Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
I had the good fortune to recieve a tour behind the hoardings yesterday. No photos taken but, believe me, you will all be more than impressed with what you see come late April. It will completley transform peoples' perception of New St Station and possibly Birmingham as a whole.
The reason the vending machines can not allow NSE discounts until 1000 is that the discount is driven by RJIS and it is set to kick in at 1000. The suppliers of the vending machines will be letting TOCs take control of this setting later in the year so that NSE discounts would become available...