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New Street Station 1967

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Are the circle of telephones still there ?? it use to be my point of meeting when meeting anyone off the train .
ragga :courage:
 
Seems incredible Ragga to have that many public 'phones available, how times change. Spent many Sunday afternoons sitting on those benches waiting for the train back to London. There was a ticket office to the left of those benches where you could buy longer distance tickets. Local tickets were bought at the ticket booths. This was in pre ticket machine days. The place always seemed to have a cold atmosphere, not a place to spend too much time in. Viv.
 
Don't know if this 2008 extract from the Sunday Mercury archives is true:

"Arthur Smith, author of "Haunted Birmingham" ................... found out something very interesting about the original station. The site the builders chose had one "minor" obstacle - a Jewish cemetery. This didn't actually bother them too much. They demolished the cemetery and got on with constructing their great Victorian station."
 
Viv
There was a jewish synagogue in the Froggery, which is now under New St station. I do not know if there was also a cemetery there.
 
"In The Midst of Life" by Joseph McKenna says that there was a Jewish burial ground opened at The Froggery in early 18C.
All bodies removed to the Jewish Burial Ground at Chequers Walk. This was land off Granville Street including two cottages, which fell into disuse about 1825 but was used for the reburials about 1840s. This Ground was closed by order of the Corporation in 1873, the remains were the then transferred to Witton!!!
rosie.
 
Thanks Mike and Rosie. Just had a look at Westley's 1731 map and I can see the Froggery & chapel building - pretty big. This map has been posted on various threads before but posting it again here in case anyone wants to see the area we're referring to pre - New St station. Viv.

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Hi Mike - the area enclosed by the Froggery/Peck Lane/ Colmore St. Or is that gardens? Help! Rubbish with maps. Viv.
 
Hi Viv, in my day the Post Office had a MT workshop near the synagogue on Singers Hill, dont think there was a graveyard there, Bernard
 
Great pictures but do you have any more please & can any of you old New St spotters remember the date when a Bitannia Class & a Clan Class were side by side, one of them was on the 'Glasgow' & the other in the bay platform next to it.
 
Hi Ragga.

If it helps 70021 Morning Star was built 03/08/1951, withdrawn from service 30/12/1967, Disposal on 25/04/1968, last working sher Carlisle Kingsmoor.

Great pictures

Ray
 
I remember seeing the A1 60114 W.P.Allen on that special working at New Street on that particular Saturday, i think sometime in 1964.

It was my first A1, in fact it was my first LNER pacific.

What i didn't expect was to see the engine again on Worcester shed the day after, apparently it had failed somewhere en route.
 
Not quite sure which thread to put this on , but in the Jan 2013 issue of Backtrack magazien there is an article by Mike Thorne on his memories of Railways in the 1950s & 1960s around the Birmingham area
 
I think that scanning and posting of an article only published within the last week or so would be a definite breach of copyright , and very frowned upon
 
I remember seeing the A1 60114 W.P.Allen on that special working at New Street on that particular Saturday, i think sometime in 1964.

It was my first A1, in fact it was my first LNER pacific.

What i didn't expect was to see the engine again on Worcester shed the day after, apparently it had failed somewhere en route.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoggFNjlSig

Theres about 50 seconds of film footage of the day at New Street in 1964
2.22 / 3.07 minutes . maybe you can see yourself Neville among the spotters ??
ragga :fat:​
 
Just take a look at this artists impression. Doesn't it look glamorous and bang up to date. But, I don't think it ever really looked that swish! And it certainly wasn't that clean looking for long either. In my memory it always seemed to smell of chips and was quite dark, not bright and airy as suggested in the drawing. Viv.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1362336504.704623.jpg
 
I think this picture is of the Pallisades is it not? The escalator takes you down to the main station. I agree Viv that it did not look that good or that clean. Although this is how it was, it was not quite as crisp looking as this. Call me a dinasaur, but I prefer the old one!!!
 
Hi Shortie. I remember the very lowest level (at the bottom of that lower escalator) which brought you onto a concourse in front of train ticket barriers. And I remember the first level; if you came back up on that escalator it brought you out opposite what was Gino's restaurant on the first level. If you walked to the left it led to the ramp onto Stephenson Place. If you went to the right you could get to the bridge over Smallbrook Queensway which got you into the Bull Ring. But I have no idea where the other (top) escalator went. In fact I don't remember another escalator. Viv.
 
Hi Viv - actually, now you mention it, neither do I - unless of course it went to the car park? I am positive this is the level where the shops were (I have not got a clue what shops were there originally except, perhaps for Woolworths), and I also cannot visualise another escalator going upwards. Perhaps there was only one there in the original design, that never got built? I remember going to a shop there with my friend, in the far corner, it was a grocery shop, (was it Asda?) probably around 1968/69. Not long after, she moved to Tamworth, and we followed in 1972.
 
Vivienne14 said:
Just take a look at this artists impression. Doesn't it look glamorous and bang up to date. But, I don't think it ever really looked that swish! And it certainly wasn't that clean looking for long either. In my memory it always seemed to smell of chips and was quite dark, not bright and airy as suggested in the drawing. Viv.

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I don't think that version ever happened in New St Station. If nothing else, they never had a second level of shops. The escalator from the station goes up into the Pallasades but there's nowhere above that. The escalators down to the platforms are at the other side of the station concourse beyond the barriers. On the other hand, there's a shop called "Maxx" that's on the other side of the station approach from the station but still on the Queensway. It has an escalator arrangement just like that and I think they have access to the Bull Ring bridge from the upper floor. I can't remember what that shop was called before the rebuild. I'm not even sure that it was open to the public before they rebuilt the bullring.
 
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