Thought on New St revamp

[mumrar]

Just a question which suddenly popped in to my head, when the new revolutionised New Street station is finished, will steam still be banned, or will new roof arrangements mean it can be lifted?

 

[37401]

I hope not, Will have to make an attempt to fot as much as I can but I just know im gonna bump into that evil woman!

 

[Old Timer]

One of the issues to be considered would be that New St is classed as an Underground station and therefore it has to have enhanced fire precautions and evacuation procedures.

A steam locomotive would introduce smoke into the area and set off the various smoke detectors. This happens now occasionally when a poorly maintained loco or unit emits smoke, which drifts and gets picked up resulting in a fire alarm.

You can imagine the situation with a steam locomotive on departure !

Even a short duration evacuation causes substantial delays which ripple out across the whole railweay network over the subsequent hours. I have actually known delays at Inverness and Penzance being attributed to an much, much earlier issue at New St.

Personally I would have said that New St is the last place where you would want to photograph a steam locomotive, it's a dark cavernous place with all sorts of lighting issues, and the approaches to the platforms are less than attractive.

I would give better odds on steam hauled trains running via the Grand Jct, with a loco change at, say International or Bescot

I hope not, Will have to make an attempt to fot as much as I can but I just know im gonna bump into that evil woman!

Why not write a polite letter to the Network Rail Station Manager and explain your concerns and ask that they be addressed or they issue you with a letter which you can show ?

I would have said this is a much better solution for both you and everyone else, as it will raise the matter to the relevant level and hopefully the lady concerned will be given suitable words of guidance !

 

[daccer]

I think there will be universal relief when new st has finally been done. Would have loved to have been in the meeting back in the 60's when the architects proposed the current design. So lets build the ugliest and gloomiest station we can and torment millions of passengers every year with this brutalist monstrosity. Thankfully we seem to have realised that the mistakes of the 60's are not to be repeated and we should in the next five years see the end to the worst cases of 60's misanthropy. Thankfully BR never had enough cash to 'brutalise' and many old beautiful stations survived the cull. When New St and others such as Euston and Stafford are consigned to the rubbish bin of history then maybe the network will gain some measure of public support again - similar to the bounce in public opinion that followed the reopening of St Pancras. People really do care what the network looks like and building black holes must never be allowed to happen again.

 

[Geezertronic]

One of the main problems with New Street is there is not a lot of space to expand the station (apart from up).

NR (or was it Railtrack then?) missed a trick when the Bull Ring was rebuilt when they opted not to take up room under the Bull Ring so they could add additional lines towards the South of the station but regardless of that there does not appear to be any additional room for new platforms which would result in an additional terminus when/should High Speed come into Birmingham (unless they terminate HS at Birmingham International?).

 

[Phoenix]

One of the main problems with New Street is there is not a lot of space to expand the station (apart from up).

NR (or was it Railtrack then?) missed a trick when the Bull Ring was rebuilt when they opted not to take up room under the Bull Ring so they could add additional lines towards the South of the station but regardless of that there does not appear to be any additional room for new platforms which would result in an additional terminus when/should High Speed come into Birmingham (unless they terminate HS at Birmingham International?).

I believe the Bullring has underground rooms that actually go lower than new streets track base plus there is underground parking of sorts.


I think New Street is unique and has it's charms but my god is it bad looking I really hope as a brummie they do a good job with this which is possible I mean it's been done before.

There arn't many options when it comes to increasing the capacity at Birmingham except for ..........

1. Create a new station for Cross city services within the city center etc
2. Open up Cuzon street as a terminating point for all Virgin services from the south.

so yeah not a lot of options and those two are seriously half baked answers.

 

[The Planner]

You answer your own question there. It would be pointless to have 6 lines at the South end, yes, you can get more trains to the station in theory, but where are they going to go ?? New St will never have more platforms than it has now.

 

[Old Timer]

The failure to take the option for a new tunnel alongside the existing two must rank as one of the most stupid and shortsighted decisions in the history of the Railway.

I now understand that it is impossible and the only way now would be to construct a new Underground route for the Cross City.

Technically there is the possibility of closing up the old through sidings and slightly narrowing the platforms but that together with removing the old East and West Docks would only give you another Island,

My understanding is that there is going to be another shopping centre built on top, as this is what will finance the work, and in any case Network Rail is primarily a property developement and Landlord company who just happen to operate trains as a sub-business

 

[The Planner]

Network Rail dont run trains at all, the TOC/FOCs have that pleasure. You cant use the west dock as that is planned to get filled in to allow access to all the platforms from the B ends.

I also cant understand the thought of the extra tunnel not being taken up as stupid. Without extra platforms you can't do anything with them. You may split out the Western, Derby and Aston lines with it, but what are you going to do with the trains then ?? The majority of traffic from the Derby and Cross City lines ends up going out towards Five Ways, so you still have to get them out that way with what you already have.

 

[Old Timer]

With those tunnels you could have concentrated the Cross Cities on 9/11 and Cross Country on 8/10 including reversals to the NW.

Coventry to Wolves (assuming these still run through) could be 6/7, with 4/5 for through Class 1s to/from Euston as well as the London turnrounds.

2/3 could be used for the LM services to Euston and to Liverpool, leaving 1 and 12 as the operational spares as they once were.

Very simplistic I know, and written without a proper look at the timetable, so forgive any errors and bear with me.

One of the practical constraints at New St was (is) actually finding a path into the platform, and remember when the four-tracking inwards from the Coventry Corridor occurs, your bottleneck once again becomes the Grand and Proof House. With the extra tunnels, that would be less of a problem.

The days of lack of platform space have gone away with the transfer of the GW services to Snow Hill, as has the capacity issue at the North end.

These days at the right time you can see right across the station from platform 1 to platform 12 in the middle of the peak. That was never the case 20 years ago.

Just some random thoughts, which I appreciate might have some holes to be filled.

 

[tbtc]

Given the space constraints, there's really not much more can be done I suppose.

It'd be handy to have two "bridges" over the platforms, as the one central one can get pretty busy at times - at least to attract people to move further down.

Bay platforms would probably cause more headaches than anything I guess, as would terminating things there. Thinking of that, how's about extending anything that terminates there (banning anything from terminating during the daytime) e.g. extending one London - Birmingham 390 to Glasgow/ Edinburgh to save having two services terminating/ laying over (and freeing up valuable platform space)? - thinking similar to the ATW extension to Birmingham International