New Street : New Start

[JamieLei]

Nonetheless, this is only really a cosmetic change. The only actual practical improvement will be platform widening by removing some of the crap between the platforms, which is desperately needed.. - try waiting for a 6-car overcrowded Cross City service in the evening peak - it's not nice, especially as you're pushed against the tide of alighting passengers.

There will be some signalling improvements but I have no idea how effective they'll be. If more frequent services are desired, the only way I can think of is to create more capacity is to tunnel some suburban platforms underneath for the Cross City services...

The DfT has aspirations to provide more local services along lines such as the Nuneaton and Derby lines by reopening closed stations/ such as Castle Bromwich and and building new ones such as Fort Dunlop. How they will find the space for this is a big question... - otherwise they will just force existing long distance trains to stop at the local stations. This already happens with CrossCountry stopping at Coleshill Parkway.

[andel]

Fort Dunlop was one of the big mess up though as there is a big EWS yard there and no way for people to get out there... I doubt they'd tunnel under the existing platforms - there is nowhere for them to come out or go underground... I don't think they're going to remove too much gumph from between the platforms though as they do also need a loco runaround point for the pendo drags as/when they do have to do them....

[JamieLei]

The loco-drags are surprisingly frequent. In fact, two trains of the day in the December 08 timetable are scheduled to goto Euston via Nuneaton, although they'll probably be Voyagers. I don't think there needs to be a runaround for the locos since they reverse at New Street anyway. Nonetheless they're needed for the WSMR and Freight services to bypass the platforms.

[Dave]

The loco-drags are surprisingly frequent. In fact, two trains of the day in the December 08 timetable are scheduled to goto Euston via Nuneaton, although they'll probably be Voyagers. I don't think there needs to be a runaround for the locos since they reverse at New Street anyway. Nonetheless they're needed for the WSMR and Freight services to bypass the platforms.

These two could quite easily be avoided - freight rarely goes through New Street anyway, and WSMR is generally routed around New Street via the Stechford-Aston route.

I still don't think the middle roads will be removed anyway.