Birmingham Gateway - Navigation street footbridge
The Gateway Project is the redevelopment of New Street Station in the centre of Birmingham to create a gateway building to serve Birmingham and the West Midlands.
The strategic operational objectives are to improve passenger capacity, enhancements to the public and retail areas in the station and to upgrade the 1960s station to create an iconic building for the 21st century.
To extend the bridge, VolkerFitzpatrick's engineers used a huge 700 tonne crane, erected on Hill Street, to safely remove the existing narrow bridge span which served platforms 10/11. The crane then lifted the new span of the bridge into place. This new section extends to Hill Street and provides a new entrance to the station. In addition the footbridge connects to both platforms 1 and 12, which were not accessible from the previous footbridge.
Train services operated as normal from Birmingham New Street up until the last train departure on Christmas Eve. The lifting operation then started at midnight and was complete by Boxing Day evening. The extended bridge will eventually allow access to all 12 platforms and create a new station entrance on Hill Street which will open at the end of 2012.
