Birmingham's New Street station worst for 'overall satisfaction'

[TheSignalEngineer]

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.

As was done many years ago to carriage sidings at Vauxhall, Monument Lane, Saltley and Kings Norton.

[Glorious NSE]

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.

 

They've gone a small way down that route, IIRC Walsall trains now loop straight through, and XC SW-Manchester services approaching via a different route to avoid the reversal at the station...

[The Stationmaster]

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.

Yes, I do wonder how many people in the railway industry still rue the day the 'West Midlands Charter' was agreed, or even more so the fact that it was extended into the privatised era where it continues to play merry heck with the punctuality of long distance services.

 

Strange to relate but I was in at the birth of the Saltley/Washwood Heath idea which originally came from a Director of a large West Midlands building & civil engineering company who tried the idea out on me (and got a frosty reception for its lack of practicality from an interchange viewpoint) but who subsequently tried it on certain Birmingham City Councillors who quickly embraced it as theirs and ran with it, until they stumbled and the idea sank into oblivion.

[John_Hughes]

They've gone a small way down that route, IIRC Walsall trains now loop straight through, and XC SW-Manchester services approaching via a different route to avoid the reversal at the station...

 

And the Cambrian Line trains now turn at International.

 

NS has always been a hell-hole, of course. My father-in-law, a Black Countryman born and bred, used to go miles out of his way to avoid it and travel through Snow Hill if at all possible.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Of course going back a long way to just after the PTE was set up Cross City wasn't going to go via New St at all, but through a new tunnel from Five Ways via the Town Hall and Snow Hill to the Aston Expressway and joining the Lichfield line just north of the Grand Junction line at Aston.

 

That was around the time when the Woodgate Expressway was going to go over the top of the railway and canal from Five Ways to University then across the old Harborne canal reservoir and on up the Woodgate Valley to join the M5.

 

The trainspotters name for the 1710 Reddictch, an Ivatt 4 turn,  comes to mind.

[pete_mcfarlane]

There are far worse stations than New Street - Wakefield Kirkgate for example.

 

I can't find the actual report these new articles are based on, but the local media in the East Midlands is reporting Nottingham and Grantham as being in the 'bottom 10'. Nottingham presumably because it's been run down for years and is now a building site, and  Grantham has virtually zero facilities if you're stuck there for 30 minutes waiting a connection.

 

I reckon New Street would be a lot better if Cross Country ever got round to building the bi-mode pantograph car for it's Voyagers. That would eliminate most of the diesel units from the station, along with their dirt and fumes.

[Shedman5]

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. 

 

Yes as an occasional visitor to New St I have to agree,I realised at one point it was easier to get off at Wolverhampton and change there when my journey allowed it.

 

As regards other stations well Preston can only be described as one massive wind tunnel due to its layout and position making it extremely cold on occasions!