On approach to Birmingham New Street

On my way to Brum, the train paused and I snapped this interesting scene through the window.

For an unprepossessing scene, there's quite a lot going on. Look at the walls for example. The main colour is track colour brown but there is green stuff hanging on. A surprising number of plants are sprouting from the mortar work too. The local hooligans have obviously been creeping down and defacing the brickwork and someone has painted over this with black paint to mask it.

Presumably there is a bit of PW work in the offing as those sleepers strewn around are nice and new. They didn't find their way down there by accident.

The ground is ballasted but weeds are sprouting everywhere. In older times weedkiller or the local PW gang would have taken care of these but we are in the post-privatisation era so that sort of thing no longer happens.

Finally, beside the signal post there is a telephone. How often do people model these ? It's only a stick with a box stuck to it painted grey. Just the thing for a spare five minutes at the workbench.