page_title: Birmingham New Street railway station
section_title: 1960s rebuild
hierarchical_section_title: Birmingham New Street railway station / History / 1960s rebuild
context_page_description: Birmingham New Street is the largest and busiest of the three main railway stations in Birmingham city centre, England. It is a central hub of the British railway system. It is a major destination for Avanti West Coast services from London Euston, Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Waverley via the West Coast Main Line, the CrossCountry network, and 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 three-letter station is BHM.
  The station is named after New Street, which runs parallel to the station, although the station has never had a direct entrance except via the Grand Central shopping centre. Historically, the main entrance to the station was on Stephenson Street, just off New Street. As of 2020, 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 47.9 million passenger entries and exits between April 2018 and March 2019.
context_section_description: The station was completely rebuilt in the 1960s as part of the modernisation programme for the West Coast Main Line. Demolition of the old station and Queens Hotel began in 1964 and was not completed until 1966. The rebuilt New Street station was opened on 6 March 1967 to coincide with the introduction of electric expresses on the West Coast Main Line. It cost £4.5 million to build (equivalent to £82,280,000 in 2019).
  The new station was designed by Kenneth J. Davies, lead planner for British Rail London Midland Region. Twelve through platforms replaced the eight through and six bay platforms of the previous station. The platforms were covered over by a seven-acre (2.8 ha) concrete deck, supported by 200 columns, upon which the concourse and other buildings were constructed. Escalators, stairs and lifts were provided to reach the platforms from the concourse. The new station had sold its air rights, leading to the construction of the Pallasades Shopping Centre (then known as the Birmingham Shopping Centre) above the station between 1968 and 1970. The public right of way across the station, which had previously been maintained by the station footbridge, was retained in the new station via a winding route through the shopping centre. The station and the Pallasades were partly integrated with the Bullring Shopping Centre via elevated walkways above Smallbrook Queensway.
  Also above the station was a nine-storey office block called Ladywood House, and a multi-storey car park dating from the 1970s. The car park closed in May 2012. It was demolished to provide space for the new concourse and rebuilt. Stephenson Tower, a 20-storey residential tower block, was built alongside the station between 1965 and 1966. The tower, designed by the City Architect of Birmingham, was demolished in March 2012 as part of the station redevelopment.
  In 1987, twelve different horse sculptures by Kevin Atherton, titled Iron Horse, were erected between New Street station and Wolverhampton at a cost of £12,000. One stands on platform 7 at New Street.
  Due to its enclosed sub-surface platforms, New Street was designated as an underground station by the fire service. In the 1990s, a number of changes had to be made to the station in order to comply with stricter fire regulations, introduced for underground stations as a result of the 1987 King's Cross fire. In 1993, a new enclosed footbridge was opened at the Wolverhampton end of the station, with access to the platforms separate from the main building: this was built primarily as a fire exit, but the new exit from the station into Navigation Street was opened to the public. All wooden fittings were removed from the platforms, and new fire doors were also installed at the foot of the stairs and elevators on the platforms.
  The concrete constructed design of the 1960s station was widely criticised for being ugly. An enclosed station, with buildings over most of its span and passenger numbers more than twice that for which it was designed, by 2007 it was not popular with its users, having a customer satisfaction rate of only 52%, the joint lowest of any Network Rail major station.
caption: New Street signal box
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "u-miniD,Stylus V", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "314", "Image YResolution": "314", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Version 1.0", "Image DateTime": "2006:05:27 13:03:00", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "266", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 20, 0, 1, 0, 20, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "7092", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8866", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "64", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:05:27 13:03:00", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:05:27 13:03:00", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "361/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "119/20", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2272", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1704", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "722", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}