Is The West Midlands Going To See A Boom In Rail Station Building?
Yesterday, when I wrote West Midlands To Get A New Freight Interchange, I wondered, if the original Four Ashes station would be rebuilt.
On looking at the list of proposed stations on Wikipedia, I noticed the first was Brinsford Parkway station, which I’d never heard of before.
But it turned out it was just a couple of miles South of Four Ashes. Wikipedia says this about Brinsford Parkway station.
It would be located on the Rugby-Birmingham-Stafford Line loop of the West Coast Main Line, and would give the north of Wolverhampton local commuter trains easing congestion on the A449, M6 and M54 motorways. Penkridge is the only station that still remains open on the line between Wolverhampton and Stafford.
The proposed station would serve a new development on the MoD depot at Brinsford (whose builder would fund the station), other local communities and passengers drawn from the motorway network. It would provide Park and Ride facilities, with a large car park.
It sounds like Wulfrunians are thinking holistically!
It looks like a good idea to me, as it ticks a lot of boxes.
So, I then went through Wikipedia’s lists of current and proposed station projects, to see what other interesting ones were in the pipeline. I found these in the West Midlands.
- Aldridge on the Sutton Park Line, which has been proposed for reopening
- Castle Bromwich on the Birmingham to Peterborough Line
- Fort Parkway on the Birmingham to Peterborough Line
- Hazelwell on the Camp Hill Line, which has been proposed for reopening
- Kenilworth – Crawling into reality, quite a few years late
- Kings Heath on the Camp Hill Line
- Moseley on the Camp Hill Line
The West Midlands has certainly expanded its suburban services with electrification, new trains and the Midland Metro in the last couple of decades and it looks like they will be building more train and tram lines in the future.
Birmingham To Peterborough Line
In my view the most interesting proposal is the two new stations on the Birmingham to Peterborough Line. Except for Water Orton, this line is station free between Coleshill Parkway and Birmingham New Street.
If Fort Parkway and Castle Bromwich stations were to open, surely two trains per hour on this line will not be enough, so I do wonder if there are plans to add extra services to and from somewhere like Nuneaton with its connections up and down the West Coast Main Line and possibly extend them the other way to perhaps the new Bromsgrove station to the West of Birmingham.
It strikes me that there will be some reorganisation. I suspect though, that one of the problems is that it would appear that the line from Nuneaton to Birmingham is not electrified, although Nuneaton and Birmingham New Street stations are. There is also incomplete electrification between Birmingham New Street and Bromsgrove stations.
It looks to me like a cash of call in some Aventra IPEMUs. The only problem might be hauling a full load of passengers up the Lickey Incline on the on-board energy storage.
No comments yet.
Leave a Reply