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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.