Originally opened as a temporary terminus of the London & Birmingham Railway
in 1851, New Street Station proper opened in 1854 used jointly by the LNWR and Midland Railway.
However, the site has undergone drastic remodelling over the past 40 years and today is
unrecognisable from the days when the station was fronted by the grand Queen's Hotel, entrance
to the platforms was obtained from the overhead Queens Drive, two sheds were sited there as was
a turntable and several signalboxes. Unfortunately, some rebuilding was prompted by a World War
Two bombing raid which partially destroyed the old LNWR-side of the station and finally, 1960s
wisdom thought it a good idea to completely redevelop the site as a subterranean level underneath
what is now the Pallisades Shopping Centre and with it completely sweep away all semblance of
character the station once had - Queen's Hotel etc . . . I have to confess, along with many
Birmingham commuters, to finding the current station somewhat abhorrent. The above photograph
shows New Street Station during reconstruction in 1965 (photo: British Rail)
Above-left we see the 'welcoming' entrance to New Street from the car park off
Smallbrook Queensway and above-right the view of the actual entrance itself which is roughly to
the centre-right of the previous shot. Once through the doors ahead if you walk to your left you
enter the main concourse from which stairwells descend to the various platforms.
Above-left and above-right are two shots from the same spot (one looking left
and one looking right) showing the breadth of the station and the fairly recently constructed
concourse over the platforms (not to be confused with the one mentioned above) which was built as
the result of safety concerns regarding fire as the station is below ground with only one route
out should a disaster strike. As an interesting aside, an overhead gantry carrying signalling
cabling did catch fire a few years ago (someone threw a cigarette over one of the walls
surrounding the site and it set alight some 'chip wrappers' that had also been thrown over and
had lodged in the gantry) knocking-out a large part of the region's rail services as it melted
the cabling hence took out all the signalling. Around the same time it was also reported in the
Birmingham Evening Mail that a diesel loco had 'backfired' and set fire to the roof in the
station! Other than that, I'm not aware of any serious fire incidents at the station.
Above we see the New Street Signal Box on the corner of Navigation Street and Brunel Street. Not a particularly aesthetically pleasing sight but an
interesting structure nonetheless! Above-right we are on platform 12B looking towards the Southerly
tunnels - straight ahead is the entrance to the tunnels of the cross-city line.
Above-left we are still on platform 12B but this time looking to the right of the previous shot.
Interestingly, just to the left of centre in the distance can be seen part of the remnants of the LNWR station that
is still in use (note the red brick in the distance in the enlarged photograph). Above-right we are looking back into
the gloomy subterranean world of the station from platform 12B.
To make matters worse for New Street, the SRA have claimed they have no money to provide an
upgrade to New Street Station amid concerns regarding safety issues - too many trains and
inadequate facilities. Part of the problem is that all traffic travelling North out of the
station passes by Proof House Junction which, due to its age, was never designed to handle the
traffic which uses it today and furthermore, the station itself is entered through a handful of
tunnels which again cannot handle the workload today. It has been mooted only a couple of weeks
ago that the station may need to close during peak periods if the finances aren't forthcoming for
a drastic overhaul: a very poor state of affairs for the central station of the 'second city' and
bad news for the 100,000 commuters who use it every day.
