Birmingham New Street's grand opening

Two trees planted in front of one of Birmingham New Street station's entrances have been removed just two days after the station reopened.

On Sunday the trees were in place partially obscuring one of the innovative Media Eye displays at the entrance underneath the new John Lewis store.

But this morning the trees were nowhere to be seen.

This afternoon Birmingham City Council tweeted ITV News Central reporter Chris Halpin, saying they'd been in touch with Network Rail, who are 'responsible for the trees', and assured him they had been planted elsewhere.

A fashion graduate of Birmingham City University says the new development of New Street station and Grand Central will be a great opportunity for other graduates to work in the city they graduated from.

Jeanette Wong now works for a local business which is opening up its first shop in Grand Central this week.

She says the development bringing more businesses to the city will help keep graduates in Birmingham, rather than continuing their careers in London or abroad.

With the new Birmingham New Street having such up-to-date technology, it is quite a contrast to look back into the archives to see how it was before.

When the previous station opened in the 1960s, ATV produced a documentary looking at the developments, highlighting the modern qualities to ticket offices such as being fully automated, printing tickets to any destination while passengers waited.

Below are the ticket machines that came into use in April 2013, when the new concourse of Phase One of the latest development opened to the public. Rather different to those in use in 1967...

As part of ITV News Central's coverage of the opening of Birmingham New Street station, we're at the top of the rotunda getting some aerial views.

Here's a striking view of trains entering the station - from a rather unusual angle.

As Birmingham New Street has opened after a second major rebuild, we looked back into the archives and found out what people thought of the railways back in the first half of the 20th Century.

In a documentary made by ATV in 1967, passengers who would have used the original Victorian New Street station demanded better services, improved trains and modernisation.

What they got was the demolition of that station, and the building of the New Street, which lasted until five years ago. That got plenty of criticism itself in those years.

Thousands of commuters have embarked on their first journey from the newly redeveloped Birmingham New Street Station. The £750 million revamp has taken five years to build.

The station has drawn praise from passengers who used the platforms and concourse for the first time in this morning's rush hour.

Sameena Ali-Khan sent this report from New Street.