineering marvel about 20-odd miles to the west – Heathrow’s forthcoming Terminal 5. Retail preparations for this one, at the tail end of March, are well advanced and travellers departing the country using BA are unlikely to feel short-changed when they arrive.

There has been an almost equal quantity of press babble about both projects, but the execution has been almost completely different. If we really want people to forsake the relative misery that we are told comprises air travel and embrace the joy that should be a trip made on the train, then retailers and those who lease space to them need to work quite a lot harder.