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New Street Station From 1854 - 1966

Hi John70:

You were lucky to have rides around the platforms and into the tunnels at New Street Station when you were young. Great memories.
 
Thanks to K Parrish of Warwickshire Railways for these lovely sketches of Birmingham New Street .
ragga :)

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Superb sketches of New Street Station. The detail is excellent. I remember the kiosk that is shown and possibly it is the one that sold goods from Barrows Stores on Corporation Street. Things such a fruit, chocolate, etc.
that you would buy for a train journey.
 
I know this is the wrong thread for this picture but it is a train. Its the latest steamer built in this country on its maiden voyage. In the paper today so it has taken place in the last couple of days.
 
I think that is the one thats just been built by enthusiasts stitch completed 2008 saw a programme refering to it as the first mainline steam engine built or years never know may see it at New st one day:)
 
Steam power rolls into London

Saturday, February 7 03:44 pm

Britain turned back the clock almost 50 years as a £3 million steam train chugged into London. Skip related content
Related photos / videos


Steam train sets off from


Related content




The Tornado, the first mainline steam locomotive to be built in this country for nearly five decades, steamed from Darlington to London's Kings Cross at the end of a week in which Britain's modern-day rail services have been severely disrupted.
The apple-green engine, which was built with donations from enthusiasts over 18 years, pulled the Talisman train into London half-an-hour later than expected due to electrical problems near Peterborough.
Stopping to pick up passengers in York - and to refill its water tanks there, in Retford and in Peterborough Yard - the steam train took more than six hours to complete the 250-mile route.
The journey was far longer than the regular 8am train operated along the same route by National Express East Coast, which was delayed by seven minutes and took less than half the time.
Hundreds of onlookers, many of whom had been waiting for more than two hours, crowded platform one at Kings Cross as the first steam train to enter the capital in more than 40 years arrived.
Passengers cheered and waved as the steam filled the roof of the station.
Many of its 500 passengers said they were delighted that they had chosen style over speed.
John Warren, one of the first people to step off the train, said the engine was "absolutely phenomenal" and that more steam trains should be running on our tracks.
Built by a team of volunteers over nearly 20 years the A1 60163 Tornado is the 50th Peppercorn class A1 locomotive all of which were designed to cope with the heaviest passenger trains on the East Coast Main Line.
The train, which is expected to become "as legendary as the Flying Scotsman and Mallard", can reach a top speed of 100mph and will enter traffic on the nation's main line network on April 18.
 
Hi

No Semis in our day's.(1952 to 1960) I suspect alterations were made to
the Tunnel system to cover the future of Electrification so somewhere in the
early 1960's i guess 1962 onwards Semis were allowed
into New Street. I remember in my Kynoch day's around
this period all soughts went through.
A lot of semies were transfered to more mundane duties
with the use of diesels on the west coast.

Mike Jenks
 
mike jenks said:
Hi

No Semis in our day's.(1952 to 1960) I suspect alterations were made to
the Tunnel system to cover the future of Electrification so somewhere in the
early 1960's i guess 1962 onwards Semis were allowed
into New Street. I remember in my Kynoch day's around
this period all soughts went through.
A lot of semies were transfered to more mundane duties
with the use of diesels on the west coast.

Mike Jenks
Click to expand...

Hi Mike,

I lived in Stechford from the early 1950s to 1965, and my bedroom
overlooked the junction where the Aston line split from the main line to New Street. In that time I don't ever remember seeing a semi going up the New Street line, but when work was being done on the Tamworth line,
typically on a Sunday, many trains headed by semis were diverted
through Stechford and up the right hand fork through Aston. Golden
times for a trainspotter!! Many years before, I understand, 'King George V1' had tried to enter the New Street tunnel resulting in the loss of its chimney. Happy and never to be forgotten days!

Kind regards

Dave
 
Great pictures.
I can remember New Street Station in the 60s and am wondering if my memory of a few years earlier is playing me false-was I in New Street in the mid 50s.?
As a very young child my grandmother used to take me into town on the bus.
Grandma would shop in Marshall and Snelgrove and as a reward I'd be taken to see the trains.
Did we really cross over the road from Marshall & S and look over a rickety wooden fence to watch the steam trains followed by a short walk to a cafe for a milk shake and en route looking into a building where we could see newspaper presses working-all this on New Street?
 
New Street Station was where I went every work day starting in 1957. I had a local free rail pass and came to work from Gravelly Hill on the diesel train and went home on it too. I left that job one year later but I still have great memories of New Street Stn. I can remember the names of everyone with whom I worked. The Queen's Hotel was still there then and the whole atmosphere was so different to what it is today.
 
Hi Dav89

Yes, on a Sunday, the main line trains that would normally go through New Street were diverted up the Aston line. The line passed the Capitol Cinema on Alum Rock Road and I used to spend Sunday mornings looking through the railings at the side of the cinema, waiting for the next Big Name Loco to pass. As I lived very close and had worked out the times, I could scoot down there for each train without having to hang around in the cold too long. On occasional Sundays the diversion did not take place which cast an air of gloom over the whole day!

Normally the line just carried local and goods trains, nothing special, but on Sundays it got the creme de la creme with celebrated locomotives in abundance. I think I saw Coronation Scot one day and regularly the "royals".

I had a school friend who lived in West View which actually lies in the fork of where the two lines separate. From his bedroom at the back he could see the main New Street line and from the front of the house he could see the Aston spur line. Real Heaven to a young lad in the 1950s
 
Thanks for the photos of New St. in the 60's - thats the station I remember from going on holiday in the 50's - so exciting watching the old steam trains coming in. Had such character.
Sheri
 
dav19390 said:
Hi Dav89


I had a school friend who lived in West View which actually lies in the fork of where the two lines separate. From his bedroom at the back he could see the main New Street line and from the front of the house he could see the Aston spur line. Real Heaven to a young lad in the 1950s
Click to expand...

Hi Dave,

I lived in Frederick Road between the signal box and Albert Road bridge.
Because Frederick Road was quite a bit higher than the railway, I had a
panoramic view over the junction from my back bedroom. Most of my trainspotting at Stechford was done through my bedroom window!

Kind regards

Dave
 
Hi

No wonder I never saw you on the bridge at Stechford.
Locked up in your mates house. I think the diversion began
between 8 and 9am. The roar when the Aston signal went up
was deafening. From our house you could just make out the
trains moving towards Lea Hall. Tried with 10x50's Bicnocs
but coudnt read the number or name plate. It must have been
aropund 3 miles away.
You were lucky seeing them in the mid 60's at New Street.
It was Jub's Scot's and Patriots till the Tunnel was changed
prior to Electrification.

Mike Jenks
 
hi

Yes ragga a 0-6-0 LMS at the Far side of the Midland
Railway Side. The Bull Ring Buildings around Smallbrook street
are visable at the Top. I guess we are somewhere around platform
10. Great picture
A similiar position today

Mike Jenks
 
Nice photo of New Street as I remember it, ragga.
Ex-LMS 4-4-0 'compound' 40928 (new as Midland Railway 928, resplendent in brilliant Maroon livery) in its grubby last days in the late 1950s. Queens Drive bridge is seen behind the loco tender and signals, with the backs of Worcester Street shops above. (The right hand one was very thin and another pic of it has appeared here a few weeks ago.)
 
hi ragga
great photo brings back memories of being there with my old dad, I can almost smell the soot and steam.
regards
paul stacey
 
Although I loved Snow Hill Station most of all, I did like New St too - my dad often took me there on a weekend to see the trains, I was quite young - about 4 or so - sometimes he'd get onto a train with me and we'd just sit in a carriage for a minute or so - but my best memory is when the driver or fireman on an engine once lifted me up into the cab and let me pull the whistle chain - the heat and the wonderful smell in the cab of oil and steam have stayed with me all these years - whenever I see a steam engine now, the unique smells just transport me back to those long gone days when major railway stations were truly interesting places, full of atmosphere - not like the claustrophobic, concrete, multistory car park basements most of them have become. All the photos you have all posted in this thread are just great - thankyou one and all for sharing them !!
 
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