A Short Trip On Birmingham’s Cross-City Line
The Cross-City Line In Birmingham, which runs from Lichfield to Redditch is the city’s equivalent of one of London’s Overground lines. It operates on similar principles, with a frequent service run by modern electric trains.
As I found myself at Five Ways station on the line, I thought I’d take a short tip to somewhere the other side of the city, before returning to New Street for my trip back to London from Moor Street.
I took these pictures on the journey.
I went as far as Gravelly Hill station, which is just past the infamous Spaghetti Junction, where the M5, M6 and A38 meet.
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.
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.
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.
Over the Reading Viaduct
One of the major new features of the modernisation is the viaduct that eases the bottleneck West of Reading. This article on the BBC web site describes the start of the construction.
I recorded this video as the train I was on went over the Viaduct.
In some ways this probably shows why the upgrading of the Great Western Main Line is such a big project.area to the West of Reading station.
There’s certainly quite a bit of steelwork and overhead wire in the immediate
Where Are The Wires?
I took this video between Twyford and Reading stations.
There is no sign of the overhead wires that will be needed for Crossrail and the electrification of the Great Western Main Line.
To be fair to the comntractors, there was a lot of activity past Reading, so perhaps for various reasons the stretch near London has been left to last. Perhaps they want to get all the trackwork like the Action Dive-Under and the Stockley Flyover completed first!
There may have been lots of steelwork and a few wires between Reading and Didcot, but there wasn’t anything on the Cherwell Valley Line to Oxford.
Electrification May Be In Trouble Elsewhere, But The Brummies Keep Marching On
Electrification may well be in trouble with the Government delaying Trans Pennine and Midland Main Line electrification and having a strong look at that on the Great Western Main Line.
So I was interested to read this article in Rail Engineer about how a consortium is electrifying the Chase Line between Walsall and Rugeley. This is the first three paragraphs.
With electrification being high on everybody’s consciousness, the schemes to electrify the Great Western and Midland main lines have been getting all the attention. Similarly, the works in the North West and Scotland have been proceeding apace and gaining publicity but the scheme to electrify the railway from Walsall to Rugeley has managed to stay ‘under the radar’.
The scheme is, in fact, a significant step in the direction of developing the public transport system in the West Midlands by improving services on what was a relatively-forgotten part of the network. Due to be completed by December 2017, the project will allow electric trains to run between Birmingham New Street and Rugeley via the Cannock lines, providing passengers with a more reliable, efficient and greener service.
In fact, the scheme will revitalise a line which, not so many years ago, had no regular passenger services at all.
It goes on to describe how the scheme is progressing with a lot of cooperation between the various parties and not much of the usual drama.
So it would seem that not all electrification projects end up in trouble.
I shall go and take a look!
There is one fly in the ointment, though and it is detailed here in Wikipedia. This is relevant paragraph.
Gavin Williamson, Conservative MP for South Staffordshire, has campaigned to limit the speed of trains through Great Wyrley and Cheslyn Hay when the line is complete. He has written to transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin, requesting confirmation that trains travelling through these areas will not exceed a speed of 45 mph. He has also requested that “environmental mitigation measures” be put in place to reduce the potential impact of the electrification on residents in South Staffordshire. Network Rail had previously said that electric trains are quieter, greener and cleaner, reducing carbon emissions.
So, if in the future, you are fed up with your electric train crawling along, send your complaints to the local MP.
The Anonymous Widower 