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, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“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)
“[T]here is no situation so deplorable ... as that of a gentlewoman in real poverty.... Birth, family, and education become misfortunes when we cannot attain some means of supporting ourselves in the station they throw us into. Our friends and former acquaintances look on it as a disgrace to own us.... If we were to attempt getting our living by any trade, people in that station would think we were endeavoring to take their bread out of their mouths.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)