Birmingham New Street closed? (24/4/10)

[whole diary]

[Phil]

Just picked up something on Twitter about Birmingham New Street being closed. More toast being burned, or is it something serious?

[readytostart]

Just picked up something on Twitter about Birmingham New Street being closed. More toast being burned, or is it something serious?

I think it was a contractor drilling through a power cable, I'll paraphrase my BlackBerry report on it:
Local power failure, no lifts or escalators, ticket office unable to issue any tickets, TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) out, CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) screens not working, limited PA^▸ (Public Address) announcements.
The station was later evacuated, presumably the emergency lighting had also failed at that point.

[brompton rail]

According to NRE^‡(resolve) there are delays of upto 20 mins on trains via BHM. Expected to be cleared by 13:30 (i.e. in 10 mins time). Presumably they have got the candles lit again - whoops no smoke as BHM is an "underground" station.

[readytostart]

Still on going as far as I'm aware, XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) are using the Virgin roll-over Voyager as a mess room for breaks.

[inspector_blakey]

Covered in a brief news article on the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) website.

[Chris from Nailsea]

More details, from the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Network Rail is upgrading platform one, which is the first piece of work to start in the main part of the station.
Part of the station is still without power after water got into the electrics on Friday.
A Network Rail spokesman said trains, information boards and ticket machines were operating again but shops on the concourse were closed.
Three large generators have been installed to power information boards and machines after Friday evening's incident left the station without power.
Lifts are working once more although escalators are not, to conserve power, the spokesman said.
He added that the power shortage was not caused by the redevelopment but by contractors working in a toilet block.

[Worcester_Passenger]

Travelled through New Street yesterday morning (Mon Apr 27) at 08:45-09:00.

The WHSmiths, Upper Crust, Pasty Shop etc on the bridge were all closed and firmly roller-shuttered.

All of the passenger information screens failed at one point, but were restored after about 5 minutes. I'll post a photo later on today. I'd expected that the PA^▸ (Public Address) would go into some sort of emergency mode, with plenty of announcements to compensate for the dark screens - but that didn't happen.

[Chris from Nailsea]

This topic was originally in our 'frequent posters' area, but as the problems at Birmingham New Street seem to be persisting, I've moved it to our public area.

Chris. 

[Phil]

Thanks, Chris. I had wondered. Never expected it to drag on quite this long to be honest!

[Worcester_Passenger]

Blank screens on Monday...