Portsmouth

Birmingham New Street (Main)

Birmingham New Street station is a British railway station located in the heart of Birmingham, England. Birmingham New Street Station is Birmingham's main railway station and an important hub station in the UK's rail network. Among the British railway companies, the British Longitudinal Railway, the London Midland, the Virgin Railway, and the Arriva Welsh Railway have trains with Birmingham as the starting or terminating station.

Birmingham New Street is the largest and busiest of the three main train stations in Birmingham, England. It is the central hub of the British railway system. It is the main destination for the Virgin train service in London Euston, Glasgow Centre and Edinburgh Waverley via the West Coast Route. The station has the widest range of trains in the UK, with long-distance train services from Aberdeen to Penzance destinations. It is also a major hub for local and suburban services in West Midlands.

The station is named after a new street, the new street is parallel to the station, and the station has entrances to Stephenson Street, Smallbrook Queensway, Hill Street and Navigation Street. About 80% of the train services to Birmingham pass through New Street. Since 2016, New Street is served by tram line and the adjacent Grand Central tram stop is located outside the main entrance of Stephenson Street. This station is the end of line 1.

Portsmouth ( ) is a port city in Hampshire, England, with a total population of 205,400 residents. The city of Portsmouth is nicknamed Pompey and is mainly built on Portsea Island, a flat, low-lying island measuring 24 square kilometres (9 sq mi) in area, just off the south-east coast of Hampshire. Portsmouth is the only island city in the United Kingdom, and is the only city whose population density exceeds that of London.Portsmouth is located 70 miles (110 km) south-west of London and 19 miles (31 km) south-east of Southampton. With the surrounding towns of Gosport, Fareham, Havant and Waterlooville, Portsmouth forms the eastern half of the South Hampshire metropolitan area, which includes Southampton and Eastleigh in the western half. Portsmouth's history can be traced back to Roman times. A significant naval port for centuries, Portsmouth has the world's oldest dry dock. In the sixteenth century, Portsmouth was England's first line of defence during the French invasion of 1545. By the early nineteenth century, the world's first mass production line was set up in Portsmouth Dockyard's Block Mills, making it the most industrialised site in the world and birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Portsmouth was also the most heavily fortified town in the world, and was considered "the world's greatest naval port" at the height of the British Empire throughout Pax Britannica. Defences known as the Palmerston Forts were built around Portsmouth in 1859 in anticipation of another invasion from continental Europe. In 1926, Portsmouth was officially elevated in status from a town to a city. The motto "Heaven's Light Our Guide", a reference to the city's eight-pointed star and crescent moon emblem, was registered to the City of Portsmouth in 1929. During the Second World War, the city of Portsmouth was bombed extensively in the Portsmouth Blitz, which resulted in the deaths of 930 people. In 1944, Portsmouth was the pivotal embarkation point for the D-Day landings of 6 June 1944. In 1982, a large proportion of the task force dispatched to liberate the Falkland Islands deployed from the city's naval base. Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia left the city to oversee the transfer of Hong Kong in 1997, which marked for many the end of the empire. In 1997, Portsmouth became a Unitary Authority, with Portsmouth City Council gaining powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined, responsibilities previously held by Hampshire County Council. Portsmouth is one of the world's best known ports. HMNB Portsmouth is considered to be the home of the Royal Navy and is home to two-thirds of the UK's surface fleet. The city is home to some famous ships, including HMS Warrior, the Tudor carrack Mary Rose and Horatio Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory (the world's oldest naval ship still in commission). The former HMS Vernon naval shore establishment has been redeveloped as a retail park known as Gunwharf Quays. Portsmouth is among the few British cities with two cathedrals: the Anglican Cathedral of St Thomas and the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St John the Evangelist. The waterfront and Portsmouth Harbour are dominated by the Spinnaker Tower, one of the United Kingdom's tallest structures at 560 feet (170 m). Nearby Southsea is a seaside resort with an amusement park on Clarence Pier and a medieval castle.Portsmouth F.C., the city's professional football club, play their home games at Fratton Park in the Milton area of the city, near Fratton railway station. Portsmouth has several mainline railway stations that connect to Brighton, Cardiff, London Victoria and London Waterloo amongst other lines in southern England. Portsmouth International Port is a commercial cruise ship and ferry port for international destinations. The port is the second busiest in the United Kingdom after Dover, handling around three million passengers a year. The city formerly had its own airport, Portsmouth Airport, until its closure in 1973. The University of Portsmouth enrols 23,000 students and is ranked among the world's best modern universities. Portsmouth is also the birthplace of author Charles Dickens, engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel and former Prime Minister James Callaghan.

Birmingham ( BUR-ming-əm, locally also BUR-min-əm) is a major city in the West Midlands, England and is the second-largest city and metropolitan area in England and the United Kingdom, with roughly 1.1 million inhabitants within the city area and 3.8 million inhabitants within the metropolitan area. This also makes Birmingham the 17th largest city and 8th largest metropolitan area in the European Union. Birmingham is commonly referred to as the nation's "second city".Located in the West Midlands county and region in England, approximately 100 miles from central London, Birmingham, as one of the United Kingdom's major cities, is considered to be the social, cultural, financial, and commercial centre of both the East and West Midlands. Distinctively, Birmingham does not have a natural river flowing through any part of the city – one of the closest rivers is the Severn, approximately 20 miles west of the city centre. Birmingham's urban area is the third-largest in the United Kingdom, with its most recently estimated population in 2017 being 2,897,303, and it also lies within the most populated English district. A market town in the medieval period, Birmingham grew in the 18th-century Midlands Enlightenment and subsequent Industrial Revolution, which saw advances in science, technology, and economic development, producing a series of innovations that laid many of the foundations of modern industrial society. By 1791 it was being hailed as "the first manufacturing town in the world". Birmingham's distinctive economic profile, with thousands of small workshops practising a wide variety of specialised and highly skilled trades, encouraged exceptional levels of creativity and innovation and provided an economic base for prosperity that was to last into the final quarter of the 20th century. The Watt steam engine was invented in Birmingham.The resulting high level of social mobility also fostered a culture of political radicalism which, under leaders from Thomas Attwood to Joseph Chamberlain, was to give it a political influence unparalleled in Britain outside London, and a pivotal role in the development of British democracy. From the summer of 1940 to the spring of 1943, Birmingham was bombed heavily by the German Luftwaffe in what is known as the Birmingham Blitz. The damage done to the city's infrastructure, in addition to a deliberate policy of demolition and new building by planners, led to extensive urban regeneration in subsequent decades. Birmingham's economy is now dominated by the service sector. The city is a major international commercial centre, ranked as a beta- world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network the joint highest ranking with Edinburgh and Manchester of all British cities outside of London; and an important transport, retail, events and conference hub. Its metropolitan economy is the second largest in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $121.1bn (2014), and its six universities make it the largest centre of higher education in the country outside London. Birmingham's major cultural institutions – the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, the Library of Birmingham and the Barber Institute of Fine Arts – enjoy international reputations, and the city has vibrant and influential grassroots art, music, literary and culinary scenes. The city will host the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Birmingham is the fourth-most visited city in the UK by foreign visitors.People from Birmingham are called Brummies, a term derived from the city's nickname of "Brum", which originates from the city's old name, Brummagem, which in turn is thought to have derived from "Bromwich-ham". The Brummie accent and dialect are particularly distinctive.