Birmingham New Street Railway Station
Birmingham New Street is the main railway station serving Birmingham, England, located in the city centre. It is an important hub for the British railway system, being served by a number of important long-distance and cross-country lines, including the Birmingham loop of the West Coast Main Line, the Cross Country Route, and the Birmingham to Peterborough Line. It is also a major hub for local and suburban services in the West Midlands, including those on the Cross City Line between Lichfield and Redditch.
With over 24 million passenger entries and exits between April 2010 and March 2011, New Street is the second busiest railway station in the United Kingdom outside London (after Glasgow Central), and the busiest interchange station outside London. According to Network Rail, which manages the station, over 40.1 million people use it annually, 87% of whom are passengers. With over 4.3 million passengers changing trains at the station annually, it is also the busiest rail hub outside London.
The original New Street station was built in the Victorian era. This was demolished and replaced by the current station in the 1960s. An enclosed station, with buildings over most of its span, New Street is not popular with its users, with a customer satisfaction rate of only 52% - the joint lowest of any Network Rail major station. A £550m redevelopment scheme named Gateway Plus was awarded full funding by the British government in February 2008, and new designs were unveiled in September 2008. Work started on the redevelopment a year later.
Birmingham is also served by Birmingham Moor Street and Birmingham Snow Hill. On the outskirts, closer to Solihull, is Birmingham International, which serves the airport and National Exhibition Centre.
The station is allocated the IATA location identifier QQN.
Read more about Birmingham New Street Railway Station: Services
Famous quotes containing the words street, railway and/or station:
“I marched in with the men afoot; a gallant show they made as they marched up High Street to the depot. Lucy and Mother Webb remained several hours until we left. I saw them watching me as I stood on the platform at the rear of the last car as long as they could see me. Their eyes swam. I kept my emotion under control enough not to melt into tears.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“I introduced her to Elena, and in that life-quickening atmosphere of a big railway station where everything is something trembling on the brink of something else, thus to be clutched and cherished, the exchange of a few words was enough to enable two totally dissimilar women to start calling each other by their pet names the very next time they met.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)