Coombe Barton Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 But Moor Street is the best, along with St Pancras See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-25906120 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
multiprinter Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Is anyone surprised ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim H Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 I'm not surprised. The current rebuild is just tinkering with the edges, they needed to level the entire site and start again. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coombe Barton Posted January 26, 2014 Author Share Posted January 26, 2014 Wasn't the original plan to run HS2 into New Street as well? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold TheSignalEngineer Posted January 26, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 26, 2014 A big opportunity was missed when the Bull Ring was redeveloped in 2001. The South Tunnel could have been widened out and the whole the pointwork at the London end stretched out towards Proof House. These pictures were taken from the Rotunda during piling work to protect the tunnel whilst the lower level of the new shopping centre was excavated. Photographs Copyright C E Steele The first picture has the incoming lines as they pass under Moor St Station on the left, the second has the piling rig working next to the Down Derby line, whilst the low concrete wall on the third picture is the top of the piling further towards the station. The red car is sitting above the tunnels. Regarding the idea of running HS2 into New St, following the abandonment of the proposal to transfer all Inter City trains to a new station by the gasholders at Washwood Heath there was a proposal to build a second level at New St station. Needless to say in the political climate of the day it didn't get very far. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leopardml2341 Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Is anyone surprised ? I really didn't think anyone could have made New Street any worse; but I suppose that's what they call progress. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Given that big chunks are still a building site AFAIK, i'm not surprised...maybe when they finish it it'll improve the scores a bit! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edwin_m Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 It still seems to suffer too much from last minute platform alterations and there aren't enough information screens to tell people changing trains which platform to go to. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zunnan Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 I'll reserve judgement until the construction work is complete, but I'll be honest now and say that the last time I was willingly in that hole was when I installed 300 phone lines, it was certainly not as a paying customer. I still prefer to drive and pay for parking when going in to the city, even with all the roadworks for the metro, New Street needs more than just the expensive facelift it is recieving, it'll still be throttled by the bottlenecks limiting what can use the station approaches. Realistically, there is only so much you can do with a hole in the ground, but oh for it to revert to a traditional glass canopy...and preferably not one resembling some kind of melted jelly mould or means of alien abduction (thinking of that Selfridges monstrosity here) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leopardml2341 Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Given that big chunks are still a building site AFAIK, i'm not surprised...maybe when they finish it it'll improve the scores a bit! Perhaps this will be the new 'Forth Bridge' project............ .............by the time they finish, it'll be time to start over. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Joseph_Pestell Posted January 27, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 27, 2014 It still seems to suffer too much from last minute platform alterations and there aren't enough information screens to tell people changing trains which platform to go to. My mother-in-law has given up travelling by train since there are no longer direct services from Southampton to Durham. She will not "do" New Street. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold tomparryharry Posted January 27, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 27, 2014 Look what happens when you mess with Snow Hill.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 My mother-in-law has given up travelling by train since there are no longer direct services from Southampton to Durham. She will not "do" New Street. Quick look at the timetable: http://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/media/230961/scotland_north_east_south_west_south_coast_nov_2013.pdf Suggests several weekday options for trains with no changes. Even if you did have to change it should be do-able via a change at a much easier place i'd have thought - (Like Oxford, Banbury or Leamington maybe, for a nice easy "same platform" swap?) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Joseph_Pestell Posted January 27, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 27, 2014 Quick look at the timetable: http://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/media/230961/scotland_north_east_south_west_south_coast_nov_2013.pdf Suggests several weekday options for trains with no changes. Even if you did have to change it should be do-able via a change at a much easier place i'd have thought - (Like Oxford, Banbury or Leamington maybe, for a nice easy "same platform" swap?) Thanks for that. Those totally failed to come up on computer using SouthWest Trains website. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted January 27, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 27, 2014 It still seems to suffer too much from last minute platform alterations and there aren't enough information screens to tell people changing trains which platform to go to. That is inevitable for a station like New St where some critical long distance routes cross/meet and there is a similar situation for local services - with a restricted number of platforms any late running is bound to lead to re-platforming, which in turn leads to later replatforming as the affects of untangling the initial tangle reverberate through the timetable. Back in the days when I was a regular Saturday visitor to Birmingham (Tyseley) I quite often took myself off to Wolverhampton to join the train back to Reading - as the process was not only simpler but offered a better chance of getting a seat without resorting to fisticuffs in order to reach the right end of the train. If New Street was in Germany it would probably have twice as many platforms and would quite likely have been rebuilt on two levels (of track/platforms) by now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leopardml2341 Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 I read once, some time ago, this piece of learned wisdom - "if New St sneezes, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol and Reading all catch a cold" and how true that still is. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Classsix T Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Begs the question Gentlemen, if you left BNS as purely a cross city heavy rail interchange, where does the inter-regional station go? Or vice-versa? I myself have not had that much experience of it, transitory visits a dozen times perhaps over the years, to whit it has been a necessary "evil", but it's all well and good decrying the situation without a practicable solution...in 2014. Offers? C6T. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold TheSignalEngineer Posted January 27, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 27, 2014 As I mentioned in my post above with the Bull Ring pictures, there was a proposal to put it in what the Red Corner politicians laughingly call the "Birmingham Heartlands" We had a slightly different name for it which won't get through the filter on here. It was going to be at Washwood Heath, with all Inter City trains stopping there and not passing through New St. The big problem in the West Midlands is that all services are dictated by Centro and Class 2 trains they pay for get priority over everyone else's Class 1 services. Tonight my Cross Country service had been late ever since Reading, so it got behind a local at Birmingham International and followed it very slowly to Wolverhampton. 9 minutes late passing Tile Hill therefore became 25 minutes late arriving at Wolverhampton. We picked up 8 minutes to Poynton but the another local panned us for another 5 to Adswood Road. Consequently I have just been passed by my connection and face a wait at Piccadilly for the next one. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave47549 Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 As I mentioned in my post above with the Bull Ring pictures, there was a proposal to put it in what the Red Corner politicians laughingly call the "Birmingham Heartlands" We had a slightly different name for it which won't get through the filter on here. It was going to be at Washwood Heath, with all Inter City trains stopping there and not passing through New St. The big problem in the West Midlands is that all services are dictated by Centro and Class 2 trains they pay for get priority over everyone else's Class 1 services. Tonight my Cross Country service had been late ever since Reading, so it got behind a local at Birmingham International and followed it very slowly to Wolverhampton. 9 minutes late passing Tile Hill therefore became 25 minutes late arriving at Wolverhampton. We picked up 8 minutes to Poynton but the another local panned us for another 5 to Adswood Road. Consequently I have just been passed by my connection and face a wait at Piccadilly for the next one. Meanwhile my Centro-sponsored service regularly turns up 5 minutes late or more. Tonight, two minutes before departure, an express was signalled into our platform and we (that is, I and about 300 other commuters) had to rush halfway across the station. Which brings me neatly onto the problems of just getting on or off of the platforms. The escalators have this charming knack of being turned off if people dare to use them. The platform- concourse lifts take an age to go anywhere. We don't want to be told three times that this lift is 'going up', just take us up! Lately the morning journey has been just as bad- soemone really needs to tell the managers that signalling two packed commuter trains into the same platform 30 seconds apart really isn't a good idea, as anyone on the 7.33 from Rugeley or the 7.38 to Lichfield City will attest.... My own solution to the problem would be to put the local trains (all of them) into Curzon Street and leave New Street for long distance. But I don't think there is a snowball's chance in H*ll of that happening! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 I myself have not had that much experience of it, transitory visits a dozen times perhaps over the years, to whit it has been a necessary "evil", but it's all well and good decrying the situation without a practicable solution...in 2014. Offers? Starter for ten - add 4x "tube" platforms, (1x for services towards Barnt Green, 1x towards Wolverhampton, 1x towards Duddeston, 1x towards Coventry) and lose the intensive electrified and largely "straight through" local services into those, which should allow quicker arrivals, calls and departures for them, plus free up platforms at the existing one (and done right hopefully reduce conflicts on approach) Even better for connectivity build them slightly to the East of the current site "crossrail style" and allow folk to exit to New St, or Moor St, or Curzon St (HS2) stations... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NXEA! Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 My mother-in-law has given up travelling by train since there are no longer direct services from Southampton to Durham. She will not "do" New Street. Since XC have extended some Reading-Newcastles to/from Southampton Central there are direct services. From Southampton Central to Durham there are direct trains at 09.46, 11.46, 13.46 and 15.46, however the 13.46 is 15 minutes slower than the other three. From Durham to Southampton there are trains at 09.48, 11.48 and 17.48. So she could do the train again, depends if she'll "do" Voyagers! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Starter for ten - add 4x "tube" platforms, (1x for services towards Barnt Green, 1x towards Wolverhampton, 1x towards Duddeston, 1x towards Coventry) and lose the intensive electrified and largely "straight through" local services into those, which should allow quicker arrivals, calls and departures for them, plus free up platforms at the existing one (and done right hopefully reduce conflicts on approach) Even better for connectivity build them slightly to the East of the current site "crossrail style" and allow folk to exit to New St, or Moor St, or Curzon St (HS2) stations... Just at the end of the tunnel toward London, practically under Moor Street? That would be ideal, especially for those of us who have to change local trains at New Street/ Moor Street. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 ....If New Street was in Germany it would probably have twice as many platforms and would quite likely have been rebuilt on two levels (of track/platforms) by now. Plus they would have eradicated any terminating services turning round at the station, running them on to terminate further along the line, or as ECS to a suitable turn around facility. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leopardml2341 Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 ..............If New Street was in Germany it would probably have twice as many platforms and would quite likely have been rebuilt on two levels (of track/platforms) by now. A bit like Berlin Hbf then ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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