{"id":13947,"date":"2014-01-27T12:23:45","date_gmt":"2014-01-27T12:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=13947"},"modified":"2014-01-27T13:00:40","modified_gmt":"2014-01-27T13:00:40","slug":"birmingham-new-street-named-as-britains-worst-railway-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/birmingham-new-street-named-as-britains-worst-railway-station\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham New Street named as Britain’s worst railway station"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Birmingham<\/p>\n

In news that is unlikely to surprise anyone who has had to stumble through its dirty, dark passageways, \u00a0Birmingham New Street has been named Britain\u2019s worst railway station.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Birmingham<\/p>\n

A recent survey conduced by the independent Passenger Watchdog\u00a0Passenger Focus<\/a>\u00a0saw the Stygian station receiving the\u00a0\u00a0lowest satisfaction rating among passengers.<\/p>\n

The study\u00a0rated stations on \u00a0criteria such as\u00a0standards of cleanliness, security, helpfulness of staff,\u00a0<\/span>platform information and car parking – and not surprisingly, the Brummie hellhole came bottom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Birmingham<\/p>\n

Sadly, Birmingham’s\u00a01960s concrete monstrosity replaced a truly grand 1854 station whose immense glass-covered roof drew comparisons with New York’s Grand Central (see 1885 New Street <\/a>view below).<\/p>\n

\"Birmingham<\/p>\n

Most of the modern New Street station is underground with an oppressively low, soot-covered concrete roof adding to the claustrophobic effect.<\/span><\/p>\n

Noxious diesel fumes waft through this unventilated area, with the sound of idling locomotives adding to the general cacophony.<\/p>\n

And things have got even worse recently, with a new renovation being described as ‘a cross between\u00a0The Krypton Factor and Logans Run’<\/p>\n

Birmingham New St is also quite famous for its rapidly changing platform allocations, resulting in repeated mass exoduses as passengers scramble up and down escalators.<\/p>\n

\"Birmingham<\/p>\n

View of New Street station from the Rotunda in the Bullring<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also languishing behind<\/span>\u00a0Birmingham in the list of crap stations was (in descending order) <\/span>Maidenhead, followed by London Bridge, Romford, East Croydon,\u00a0Gatwick Airport, Preston, Birmingham \u00adInternational, Wimbledon, and Grantham, Lincs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Birmingham<\/p>\n

The study also listed the nation’s best station, with the top slot going to London St Pancras<\/a>, followed by the wonderful Birmingham Moor Street<\/a> (photo below) and Heathrow Terminal 5.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Birmingham Moor Street<\/a>, May 2012.<\/p>\n

Discuss Birmingham New Street station on our boards<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In news that is unlikely to surprise anyone who has had to stumble through its dirty, dark passageways, \u00a0Birmingham New Street has been named Britain\u2019s worst railway station.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[194,17,193,90],"tags":[185,767,612,1200,231,766],"class_list":["post-13947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london-features","category-photos","category-places","category-railways","tag-birmingham","tag-birmingham-new-street","tag-railway-station","tag-railways","tag-trains","tag-worst-station"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/birmingham-new-street-04.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-3CX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13947"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13962,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13947\/revisions\/13962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}