Network Rail completes £1m upgrade to Midland station

A £1m upgrade to a Warwickshire railway station has been completed. Network Rail, together with contractor J Murphy & Sons, carried out the work on the Berkswell stop.

The project, which started in November, involved the demolition of the old station master’s house at the end of the Birmingham platform together with the single storey wooden ticket office.

The buildings have been replaced with a modern purpose-built bespoke steel frame clad building designed along Network Rail’s modular station principles.

The new ticket office, which will serve around 200,000 passengers a year, incorporates a separate low height counter for the use of disabled passengers.

Once passengers have bought their tickets, they can move down the platform and wait for their trains in a new, enclosed and heated waiting room.

The old passenger ramp has been removed and access has been reconfigured to make it easier to get onto the station. There are new handrails and fencing round the entrance, while there is also new cycle storage.

Jo Kaye, Network Rail route director, said: “This is an important station on a key commuter route (between Birmingham and Coventry) and the new facilities reflect this. Passengers now have a 21st century ticket office instead of what was essentially a wooden building with a distinctly 1960s feel.”

Alex Hynes, London Midland commercial director, said: “Network Rail and Murphy are to be congratulated for providing our passengers and staff with a fantastic new facility.”

Network Rail decided to carry out the work because the old buildings were in a dilapidated condition.

The station master’s house, which dated from 1865, had been empty for many years and it was not financially viable to repair it.

Similarly, the ticket office – thought to have been built in 1912 – was in a very poor condition, particularly so far as staff facilities were concerned, and did not meet current standards.