St. Martin’s Queensway Tunnel
In looking on the Internet to see if anybody had ever proposed adding low-level platforms at Birmingham Moor Street station to access the local services out of Birmingham New Street station, I found this article in the Birmingham Post entitled Tunnel link between New Street and Moor Street stations set for facelift.
Now I’ve been to Birmingham many times and often I’ve walked between the two stations and I’ve never seen or heard anything about this tunnel.
Does it actually exist?
The article says this.
A city centre tunnel is set to get a £5.5 million facelift to improve the route between two of Birmingham’s busiest railway stations.
The St Martin’s Queensway Tunnel, which runs under the Bullring shopping centre, will be transformed into a well-lit attractive route for rail commuters.
Road crossings and the public areas outside the revamped New Street Station will also be improved to encourage people to walk between there and Moor Street station.
Currently about 1.4 million people a year walk through the dingy tunnel between the stations, but some have complained of feeling unsafe and it is also poorly signed for visitors to the city.
Some councils may spend £5.5million on imaginary projects, but I don’t think Birmingham would.
The Future Of The Midland Metro
The Test Match being in Birmingham this week, got me thinking about the new extension to the Midland Metro, I saw this week.
Unlike the tram systems in Blackpool, Croydon, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield, the Midland Metro hasn’t really caught the public’s imagination and been a rip roaring success.
When I visit other places with trams, I often use them, even if like in Nottingham, it’s just to get up the hill. But I’ve never used the Midland Metro, unless my trip has been taken to ride on the tram. A section in Wikipedia entitled Line One (Birmingham City Centre) Extension starts like this.
The fact that the existing line does not run into Birmingham City Centre has been identified as one of the reasons why it has failed to attract the predicted patronage. The Birmingham City Centre Extension (BCCE) will extend Line 1 into the streets of central Birmingham. Originally it was planned to terminate the extension at Stephenson Street, adjacent to New Street railway station. In September 2013, Centro started consultation on proposals to extend the city-centre extension from New Street station to Centenary Square. This would be another stage towards extending the line to Five Ways the original planned destination. The plan was approved by Birmingham City Council in October 2013, allowing the line to add an additional stop at Birmingham Town Hall.
I have watched this project unfold from a distance and it doesn’t seem to have had the strongest leadership or most intelligent design, when and since it was first opened in 1999.
As my pictures earlier this week showed construction is well underway and hopefully the line will arrive at New Street station this year. Perhaps this line across the city centre will give the Midland Metro an uplift.
On a selfish note, when I go to Birmingham, the places I want to get to are the football grounds and Brindley Place for lunch with friends.
Aston Villa and Wolverhampton have good train access and Birmingham is through the terrible station at Bordesley, but A stop at Brindley Place is on the next part of the Line 1 extension, which won’t be built until 2017 at the earliest. I don’t think it has even been started and possibly even fully planned, judging by the several alternatives talked about in Wikipedia. At present the line is going to Five Ways station, which is shown on this Google Map of the city centre.
Midland Metro In Birmingham City Centre
I’ve included Birmingham Moor Street station on this map, but it won’t be connected to this phase of Midland Metro extension. However, Birmingham Snow Hill station will be, but that is not on the main lines from Euston, Liverpool and Manchester.
Will the line finish at Five Ways or will it continue past Edgbaston Cricket Ground, Birmingham University and the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital?
This second map shows the area between Five Ways and University station, with the cricket ground marked by a red arrow
Midland Metro Line 1 Extension And Edgbaston
Note the university, the hospital, the Alexandra Stadium and University station clustered together in the bottom left corner of this map.
It is worth noting that Five Ways and University stations are both on the Cross-City Line that goes from Redditch to Lichfield via New Street. It is the busiest commuter line outside London and has upwards of six services an hour in both directions. The frequency of the Midland Metro is one tram every eight minutes, so the Cross-City Line is only a little bit less frequent.
The Cross-City Line is currently being extended to Bromgrove and there are unfulfilled plans to reopen the Camp Hill Line, that my train from Oxford to Birmingham used.
There seem to be a lot of competing proposals for money to be spent in the West Midlands, so perhaps if a West Midlands Combined Authority was setup properly, then it could decide what happens.
Perhaps, then Birmingham would get the local transport system it needs and deserves. After all, I think it was very much short-changed in the 1960s with the creation of the unloved New Street station. Let’s hope the new station opening in September, solves at least some of those fifty year old problems.
One of the biggest problems is that Birmingham effectively has two independent sets of local rail lines, with no common interchange.
The Snow Hill Lines though Snow Hill and Moor Street were built by the Great Western Railway and are operated by diesel trains. They carry about twenty percent of the rail services into the city. According to this Future section in the Wikipedia entry for Moor Street station, there are plans for more local services out of Moor Street
There are also an extensive mainly electrified network centred on New Street, which includes the Cross-City and Chase Lines and some services on the West Coast Main Line.
The trouble is there is no obvious connections between the two sets of lines, as is described here in Wikipedia. This Google Map shows the two stations and the shopping centres in between.
Birmingham New Street And Moor Street Stations
It would seem to my untrained mind, that there must be possibilities for putting a low level station under Moor Street with platforms on the local lines through New Street. I can’t find any proposals or ideas on the Internet, but then I don’t probably know where to look.
One proposal that might help is the opening of the Camp Hill Line into Moor Street, as this would link up to the Cross-City Line at Kings Norton.
Birmingham seems to be a mass of railway lines, which an intelligent planner could probably use to create transport links in the Greater West Midlands.
In the meantime, the arrival of the Midland Metro to New Street station, the Cross-City Line reaching Bromsgrove and the electrification of the Chase Line to Rugeley, will bring more people into the city centre and hopefuly make interchange easier.
It does appear, that the electric services on the Cross-City Line and Chase Line may need more trains, but at least there will be plenty of Class 315 trains available for cascade from London.
Serial Cooking – Roast Sausage And Lentils With Wild Rocket And Cherry Tomatoes
This recipe is another from Lindsey Bareham in The Times.
The main ingredients, are 24 M & S gluten-free cocktail sausages, a 250g sachet of cooked lentils, 125g of sliced chorizo and 400g of cherry tomatoes.
It is exceedingly simple and is shown in these pictures.
It may be quick, but it’s gorgeous.
Will Another Of Beeching’s Closures Be Reversed?
Lord Beeching wrote his infamous reports about Britain’s railways in the 1960s and died in 1985.
He gets a lot of blame for today’s rail problems, from various interest groups, but to be fair, the problems were severe at the time and some managers cut a lot harder than he recommended.
I think that for example in Scotland and other places, rail lines were closed in such a way they could be reopened, whereas in others, the land was sold and to reopen the line would be impossible without spending billions.
In the last thirty years two things have happened; there are a lot more of us and we’ve discovered that trains are an increasingly useful method of transport.
So sometimes the reason why the Victorians built a line, is even more valid today. The soon to be reopened Borders Railway is probably more needed now, than it was when it was built, because leisure and tourism is so much more important.
The Borders Railway was a victim of the Beeching Cuts and will join a long list of lines and stations that have since reopened.
That list will continue to grow.
The latest possible reopening is detailed in this article on Global Rail News entitled Milestone for Portishead-Bristol line restoration. The article describes how the Portishead to Bristol Line could be incorporated into the Greater Bristol Metro or MetroWest.
If all goes well, it could open in 2019.
More Class 68 Locomotives On The Way
So far there have been twenty-five orders for the new Class 68 locomotive and as there is no adverse criticism of the new locomotive on the web or in the railway press, it has to be assumed that they are working fairly well.
So it was no surprise to see this article on Global Rail News, with a title of DRS orders further seven Class 68 locomotives.
Let’s hope when the related Class 88 locomotives from the same manufacturer generate such a small amount of negative publicity, when they are introduced in the next year or so.
Whitechapel Station – 29th July 2015
They have been busy at Whitechapel station over the long weekend.
There’s even a bridge going across the Overground tracks at a high level.
Custom House Station – 29th July 2015
More progress at Custom House station.
It does look that they’re starting to lay the railway on the London-bound track.
Midland Metro New Street Extension – 28th July 2015
I took these pictures as I walked the route of the Midland Metro extension between New Street and Snow Hill stations.
Unfortunately, the battery on my camera gave out, and I had to cut my walk short.
From Oxford To Birmingham
As there wasn’t much of interest to photograph in Oxford, I grabbed myself some gluten-free sandwiches and a drink in Marks and Spencer at the station and took a train to my next destination, Birmingham New Street.
I’ve never done that trip before on the Cross Country Route via Banbury and it was an easy journey of about an hour.
I missed photographing all of the work near Harbury, which is reported here on the BBC. It was a major landslip that closed the railway for some weeks.
As we approached Birmingham, the train seemed to take a circuitous route into Birmingham and at one point, the train passed behind Birmingham City’s football ground.
We were on the Camp Hill Line, which is being proposed for passenger services, according to Wikipedia.
At least such a project would probably be appreciated in Birmingham.
Not Much Going On At Oxford Station
Oxford station is being upgraded in two ways.
A New Southern Platform
According to this section on Further Expansion in Wikipedia, a new Southern platform is to be created on the Long Stay car park to the South of the station. This is said.
The new platform was to have been brought into use during 2011.
When I last looked this morning, we are now in 2015.
Project Evergreen 3
Chiltern Railways are implementing Project Evergreen 3 to bring services from Marylebone to Oxford. Wikipedia says that this is being done at Oxford station.
The scheme also includes two new platforms at Oxford station, to be built on the site of the disused parcels depot. The new platforms would initially be five carriages in length, but provision will be made for them to be extended southwards to eight carriages.
All this should be done by 2016. This article on Modern Railways gives more details about the proposed Chiltern service.
So when I arrived at Oxford station, I expected it to be a hive of activity. These are the pictures I took.
There isn’t even a man in an orange suit trying to look busy! Although the platforms were!
Perhaps this is how Oxford would like to welcome visitors? Hoping perhaps they might stay away!
I think one of the toughest jobs in the world must be a Project Manager in Network Rail. Passengers are rightly complaining that stations are cramped and need building or rebuilding and sometimes it’s impossible to get anything done for whatever reason. Then you have politicians on all sides complaining and saying it’s a total disgrace!
Hopefully Sir Peter Hendy and his new broom will go in to projects like Oxford station with all guns blazing and tell a few home truths.
I’m sure, if Oxford doesn’t want an updated station, then there are some nice projects in Birmingham, where the money would be appreciated.
The Anonymous Widower 