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New Street Station 1967

New Street Station also suffers from the fact that it is an underground station which is why it had a smoking ban after the Kings Cross fire and before all stations had smoking bans. The approach through tunnels from all directions does not help its image.
 
New street station had a big reconstruction during which the Birmingham shopping center was created (changed its name to the pallasades in the early 80s)the centre opened in 1971 which had escalators from new street station going into the center also had exits to the bridge link bullring,another one to the Midland red bus station and one to st Stephenson street where all the buses stopped it also had escalators and a lift just outside Asda going down to the indoor car park and not forgetting the ramp off course.it was a very busy center as I started working in Asda in 1974 till it closed in 1990.Lots of shops came and went over the years like meb show room.habitat,athenas poster shop,brentford's nylons city butchers,Gino's open restaurant.,fruity fruits,wimbushes cafe,druckers ,2 hair salons one was called Vidal sassoon (which you needed a weeks wage to get your hair done in there)a big model shop I think was called beaties and many more .Yes had many happy years there .
 
Sugar

I thought New Street shopping centre opened a long time before 1971, as I can remember it in the mid 60's. In fact in 1971/72 we did quite a bit of work in the centre such as knocking out party walls to enlarge some shops. To be quite honest they were some of the only walls we ever had to use pneumatic picks on they were that well built. Another job was removing some large green marble faced plant pots from the centre mall because people used them as rubbish bins. We only left the fountain and one that was converted to a kiosk.
 
Phil said:
Sugar

I thought New Street shopping centre opened a long time before 1971, as I can remember it in the mid 60's. In fact in 1971/72 we did quite a bit of work in the centre such as knocking out party walls to enlarge some shops. To be quite honest they were some of the only walls we ever had to use pneumatic picks on they were that well built. Another job was removing some large green marble faced plant pots from the centre mall because people used them as rubbish bins. We only left the fountain and one that was converted to a kiosk.
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I got the information off wikipedia I put in grand central Birmingham and it gave me this information so have a look you may be right but I dont KNOW!
 
I agree, that the Pallisades was pre 1971. New Street Station opened in 1967 and the infrastructure for the shopping centre was in place then, as to get to the station, a walk from the ramp at the top of New Street took people to the top of the stairs and escalators down to the concourse and the booking offices. travel centre, the ticket barriers and the newsagents. There were glass door that on both sides of the escalator bottoms that went out to the road link to the Queensway.

It was also possible to walk through the Pallisades during the construction, and pre station opening, to the top of the stairs that led down to Station Street This pedestrian route replaced the bridge that linked Stephenson Street with Station Street and which was a right of way. When New Street was reconstructed again that route still had to be maintained and is now at the original level again.
 
Not 1967 but 2020.
However, York has some interesting new visitors due to lockdown. I wonder what is happening at New Street?

#goosecam hashtag on Twitter

On Apr 28 @LNER tweeted: " HONK #GOOSECAM ALERT Another.." - read what others are saying and join the conversation.
twitter.com twitter.com
 
That is the Stephenson Street side of the station which once had the travel centre and a booking office and there was also the railway hotel.

To get some perspective of the original station an ariel view from the 1930's might be appropriate.

Stephenson Street is on the centre right. The massive overall roof covered the LNWR Platforms and there was a central footbridge that crossed the platforms, Queens Drive and the Midland Railway Platforms towards Station Street.

The LNWR overall roof was lost during the Second World War, but the Midland Railway side retained the roof until demolition.

In this view it is possible to see the office block on the Midland Side of the Station

When the station was rebuilt, the Queens Drive was demolished.

A survivor from these times was the long block of building on Platform 1 which lasted almost to the end of the nationalised railway.

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I don't remember that block of offices in the centre of the Midland Station and it was only in seeing photos of the demolition work that I know about them. I remember driving into a parcels bay off Station Street to collect and send parcels which wasnext to platform 12 in the 1960s station.
 
The parcel bay became Red Star parcels, which was British Rail development of sending parcels with the guard/conductor of passenger trains. Here the sender sent a parcel which was delivered direct to the office and collected from a designated station.

Birmingham International, Sutton Coldfield and Sandwell & Dudley all had Red Star parcel offices, and the service was effectively the last vestige of parcels by train. Once the parcels service was an important revenue earner and involved collection and delivery by road.
 
I always remember using passenger luggage in advance, which was presumably run by the parcels service
 
Thanks. Yes it was Red Star I was dealing with. I used them when I had to send parcels between our London and Birmingham 0ffices back in the 1970s
 
Passenger Luggage in Advance was a different service, where luggage was sent on with the hopeful re-uniting with the owner. It was a service offered for those often going on for holiday.
 
Dianad said:
The teacher who hit us over our heads became a mayor. Isn't that ironic.
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Vivienne14 said:
Does this mural ring any bells with people ? I don’t remember it. Viv.

Source: British Newspaper Archive
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DavidGrain said:
All I can say is that it has triggered a memory but I can't say from when or where at New Street Station. I would have been more concerned at looking down at my feet when travelling down those escalators.
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It triggered a memory for me too, I think, but it's vague.
 
They pulled down the old station with the open and high roofs just at the time they were getting rid of steam locos. I did love the smell of steam locos. The new station was all enclosed with diesel trains that had sickly smelling exhausts.

While the new station looked very modern and spaced age in design, it very quickly started to look shabby with the fumes from the diesel trains and the tiles getting smashed by all those post office truck that ran on the platforms.
 
Opening day in 1967. This is how I remember the 60s station. Being a frequent traveller for work in the 1980s, just after that arriving back from London when I moved away, it really lacked any charm, warmth or character. By then it had, to me, become simply a place you passed through, without lingering and rushing to catch the next train out as soon as possible. Don’t think the bright, white lighting did it any favours either. It was like boarding a train from a Cold War MI5 bunker. Viv.

E5E59D47-9201-4C39-A5C2-96BFCC225A81.jpeg
 
The train bit below is a little bit better . but not much. I remember the bar on the "bridge", which in later years they tried to "improve" This partly involved repainting and then going to great trouble to make the ceiling in this (no smoking) area look as if the ceiling was tobacco-smoke-stained
 
The view of the ticket office shows the machines used to print blank edmondson size card. The carrier was moved along to to specific ticket location, the card was inserted and printed. There were various other types of ticket machines then in use, These machines could be fast, But the fastest one I noted was the rapid printer at Moor Street used for some popular destinations.

For the New Street machines the biggest problem was a fare change when all the plates in the machine had to be changed,

Progress in printing tickets led to the INTIS and APTIS machines being installed.
 
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