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Birmingham New Street is a major railway station located in the centre of the city of Birmingham, England. New Street is Birmingham's main railway station, and is a major hub of the British railway system. Due to its central location, railway lines from all over the United Kingdom run into it including railway lines to: London, Manchester, Scotland, Wales, Bristol, Penzance, Nottingham, Leicester, Shrewsbury and NewcastleNewcastle upon Tyne often called just Newcastle is a city in North East England in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear. The City has a relatively small population of around 259,000 ( 2001 census). However, the Metropolitan Boroughs of North Tyneside. The station is also a terminus for many local train services from throughout the West MidlandsThe County of West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England, formed in 1974. Since 1986 it has had no county council. The county contains the cities of Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry. It also contains the metropolitan boroughs conurbation. It is also the main station on the local Cross City railway line , servicing LichfieldLichfield is a small city in Staffordshire, 110 miles northwest of London and 14 miles north of Birmingham. Famous for its three spired Cathedral, Lichfield lies in a pleasant country, on a small stream draining eastward to the Trent, with low hills to th, RedditchRedditch is a town and local government district in Worcestershire, England, just south of the West Midlands urban area. The district has a population of about 80,000 and is represented in Parliament by Jacqui Smith. The first recorded mention of Redditch and stations in between. Direct trains run to more stations from New Street than from any other station on the British railway network. 31 million people pass through New Street station every year. It is one of seventeen UK railway stations managed by Network RailNetwork Rail is a British "not for dividend" Company Limited by Guarantee that owns the British railway system with the exception of rolling stock: i. Network Rail owns the railway tracks themselves, signals, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and stations.
1 History
New Street station was constructed as a joint station by the London and North Western RailwayThe London and North Western Railway LNWR was formed in 1846 by the merger of three railway companies the Grand Junction Railway, London and Birmingham and Manchester and Birmingham. It was known as the 'Premier Line' though disputed by many it may be tho and the Midland RailwayThe Midland Railway (MR was a railway company in the United Kingdom which existed from 1844 to 1922. It was formed in 1844 by the merger of the Midland Counties Railway, the North Midland Railway, and the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway. The Midland between 1846Events January 5 The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom February 5 The Oregon Spectator becomes the first newspaper on the Pacific coast of the United States. February 10 Many Mormons and 1854 to replace several earlier unconnected rail termini, the most notable being Curzon Street .
Because it was constructed by two companies, the original New Street Station was effectively two stations built side-by-side. Each company had one half, with a road, Queen's Drive, between them. This lead to an incovenient track layout which restricted capacity. In 1923, the two companies, with others, were grouped into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS).
The station was completely re-built by the then-nationalised British Railways in the mid 1960s, when the West Coast Main Line was modernsied and electrified. Queen's Drive was lost in this rebuilding. The rebuilt station has a shopping centre and car park above it and is thus dark, enclosed (except at the far ends) and widely disliked.
The local press regularly report plans to rebuild the station once again, including a proposed "double decker" layout, with suburban-line platforms below those for long- distance trains, but so far no funding has been found for this scheme.
