Birmingham New Street

Birmingham New Street is on the West Midlands loop of the West Coast Main Line, and is a major hub of Britain's railway system. Routes from/to much of Great Britain serve New Street, via lines from/to London, the North-East, the North West, Scotland, all regions of Wales, the South West, the South Coast and the East of England. Many local services throughout the West Midlands conurbation including the through Cross-City line from Lichfield and Redditch and the Walsall - Wolverhampton via the city  line also use New Street.

The roof over the original station was bombed in the WW2 'Blitz' and had to be removed between 1948 and 1952. In 1964 the new panel signal box building was completed, in readiness the 'new' signalling's staged commissioning in 1966. This prominent four storey strange-looking concrete structure in Navigation Street is now Grade II listed! Transformation of the old station into the new one then commenced and took until 1967, just as the West Coast Main Line was being electrified. BR also sold the space above the new station for the Pallasades Shopping Centre, offices and a large multi-storey car park in the late 1960s, which officially made the majority of the station into 'underground' status. Since then various minor cosmetic changes and a second western entry and footbridge (serving most but still not all platforms) have been made, but the station fabric still mainly reflects its rather awful 1960s concrete harshness.

Currently New Street station handles about 1.71M per passengers per annum, this being approx 80% of passengers travelling to, from or through Birmingham. The 'Gateway' scheme promises to transform the concourse and platforms, but what can actually done with such a densely trafficed and space-constrained area remains to be seen, although the plans do look quite promising.

Although the station has a reputation for being daunting to irregular passengers due to its concrete & dark nature plus the almost inevitable need to change platforms there, it has long held a great attraction to the railway enthusiast fraternity, thanks to the huge amount of rail traffic handled.

It now has 12 through platforms (each sub-divided into A and B sections), one bay platform, two dock platforms, three through sidings and two engine sidings. The signalling is a modified form of Track Circuit Block, as due to space constraints there are no over-laps; this however is compensated for by the low line-speed of 10mph on all immediate approaches and in all platforms.

Bi-directional working applies in all platforms and sidings, and elsewhere as signalled.

Permissive working applies in all platforms and sidings.

25kv AC overhead electrification is now provided on all routes except the Derby & Camp Hill lines. (The Gloucester lines were only electrified in the early 1990s as part of the "Cross-City" line modernisation.)

The signalling area depicted (although a small portion of New Street PSB's total route mileage) is of course the busiest section, as it contains the station itself and the complex series of junctions just outside it. There are fringes with Saltley PSB on the Gloucester line, and with West Midlands Signalling Centre on the Camp Hill and the Derby lines; all other lines run to/from other New Street PSB controlled areas. Proof House and Grand Jn reflect the layout now left after another major remodelling in 2000, which took both Stour line tracks under the Vauxhall lines viaduct. The station itself reflects the post-2004 layout when former Engine Siding No.1 at the 'B' end of platforms 4 & 5 was extended and converted into the new remote bay passenger platform 4C by substantially shortening platform 5B.

Signalling notes: 

When routing trains into New Street station, route them all the way to the main aspect signal that you wish them to stop at in one route-setting (ignore all other signals in between as these will operate automatically.) Permissive movements (e.g. attaching locos/units or platform-sharing units) should be routed to the next main aspect signal beyond the rear of the train that they are going in behind, even if that signal is already 'straddled' by train(s) already present in the platform.

When routing trains from signals 132 or 136 to the Up Derby line, ignore the 'BR' indicator (which is a banner repeater only) shown just before the bridge under the U&D Camp Hill line. Route through to West Mids Signalling Centre's (W)M4912 signal in the bottom left hand corner. 

If a train from the Down Derby or the U&D Camp Hill requires to use platforms 1 to 6 or Middle Siding 1 at New St then please be aware that it must be crossed-over to 143 on the Down Stour line at Grand Jn. Other down trains may need to similarly cross-over at Grand Jn to avoid conflict at the east end with departing trains to the Up Derby.

Platform & Siding lengths

Vehicles numbers (including locos where applicable) that can now be accommodated in the full lengths of through platforms:
1	16
2	14
3	15
4	16
5	12
6	14
7	14
8	15
9	15
10	14
11	14
12	10

Vehicle numbers that can be accommodated 'in-clear' within platform sections:
(E & W refer to the extremities of those platforms with two departure end signals)
		1A	7	1B	7
		2A	6	2B	7
3E	1	3A	4	3B	7
4E	2	4A	5	4B	7
				4C	4
5E	1	5A	4	5B	2
		6A	6	6B	4	6W	1
7E	1	7A	4	7B	6
8E	1	8A	3	8B	4	8W	1
9E	2	9A	3	9B	3	9W	1
10E	1	10A	3	10B	5
11E	1	11A	5	11B	7
		12A	4	12B	5

Sidings			E	W	Whole
Middle Sdg 1	4	1	8
Middle Sdg 2	-	-	10
Middle Sdg 3	1	7	12
Both Eng Sdgs			1

Docks
East	4
West	4	

Design compromise

Due to the complexity of the controlled area, when running with train failures enabled, 'request fitters' will be the only available response to choose, although certain trains may then be able to be hauled away by a spare loco.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks are due for the ever diligent work of the PC-Rail test team and PC-Rail programming 'wizard' John Dennis.