Birmingham New Street station officially reopens

Birmingham's New Street station has officially reopened after a £600m redevelopment.

The revamp includes a new concourse for passengers and an atrium allowing natural light into the interior for the first time since the city centre station was redeveloped in the 1960s.

New escalators and lifts have also been installed on platforms.

The station's facelift is part of the larger Grand Central shopping centre development.

Mark Carne, chief executive of Network Rail, said: "We took a really rather awful 1960s station, cut a big hole where the car park used to be, and put in an atrium the size of a football pitch to flood the concourse with natural light."

New Street facts

• 170,000 passengers a day use Birmingham New Street, nearly triple the 60,000 a day it was designed for when it was last rebuilt in the 1960s

• The new station can now handle 300,000 passengers per day

• New Street is the busiest station outside London, with a train leaving every 37 seconds

• 36 new escalators and 15 lifts, serving every platform, have been installed

• About 60% of rainwater "harvested" from the new-look building's facade will be used to flush the station's toilets

• About 1,000 workers were on site, 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the five-year revamp - increasing to 3,500 in its final months

Source: Network Rail