Tag: New Street

#365daysofbiking Stationary traveller:

November 28th – Birmingham New Street, not long after dawn on a grey, wet, miserable winter morning.

Despite it’s faults, despite it’s awful turd-polishing in the Grand Central fiasco, despite it’s continual propensity to be host to disappointment and frustration, this subterranean station is in my heart and soul, and feels like home.

The lights, the people, even, no – especially the steel horse.

I love this city. I love this place. With all my heart. But often, it feels unrequited.

August 16th – Thankfully New Street is a rare delight these days, but on this grey and wet Thursday morning I wallowed in the damp brutalism of the concrete and metal, and the sounds of the people and traffic.

I spend many years now passing through this place, waiting or anticipating. It’s by turns grim, ugly, wonderful, fascinating and homely.

A real love-hate relationship.

January 23rd – Tuesday. The cold is easing but my average speed is still lamentable. I’m feeling better, but still not well and the weather is… Challenging.

Returning from Birmingham in the 5pm dusk, at least New Street Station gave me some welcome late night feelings.

I’m improving. But a return to health and optimism can’t come soon enough.

November 22nd – Coming through New Street Station at night, rush hour on a foul blustery evening when all the trains are messed up.

I’d rather be anywhere else than here.

Nothing sums up the deadzone, the suck, this awful time of year: no end to the advancing darkness, travel worsening daily, weather closing in.

And yet, there’s something awfully optimistic about it. You know that in a few short weeks, it’ll be over, and we’ll be opening out again.

Patience. Patience.

November 15th – Late in the day, I popped into Birmingham to meet a prospective new cwork colleague, and came back as I often used to frequently, through a somnambulant, night-time Birmingham New Street Station.

The renovations here seem to have finished – although they don’t look it and the Stephenson street footbridge looks like the work stopped abruptly halfway through. But then, there’s only so much polishing and sprinkling with cheap glitter that can mask this huge architectural turd.

The place was charming though in it’s own night-time way, and once again, that late-night feelings vibe started to hit me.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see this post here. 

Why does that haunt me so?

March 24th – In Birmingham for an important work visit, I took time in the afternoon to do some shopping, both in the centre and up on the Soho Road.

That bike was parked on New Street – what on earth could the time be carrying? It’s very sturdy and from the marks, is clearly often stood on end. 

I have no idea, but that must be the very devil to ride. Chapeau! For that one.

Over in Soho,looking up above the frenetic, chaotic shopfronts, more oddly elongated structures. I’ve never seen chimney pots like that before. Guess it’s to elevate the emitted fumes, but it looks very odd.

March 22nd – A rainy, horrid day: I found myself at New Street waiting for a delayed train mid-morning, in a frankly foul mood. Nothing was moving and I felt stuck. As I looked out from the end of the platform, I spotted this train driver, heading to his post in the rain, and felt an instant sympathy.

Rainy day commutes are horrid.

January 10th – Sadly, my commuting life right now isn’t terribly varied. I’m seeing a lot of dark urbanity, stations, later and earlier. Apologies. Finding variance in a busy January when you don’t see much daylight is always hard.

Passing through Birmingham New Streetin the evening, I found myself at the same platform as the steel horse sculpture that forms the first in a chain of 12 along the line side to Wolverhampton. 

Erected in 1987 and designed by Kevin Atherton, the Iron Horse project put similar horses in different motion positions alongside an urban railway line, to appear as if the train you were on was losing a race with a horse. Some jump, some buck, canter or trot. They are warm, lifelike, and softly amusing.

They have fared well and not dated, and are one of the great curiosities of Birmingham and the Black Country.

January 9th – Waiting at New Street early in the day it seemed people were not yet about – I saw very few as I loafed idly, waiting for my train. Despite continual work here, little has changed in the last 12 months – the grim 80s exit bridge has had one end tarted up but it remains ugly and badly conceived; likewise the shiny tinfoil covering to the upper floors, covering only the bits that can be seen from outside the station. 

Despite the continual aesthetic tweaks – panelling here, lights there, the odd new bench or seating area – little really changes in this urban, brutalist bunker. It’s a fleeting place, transitory for most. But stand here for any length of time and you’ll realise how little;e has been done to actually improve it.

New Street Station is not new. It’s just now got a retail opportunity on top. The station itself remains as dysfunctional as ever.

December 14th – Having arrived at work, I discovered I was needed in Telford, so nothing for it, I headed for the train. At New Street, there were delays and confusion and the usual busy, frenetic chaos.

I stood at the end of the platform, wandering what I was doing there. Every signal light I could see was red.

Some days wear you out before you start.