Birmingham New Street railway station

Birmingham New Street is the largest and busiest of the three main railway stations in the Birmingham City Centre, England. It is a central hub of the British railway system. It is a major destination for Virgin Trains services from London Euston, Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Waverley via the West Coast Main Line, and the national hub of the CrossCountry network – the most extensive in Britain, with long-distance trains serving destinations from Aberdeen to Penzance. It is also a major hub for local and suburban services within the West Midlands, including those on the Cross City Line between Lichfield Trent Valley, Redditch, and Bromsgrove, and the Chase Line to Walsall and Rugeley Trent Valley.

The station is named after New Street, which runs parallel to the station, although the station has never had a direct entrance to New Street except via the Grand Central shopping centre. Historically the main entrance to the station was on Stephenson Street, just off New Street. Today the station has entrances on Stephenson Street, Smallbrook Queensway, Hill Street and Navigation Street.

New Street is the sixth busiest railway station in the UK and the busiest outside London, with 43.7 million passenger entries and exits between April 2017 and March 2018. It is also the busiest interchange station outside London, with nearly 6.8 million passengers changing trains at the station annually. In 2018 New Street had a passenger satisfaction rating of 92%, the third highest in the UK.

The original New Street station opened in 1854. At the time of its construction, the station had the largest single-span arched roof in the world, In the 1960s, the station was completely rebuilt. An enclosed station, with buildings over most of its span and passenger numbers more than twice those it was designed for, the replacement was not popular with its users. A £550m redevelopment of the station named Gateway Plus opened in September 2015. It includes a new concourse, a new exterior facade, and a new entrance on Stephenson Street.

Around 80% of train services to Birmingham go through New Street. The other major city-centre stations in Birmingham are Birmingham Moor Street and Birmingham Snow Hill. Outside Birmingham, in Solihull, is Birmingham International, which serves Birmingham Airport and the National Exhibition Centre.

Since 30 May 2016, New Street has been served by the West Midlands Metro tram line, when the adjacent Grand Central tram stop opened outside the station's main entrance on Stephenson Street as the new terminus of Line 1, following the opening of the city-centre extension from Birmingham Snow Hill.

Railway operations
New Street is the hub of the West Midlands rail network, as well as being a major national hub. The station is one of seventeen operated and managed by Network Rail, Network Rail also provides operational staff for the station.

Station staff are provided on all platforms to assist with the safe 'dispatch' of trains. For operational reasons all trains departing New Street much be dispatched via the use of Right Away (RA) indicators. RA indicators display a signal informing the train driver it is safe to start the train, instead of using more traditional bell or hand signals.

The 12 through platforms are divided into a and b ends, with an extra bay platform called 4c between 4b and 5b, with the b end of the station towards Wolverhampton, this in effect allows twice the platforms. Longer trains that are too long for one section of the platform occupy the entire length of the platform, such as Class 390 or HSTs.

Trains departing towards Proof House Junction (a end) can depart from any platform, but there are restrictions on trains departing from the b end. All platforms can accommodate trains heading towards Wolverhampton, however due the platform layout and road bridge supports, only 5–12 can accommodate trains heading towards Five Ways. There are a number of sidings on the station for the stabling of trains; between platforms 5/6, 7/8, 9/10. The bay platforms at either end of platform 12 have been removed during the current rebuild. The sidings in front of New Street signal box have also been removed.

All signalling is controlled by New Street power signal box at the Wolverhampton or b end of the station; it can be seen at street level on Navigation Street. The station is allocated the IATA location identifier QQN.

Approach tunnels
All trains arriving and departing must use one of the several tunnels around the station.
 * Stour Valley Line Tunnel – heads westwards towards Soho Junction & Wolverhampton, and passes under the National Indoor Arena. This tunnel is 927 yard long in total, comprising the original New Street North Tunnel, 751 yard and extension: 'Arena' Tunnel, 176 yard. It was opened in 1852 as part of the Stour Valley Line, and holds two tracks.
 * New Street South Tunnel – 254 yard long, heading eastbound, passing under the Bullring, and Birmingham Moor Street station, heading towards Duddeston, Adderley Park, the Camp Hill Line and the Derby lines towards Tamworth. This tunnel opened in 1854, originally holding two tracks; it was widened in 1896 to hold four tracks, with two double-track parallel bores.
 * Gloucester Line Tunnels – are four separate tunnels heading south-west towards Five Ways. Heading from New Street in sequence the tunnels are named Holliday Street Tunnel, 307 yard long; Canal Tunnel, 225 yard long, passing under the Birmingham Canal Navigations; Granville Street Tunnel, 81 yard long; and Bath Row Tunnel, 210 yard long. These tunnels opened in 1885 as part of the Birmingham West Suburban Railway and hold two tracks.

Customer service and ticketing
Network Rail, as well as operating the station, operate a customer reception located on the main concourse, provide mobility assistance and train dispatch. Booking office and barriers are operated by Virgin Trains, with customer service or floor walker staff provided by CrossCountry and Network rail. Virgin Trains operates a first class lounge and Network West Midlands also provides a public transport information point of the station.

New Street is a penalty fare station for West midlands trains (West Midlands railway & London north western railway) only. This scheme is operated on its trains and at the automatic ticket barriers at the station. The other train operating companies that use the station do not have penalty fare schemes.

Pollution and Air Quality Concerns
The station is designated as underground. There are fans that remove fumes but there are still a large number of services operated by diesel trains despite the whole station being electrified in the 1960s. There have been environmental concerns about the level of pollution in the station in particular NOx

Train operating companies
Since the privatisation of British Rail there have been 12 train companies that have called at New Street: Arriva Trains Wales, Central Trains, CrossCountry, First North Western, London Midland, Silverlink, Virgin CrossCountry, Virgin Trains West Coast, Transport for Wales, Wales & Borders, Wales & West and West Midlands Trains.

Currently CrossCountry, Virgin Trains, Transport for Wales and West Midlands Trains provide services from New Street. Chiltern Railways have on occasion used New Street during engineering works.

West Midlands Trains operates a traincrew depot at the station and stables some trains overnight around the station. For the most part they use Soho TMD for electric traction units, with its non-electric units kept at Tyseley TMD to the southeast of Birmingham.

CrossCountry also operates a traincrew depot at the station; it uses Tyseley TMD for the Class 170 units, and its Voyagers are based at Central Rivers TMD.

Train services
The basic Monday to Saturday off-peak service in trains per hour (tph) is as follows:

Virgin Trains
 * 3tph to London Euston (1 via Rugby, 1 via Watford Junction and 1 via Milton Keynes Central). All call at Birmingham International and Coventry
 * 1tph to Glasgow Central or Edinburgh Waverley (alternating each hour) via Preston and Carlisle.

CrossCountry
 * 2tph to via Stafford and Stoke-on-Trent.
 * 2tph to with one carrying on to  and some as far as Penzance.
 * 2tph to via.
 * 2tph to with one carrying on to  via.
 * 2tph to via Oxford, some of which continue to  and.
 * 1tph to via Gloucester & Newport.
 * 1tph to Newcastle via Sheffield and.
 * 1tph to via  and Newcastle, continuing alternately to  or  and.

West Midlands Trains
 * 3tph to
 * 3tph to
 * 2tph to
 * 2tph to
 * 2tph to
 * 2tph to
 * 2tph to
 * 2tph to
 * 3tph to via Coventry & Northampton
 * 2tph to via Crewe
 * 1tph to via Adderley Park
 * 1tph to via Bromsgrove &
 * 1tph to via Wolverhampton

Transport for Wales
 * 1tph to
 * 1tph to, continuing alternately to Chester & or /

West Midlands Metro
New Street is served by the West Midlands Metro tram system from the adjacent Grand Central tram stop outside the station's main entrance on Stephenson Street. This was opened on 30 May 2016, when the city centre extension of the Metro came into operation. The stop is the current terminus of West Midlands Metro Line One, and provides a link to Snow Hill station and onwards to Wolverhampton.

Initially, Grand Central was planned to act as the terminus of the city centre extension. However, it was later decided that further extension would take place towards Centenary Square and later to Edgbaston, work towards this is ongoing.

Links to Moor Street and Snow Hill stations
New Street station is 600 metres away from Birmingham Moor Street; the city's second busiest railway station. There is a signposted route for passengers travelling between New Street and Moor Street stations which involves a short walk through a tunnel under the Bullring shopping centre. Although the railway lines into New Street pass directly underneath Moor Street station, there is no rail connection. In 2013 a new direct walkway was opened between the two stations. Birmingham Snow Hill station is 1000 m away; either a ten-minute walk away to the north or can be reached via a short tram ride on the West Midlands Metro.