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HS2 progress 2020 and beyond

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thanks guilbert...i have to be honest and say that because so many old buildings have now gone i can only pick out moor st station and maybe the rotunda...is the old park st burial ground in your photo??
 
If Guilbert gets a train on the Cross City or Chase or West Coast Mainlines, he could get views like this.

20th August 2020 on a Class 350 train I got from Stechford to Birmingham New Street (one train an hour, and it was delayed).

Turntable.



Curzon Street Station.



New Canal Street closed off.




Also if he got a bus on the top deck leaving Moor Street Queensway he might be able to get it over the fences.
 
guilbert53 said:
Just over a week OK I went up to Birmingham taking photos all over the city centre.

One set of photos I took was around the new HS2 station site where a large amount of work is going on.

This is a HUGE site, running from Moor Street Queensway, alongside Moor St station, right out to the Lawley Middleway Ring Road.

Here is an aerial photo I captured from Google maps showing the extent of the site.

Bottom left you can see Moor Street station, and along the centre of the photo (and along the bottom of the HS2 station site) you can see the train line that runs in to New Street station (going UNDER Moor St station).

The far right of the photo is Lawley Middleway, and along the top of the HS2 station site runs Curzon Street.

View attachment 147963

I have posted 10 photos below,, and to help people understand where I have taken the photos from here is the same map above, but now with numbers 1 to 10 on it showing where I stood to take the photo, and the direction I was pointing.

View attachment 147964

Below, here is photo 1. Taken from Moor Street Queensway looking roughly East all along the length of the HS2 station site.

This was a hard photo to take as most of the site is surrounded by a high wall, I had to stand on something to give me enough height to take the photo. You can see the old Curzon Street station in the distance

View attachment 147965

Below, here is photo 2. Again taken from Moor Street Queensway looking roughly East but I have zoomed in to get more of the site. You can see the old Curzon St station more clearly here.

View attachment 147966

Below, here is photo 3, taken from Park Street looking roughly South.

As you can see, Park St is now permanently closed off. This road has been used for many people to get in to the the city centre but now traffic has to go on to Moor Street Queensway to get towards the Digbeth area.

View attachment 147967

Below, here is photo 4, taken from New Canal Street (the Curzon Street station is behind me and the Woodman pub to my right) looking towards the city centre.

As you can see the site is surrounded by high hoardings so it is very difficult to get photos of the HS2 Station site.

View attachment 147968

Below here is photo 5. Having said about the last photo it is hard to take photos of the site, here is a photo I took again on New Canal Street but through a hole in a metal gate.

Here you can see much of the "front" of the HS2 station site, the part that will be near Moor Street station.

View attachment 147969

Below, here is photo 6. This is taken on New Canal Street, where Fazeley Street crosses it.

There is a lot of "HS2 Enabling" work going on in this area so as you can see New Canal Street was blocked off in this area.

View attachment 147970

Below, here is photo 7. This is Fazeley Street where the canal goes under the road (near the old Typhoo Works).

Again you can see this road is blocked off for more "HS2 Enabling" works. As you can imagine these roads closures are causing some confusion for local traffic.

View attachment 147971

Below, here is photo 8. This is Banbury Street (the Gun Barrell Proof house is behind me) looking towards the city centre.

The HS2 station will be to my right, and ahead of me (and probably above me!)

The Eagle and Tun pub is at the end of the road on the left (with the chimney).

View attachment 147972

Below, here is photo 9. Again in Banbury Street, a close up of the Eagle and Tun pub.

I could not get a photo from the "front" of the pub as the low sun was shining right in to my camera lens.

View attachment 147973

Below, here is photo 10 (last photo). This is the Woodman pub.

As you can see, more work going on around the pub. I think this was BT (Openreach) laying high speed broadband cables, I assume for use by the HS2 station at a later date.

If you look to the left of the pub you can see down New Canal Street and you can see the amount of work going on with cones and barriers everywhere.

View attachment 147974

So hopefully with the photos I have taken you can get some idea of the huge amount of work going on to build this HS2 station.

I know there are anti HS2 people around but in the long term this must be good for Birmingham.

My daughter and her boyfriend have just come back from over a year in the Far East (Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan etc) and all these countries have got High Speed trains.

Most European countries have got far more High Speed train track than the UK. If we don't do things like this we are in danger of being left behind, particularly with the anti-air travel protests likely to increase in the coming years.
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A great set of pics. Thanks for taking the trouble to go into Brum and capture the changes. Come on Hs2, drag us into the 21st century.
 
I had a look at the River Cole post, but it seems to be concerned more with ecology and creation of walks at this junction.

The water powered Forge Mill was on the opposite of the BR Line
 
This is slightly off topic but I have just been watching this interesting 7 minute film about the work going on in New York city on their most costly rail project to date...this seemed the most appropriate thread to post on.
 
A Sparks said:
This is slightly off topic but I have just been watching this interesting 7 minute film about the work going on in New York city on their most costly rail project to date...this seemed the most appropriate thread to post on.
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Great video, thank you A Sparks!

What is going on in NYC these days, the great exodus. With people and businesses leaving. Not sure how well used, all those rails will be!
 
We came through Water Orton the other day - line goes right through the site of the old school which has now been re-built.
 
MWS said:
Restoration of Curzon St station...

www.bbc.co.uk

HS2 revamp for 19th Century station

Restoration work starts on Birmingham's Grade I listed Curzon Street building.
www.bbc.co.uk
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good news..but of course the city could have had more than this jewel in the crown if a little more thought was given over the years spent of totally ridding us so many historical buildings

lyn
 
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Astoness said:
good news..but of course the city could have had more than this jewel in the crown if a little more thought was given over the years spent of totally ridding us so many historical buildings

lyn
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Luckily, they 'hadn't got round' to Curzon Street Station by the time the HS2 intention was announced.
 
This part of Curzon Street Station has been kept, but there were parts of the Grand Junction Station that survived and have now gone.
It must not be forgotten that there were two stations at Curzon Street, side by side. The original train shed of the London & Birmingham Station was demolished to make the goods station.
 
Heartland said:
This part of Curzon Street Station has been kept, but there were parts of the Grand Junction Station that survived and have now gone.
It must not be forgotten that there were two stations at Curzon Street, side by side. The original train shed of the London & Birmingham Station was demolished to make the goods station.
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That was a long time ago, though - and the former goods station 'over the road' where ThinkTank is now has long gone as well.
 
That goods shed over the road was Top Yard, and there was a level crossing across Curzon Street.

There were also stables, and if I recall were listed. But the listing was over turned to make the new Millenium Point.
 
Meanwhile work goes on to build the first phase, Tunnel boring machines are at work, contractors at Curzon Street labour to relocate all the services and the route is gradually been laid out along the length.

It took from 1824 to 1838 to get the first London and Birmingham Railway built as well as the line to Warrington within a few years more a link to Leeds had been made. Opposition to the railways was common then and in those days the rails were laid on stone blocks.

With our modern HS2 project there is the adoption of the latest railway technology where engineers still strive for improvement carrying on the tradition set by George Stephenson and the first experiment in railway technology improvement, the Rainhill Trials.
 
If and when Phase 2 goes ahead I hope they won't be doing as much tunnelling as imposed on HS2 by objectors to Phase 1.
Not only does tunelling cost a lot it adds a permanent overhead to running the railway as the power needed to drive a train through a tunnel is significantly higher than along a line in open air.

HS2 tunnels aren't like conventional railway tunnels, dark, poorly ventillated with minimum clearances. They have to be well lit with passenger escape routes and with plently of clearance to minimise air compression as the train slams into a big tube of air.
 
Spargone said:
If and when Phase 2 goes ahead I hope they won't be doing as much tunnelling as imposed on HS2 by objectors to Phase 1.
Not only does tunelling cost a lot it adds a permanent overhead to running the railway as the power needed to drive a train through a tunnel is significantly higher than along a line in open air.

HS2 tunnels aren't like conventional railway tunnels, dark, poorly ventillated with minimum clearances. They have to be well lit with passenger escape routes and with plently of clearance to minimise air compression as the train slams into a big tube of air.
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Is the additional power because of wind resistance?

I know the Severn Tunnels environment is quite hostile to all of the fixtures and signalling equipment. It must coast a fortune to maintain
 
Morturn said:
Is the additional power because of wind resistance?

I know the Severn Tunnels environment is quite hostile to all of the fixtures and signalling equipment. It must coast a fortune to maintain
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Mort, wind resistance is a part of it. The additional ventilation, lighting (even LED) escape requirements creat much more requirements for power and service costs.
 
Morturn said:
Is the additional power because of wind resistance?

I know the Severn Tunnels environment is quite hostile to all of the fixtures and signalling equipment. It must coast a fortune to maintain
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I attended a technical presentation by HS2 a few years ago - if memory serves the locomotive power requirement was 60% more - it shocked me at the time. Tunnel costs can nominally be written off against the whole project and the whole lifetime but that windgage loss hits every train, making the systen less 'green' than it could have been.
 
Eric Gibson said:
My memory of the Severn tunnel is from my army days, some men returning from leave were often late because the tunnel was flooded.
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The Severn Tunnel continues to throw up problems. As part of the electrification programme the rail bed had to be lowered and ballasting methods done away with. Similarly they couldn't use an overhead wire which would get pushed up by the train so had to put in a rigid rail instead. Even that had problems with corrosion so they had to change to using aluminium for the contact surface. HS2's tunnels are mostly for hiding from objectors. Hopefully they will be easier to keep out than the Severn Estuary!
 
Spargone said:
I attended a technical presentation by HS2 a few years ago - if memory serves the locomotive power requirement was 60% more - it shocked me at the time. Tunnel costs can nominally be written off against the whole project and the whole lifetime but that windgage loss hits every train, making the systen less 'green' than it could have been.
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Intrigued by Spargones comment regarding power/energy consumption, I did some research on HS2. I did not get to 60% although what I read about was not good! That the approach taken at least so far is not very good. That it will take over 120 years to become carbon neutral (the life of the project) and some even question that.
MWS comment about the first phase might be very appropriate. The-fact that the project is running with 25% contingencies says that all of the T’s and i’s have not been crossed or dotted!
 
i have not gone into it because the cost of HS2 seems to be rising every few months..my question to them would be...how long will the lines have to be running before any profit is made...of course thats if it ever will...at a massive loss of peoples homes..businesses and ancient countryside and woodlands i hope they think its worth it

lyn
 
Astoness said:
i have not gone into it because the cost of HS2 seems to be rising every few months..my question to them would be...how long will the lines have to be running before any profit is made...of course thats if it ever will...at a massive loss of peoples homes..businesses and ancient countryside and woodlands i hope they think its worth it

lyn
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I think all of the above!
 
thanks mike...i know that there has been a lot of objection over at water orton...

lyn
 
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