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Visit to New Street

On Monday I spent a bit longer at the station than I normally do. That was because I was looking at the development work. It is interesting seeing the redevelopment of the station progressing. This was a project I supported from its initiation.

The first stage of the development is to build a new concourse on the West side of the station. This is the Navigation Street and Hill Street side. A new "kiss and ride" route will be built which comes up from Hill Street and goes down into Navigation Street. Once the work on the West side is completed they can shut down the old concourse and redevelop that side as well.

The plan is to open the West side in Autumn 2012 and then the full station in 2015. The platforms are also being refurbished. Platform 1 is being worked on at the moment and hence is out of use temporarily. A train is being used to provide the materials for this. Once this has been done work will transfer to Platform 12. The real challenge is to redevelop the station whilst continuing to use it.

Around 7,000 tonnes of concrete is being removed from the old car park which will form the Western concourse.

Some challenges involve the demolition of Stevenson tower without disrupting the telephone exchange. Rather than blowing it up a crane will be used to take it down floor by floor. Over Xmas 2010 a new bridge will be installed by crane at the high end platform numbers. This will allow an entrance from the Hill Street side as well as Navigation Street.

I will hopefully upload some photos when I have some bandwidth. I am on the train at the moment.

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