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Update: Train fire closes major UK station

by Paul Conneally | August 7, 2008 at 10:27 am

841 views | 29 Recommendations | 10 comments

Things are now back to normal but the amount of police, ambulance and fire crews that attended showed the seriousness of the state of alert that the UK and in particular Birmingham are on.

My on the spot witness rang in to say that the incident was treated as a full blown emergency with many fire crew in attendance. This is the second time recently that the station has been fully evacuated - on the previous occaision the whole City centre was evacuated. Birmingham is rumored to be on a hit list of UK cities for attack by Islamic groups.

No -one is injured and trains are now running normally again.

Birmingham New Street one of the UK's largest train stations being at the heart of England's 2nd City has been evacuated - this was less than an hour ago and hundreds of commuters have been sent off the concourse and away from the station. The station has been on terrorist alert for some time being previously closed due to what was called a 'real threat' by Police chiefs. Smoke has reportedly been seen coming from a train.

Train fire closes major station

A major railway station has been evacuated after reports of a fire in a train.

Smoke was seen coming from a train at about 1840 BST at Birmingham New Street station, a spokesman for British Transport Police said.

Hundreds of commuters were told to leave trains and the station concourse and were guided to the car park while shops were also closed.

Firefighters have been called to the scene.

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Vinny

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 11:34 on August 7th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

cassy82

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 11:52 on August 7th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Amy Judd

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 14:07 on August 7th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

We'll look out for updates here too.

Vinny

at 14:21 on August 7th, 2008

A spokesman for Network Rail said there was no visual evidence of fire on the Arriva Cross Country train but passengers were evacuated as a precaution. All platforms were reopened but passengers travelling through Birmingham New Street were warned to expect delays and cancellations.

Christina 123

at 16:35 on August 7th, 2008

May I refer you to my story a week ago re Intelligence Alerts? Might explain why the whole area was evacuated (and Birmingham New Street Station area is huge, with the Palisides shopping Centre and offices withint he station complex and nearby the Bull Ring (famous Shopping Mall, opposite):

[q url="http://www.nowpublic.com/world/mi5-secret-services-track-imminent-ira-terrorist-threat"]