Tag: New Street

April 29th – Birmingham New Street – new start? Well, it’s bright, and smells of resin, I suppose. It also smells heavily of engineering compromise, forced retail opportunity and bodge.

My first experience of the much vaunted new station access way was this morning, and after all the hype, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s very much unfinished, and some aspects of the project show quite bad judgement.

This is no longer a station, but is a shopping centre with railway platforms. Everything is quite a bit longer to get to than before, and the access points funnel crowds carefully past the new shop units. The platforms themselves remain as narrow and cramped as ever, but with new escalators and lifts that go direct between concourse and platform, instead of via the subway. Sadly, they’re tiny, unable to accommodate a bike and pushchair at the same time, or my bike lengthways. This is dreadful.

The new concourse is nice, the light is pleasant and it’s quite airy. I’m not keen on the stone flooring, but each to his own. The cafe looks nice, and the information up there was good, unlike the platforms where a mixture of old, incorrect signage and new stuff just confused people.

The ticket barriers are much better, and access with a bike is OK even when crowded. However, the exit in Stephenson Place is bizarre, and doubles the length of the journey to Moor Street, meaning I’ll no longer make tight connections. 

My advice to anyone planning to park a bike in racks there and travel is don’t do it. There are woefully few racks, stuck in a dark corner of the Moor Street access subway, a while away from the station. Although covered by CCTV, the Sheffield stands are only bolted down. An industrious pair of scallies with a spanner and some bottle could clear those stands of bikes in minutes. This is unforgivable.

On the whole it’s nicer, but functionally more awkward in many ways. It’s much more walking to get in and out, and I wouldn’t fancy it with limited mobility. The architecture is nice, and they’ve worked hard to make a space with no natural light more human-freindly. But the pokey lifts, poor access to Moor Street and focus of retail jarr with me a little too much.

It’ll be interesting to see how things develop.

January 16th – Other people’s bicycles. As I came out of New Street Station this morning, stamping and puffing in the cold whilst waiting for the lights, my gaze turned to the crush railings on the junction. I don’t normally see bikes chained here for some reason, but today, there were two – both nice steeds. A minimalist, no nonsense, Carlton-based homebrew fixie, with beautiful Brooks saddle, and also a veritable behemoth of a tourer. The tourer put me in mind of a Dutch roadster, but had derailleur gears, cantilever brakes and the frame wasn’t right – although the dutch lock and improvised loop to the similar Brooks bum-comforter did make me wonder if the two owners were connected. I found the butterfly handlebars – the cycling equivalent of ape hangers – made for a monster cockpit. Both bikes were clearly well loved and ridden. When I returned 8 hours later, the Carlton had gone, so I guess the owners weren’t together, after all. Interesting steeds.

October 10th – Birmingham New Street. This is Birmingham New Street. As the automated announcements chimed the usual jingle, my train was delayed. Gazing up the platform from where I was sat on the crash barrier, I noticed something darting about. A mouse, or possibly a young rat. He was doing what nature intended – hoovering up.

I’m used to seeing mice and rats in stations: New Street is alive with rodents. People eat whilst waiting at stations, so there’s a ready supply of dropped and discarded food. Normally, such animals tend to look unhealthy, but this fellow was looking quite chipper. Contractors have recently sealed off platform eight as part of the modernisation works, and I suspect Mickey here was displaced, as was the rat I saw at the foot of the steps on the same platform 10 minutes later. 

When the train came, it was too full and I ended up going to Walsall instead. Sometimes I feel I live in the station, just like the mice.

Sorry about the poor quality images. I won’t use flash in a station for safety reasons.

September 19th – Off to Tyseley, and stood on Moor Street Station in Birmingham, I looked through the railings back towards Masshouse, and the edge of Eastside. Not many folk realise that Moor Street Station actually sits on a bridge over the approaches to New Street Station, so this may one day be the location of a new Birmingham central transport interchange. I was struck by the state of this area in terms of architecture and regeneration. Caught between dereliction and rebirth, the shiny new blocks contrast jarringly with the boarded up buildings nearby. With the recent change in control at Birmingham City Council, hopefully the indecisive hiatus that stalled development of Eastside for over a decade will end.

September 6th – in Birmingham early evening, I spotted this fine and clearly well-loved steed locked up outside the Odeon on New Street. A great example of British engineering, Moulton are a design icon. This is a folding bike full of technical genius and innovation, this example has a Rohlhoff gear hub, one of the best such hubs ever produced. It may look odd, but this is a fine bike with a devoted, cult following. A joy to see.

July 5th – I found myself in Birmingham City Centre at 9am. I had to be elsewhere, but my trusty old bike lock had finally failed and it was time to get a new one, so I went to the nearest bike shop to New Street Station: Evans Cycles in Temple Row. I was sad to discover that oddly, the shop didn’t open until 10. This cost Evans a 60 quid sale, as I went to On Your Bike in Digbeth, instead. On the way between the two, I noted that once again, Birmingham is undergoing change. The revamp of New Street Station – which will do little for travellers, but provide a great retail opportunity for big business – is gathering steam. I have no idea what’s going on here in Stephenson place, but the end result will be a new branch of John Lewis. Something tells me that this is going for the Selfridges effect. I’m not sure that will work twice…

June 7th – Birmingham New Street. This is Birmingham New Street. All regular travellers through Birmingham’s derided main station will recognise that tannoy jingle. I have a love-hate relationship with the place; dark, grubby, overcrowded, a nightmare on a bike or for the elderly or disabled. Yet, unlike so many stations, the layout is logical, compact and easy to grasp. It just carries way too much traffic and we need a new station – possibly on Eastside – to relieve it, then maybe the platforms could be reduced in number and widened, some natural light could be let in. 

There’s history, here, too, but not many realise. The arches at the end of platform 2 and 3 are a remnant of the original Victorian Station, as are many of the retaining cutting walls. The signal box – a remarkable Brutalist style structure designed by Bicknell & Hamilton to resemble an electrical component, is listed and a wonderful thing. As developers tear away at the upper levels, the ‘regeneration’ (how I hate that word) of this much misunderstood transport hub will not solve any of it’s functional problems, but I’m still rather fond of the old dump, if I’m honest.

May 8th – Bloody typical. A miserable bank holiday Monday, followed by a crestfallen return to work on a gorgeous, bright sunny spring day. I was heading to Telford, which means catching a train from New Street’s platform 4c, which I always think of as being Birmingham’s equivalent of platform nine and three quarters. There was something about the light today, the sun, the music I listened to on the way… it did feel very good to be out, even if I was going to work. Most peole seem to hate this station, and aspects of it are truly horrendous; but I also have a genuine affection for the old place. It feels like home, I guess.

April 3rd – Today was about the sky. What it threatened, what it was. What it held back. It was distinctly wintry after recent days, and as I arrived at Shenstone I noticed the old tower visible on the skyline next to the pronounced gargoyles of the new church. Feeling spots of rain on my head on platform 4c at New Street, I looked up. The sky was still being threatening. When I left work and arrived at Telford station, it was wet, miserable and grey. I had a long way to go tonight, and it didn’t look like the commuting gods were on my side. 

Actually, it seemed I was wrong. 

February 21st – There is a place in New Street Station, Birmingham, that is only known by a select few: those who use the lifts. This happy club includes cyclists, wheelchair users, those of limited mobility and service personnel. The platform access is so shambolic that only on two platforms do lifts connect to the concourse above; for the remaining five, you can only go downward to a connecting subway. This makes every platform change an absolute joy. If you actually want to get out, and land at, say, platform 2, you have to go down to the subway, and come up via tone of the two lifts connecting to the concourse through other platforms. These two lifts are very busy and the wait can be considerable. The connecting subway is dark, dingy and contains lots of horrid, dark corners. But never mind, it’ll all be better soon… and there will be jam for tea, too, I’m told.