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Really intersting - I've lived in both Mosely & King's Heath, and wondered at the time why the railway had no passenger services. Great to see the situation being fixed.
It's certainly been a long time coming. Can see how it will benefit the area, roads were busy on a Sunday, so can only imagine what they're like during the week.
@@Rail_Focus Problem is its only half baked. No ticket offices, no link to Snow Hill, and no metro style service - once every 20 minutes instead of 10-15 mins. Turn up and go services would reduce the reliance on buses and the Snow hill link would provide south Birmingham with access to both ends of the city centre. Needs more work to realise the original vision. As usual Birmingham has to pull out the begging bowl to get funds.
Well, you have our local school kids to thank for that one, has Birmingham City Council & West Midlands Combined Authority held a competition as to what the new station names should be lol
I've been following this project even since moving away from Birmingham and it's great to see the stations taking shape. I hope the improvements/platform reopening at Kings Norton will eventually be delivered as well, that will be desperately needed for any frequency increase.
It's looking likely that the Midlands Rail hub will be delivered, but will be a few years until we know for sure, even if we end up with a Labour government.
It's a real shame that Central Government has been too shortsighted to get this line electrified, before it reopens as a passenger line. The work could be getting done at the same time as the replacement stations are being constructed and would then be able to take modern electrified trains which have better acceleration and breaking than diesel trains. Now this like is going to have to be upgraded after it builds up a passenger base, which means that customers the line wins, will then be pushed onto replacement busses for the works that will have to eventually be done anyway.
Indeed, let's just hope passive provision has been built into the stations to allow for electrification in future. For now the focus is on delivering a passenger service for people in this part of Birmingham.
Would be interesting to see a follow up a year or two after they open to see how they all look while in use and to see what the passenger numbers turn out to be (and if/how bus routes have been adjusted).
I think it will make a big difference, I don't know why it wasn't done years ago. Driving along Alcester Road from Moseley up to Kings Heath & along Kings Heath High Street has been a joke for years.
Nice to see new railway stations to be built on the Camp Hill Line. Will the Camp Hill Line might be electrified to allow Class 730 trains to operate between Birmingham New Street and Kings Norton and onwards to Bromsgrove and Redditch.
i’ve visited these station locations a while back . great news. once open there scope to build a chord to link up this line to the Chiltern Line and route then into Moor Street. Later on a possible new station could be built at Garrison Lane to serve the new birmingham city football stadium planned for the Wheels site. this service would use New Street as far as Bromsgrove on match days
That’s a pretty short run. It’s pretty obvious it needs to be electrified so trains can be amalgamated into the cross city network. Why is everything always “Arthur Job” half job?
@@BrianCunningham-kp1qt I'm pretty sure Richard Parker will continue with those plans. I don't think Park and Street or indeed Street and Labour are very far apart on most policies.
I was under the impression that the Pines Express, which I often went on as a child, used to use the Camp Hill line in the 50s and 60s so as to exit New Street in a southerly direction, hence to Camp Hill, and to arrive from the south into New Street so that it was facing the correct way to exit north. But I have a book on the Pines which I can't find right now so I will have to check this.
I have found my book on the Pines Express. It confirms that on tuesdays, wednesdays and thursdays the Pines was routed via Camp Hill. Indeed, there is a photo dated 25th August 1962 showing the Northbound Pines at Lifford heading towards Camp Hill. However, I can actually remember the Pines passing Cadburys at Bournville and the canal enroute to Bath but that was on a saturday. At least this might be of some interest to show that mainline expresses were in fact using Camp Hill 60 years ago.. I no longer live in Birmingham but used to live in Moseley and bordering the line.
As much as im happy that rail lines being opened, it has become to Birmingham centric. What with all the metro extensions, HS2 and now stations, they have seem to have forgotten the rest of the west midlands. The money, billions of it, is being spent in Birmingham when the rest can only hope to maintain a decent bus service.
The Midlands Rail Hub will widen the benefits beyond Birmingham, but we shouldn't forget Birmingham is the UK's 2nd city so does require and deserve investment.
Ah i was under the impression the Hereford - Birmingham servixe would form the new services. IMO would make the msot sense to increase those to 2tph and route them on this slightly slower route. The bordesley chord is desperately needed to relieve nee street if these services ASAP
With 3 new railway stations to be built on the Camp Hill Line. Does that include electrification between Birmingham New Street and Kings Norton. And for West Midlands Railway to use the Class 730 between Birmingham New Street and Kings Norton.
Will they be putting the infrastructure in place for future electrification? I understand of the new scotland tracks have the foundations in place require for electrification.
It should be a service to Longbridge not kings Norton, and given past delays imo its likely to be 2026 before it will be open. No mention here about park and ride facilities, so looks like the local roads will be used for parking which could limit passenger numbers.
This has the potential to cause significant disruption at King's Norton surely. I wonder whether this is why cross city services have stayed at 4tph since covid rather than reverting to the previous 6?
Apparently there is capacity, but in the long term a new platform will be required. I don't think it's the reason the Cross City line hasn't reverted to 6tph, but will benefit from the spare capacity in the short term.
The Pineapple Road (intersects with Cartland Road) station is in the corner of Camp Hill Boys School playing field. Can I have my time there over again please?
I am surprised the operator of Birmingham New Street did not object to this project seeing the station was/is running far above capacity - the last figure I saw was like 130%
Network Rail is the operator and is one of the delivery partners for the reopening, so it would be difficult for them to object to themselves 😉. As I said using paths previously used by Cross City services and hopefully only temporary.
It's a joke. For a station that was refurbished at a cost of nearly £1 billion, not even 10 years ago. Why didn't these idiots increase the capacity into the station like everyone was saying at the time? Birmingham New Street is the busiest train station in the UK outside of London. Anyone with half a braincell would know that it's going to reach capacity. You go down on the platforms in rush hour (especially platform 12 for the Cross City Line & it's actually dangerous because the platform is so overcrowded & kiss goodbye to actually getting a seat on the train when it comes lol. I just avoid travelling around that time of day if I can.
@@Rail_Focus oh yeah it’s what all the articles said. apparently everything was going to plan and it should have been finished to date so where wasn’t really any tip offs
They can't easily electrify the line due to Moseley tunnel being too low unfortunately, and the original intention was to run it into Moor Street or Snow Hill, so the line is quite heavily compromised. £61 million? In London, this re-opening would've receive £250million in London!
It’s either a reason or an excuse; there are sections of the electrification being installed in S Wales where they are using long neutral sections to avoid some clearance problems, including one of the tunnels - Caerphilly tunnel, so presumably a similar technique could be used here.
@@johnkeepin7527 Personally I want to see full electrification of all the lines witjin the TfWM boundary and a kind of ULEZ for TOCs pushing them to use electric or bi-mode trains if they wish to operate or pass by the area. So foe example, XCountry switching to OLE in Longbridge and then diesel when they get to Nuneaton. It would certainly help improve the air quality in New Street Station.
@@raymondflanagan9355 They did some of that on the GW Main Line electrification as well - including one or two that never got finished properly (Box Tunnel), but there are also quite a few with Overhead Contact Rail in lieu of cables, e.g. Chipping Sodbury, and the Severn Tunnel.
My understanding is that the plan is to eventually connect this line to Moor Street to free up capcity in the hopeless bottleneck this is New Street. Not sure why so many Wmca rail projects are always so delayed, the university station expansion was delayed by a few years with few updates.
@Rail_Focus I thought the former mayor had secured funding for the chords after the hs2 cancellation. Without the chords this will just add to already hugley congested New Street. The location of new street is a huge bottleneck.
@@CA_I no, usual Tory spin. Midlands Rail Hub funding is subject to positive business case evaluation. The funding provided recently was just to progress the scheme to the business case and preliminary design stage
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Good to see new stations opening no matter where they are in the UK.
It is good, only a modest and not very well publicised reopening, but is much needed
Really intersting - I've lived in both Mosely & King's Heath, and wondered at the time why the railway had no passenger services. Great to see the situation being fixed.
It's certainly been a long time coming. Can see how it will benefit the area, roads were busy on a Sunday, so can only imagine what they're like during the week.
@@Rail_Focus Problem is its only half baked. No ticket offices, no link to Snow Hill, and no metro style service - once every 20 minutes instead of 10-15 mins. Turn up and go services would reduce the reliance on buses and the Snow hill link would provide south Birmingham with access to both ends of the city centre. Needs more work to realise the original vision. As usual Birmingham has to pull out the begging bowl to get funds.
Fantastic to see new stations and also, any station called Pineapple Road is great! 😂
Well, you have our local school kids to thank for that one, has Birmingham City Council & West Midlands Combined Authority held a competition as to what the new station names should be lol
It is alongside Pineapple Rd to be fair 😉
@@BrianCunningham-kp1qt - oh dear! At least it’s not “station mcstation face!”
I've been following this project even since moving away from Birmingham and it's great to see the stations taking shape. I hope the improvements/platform reopening at Kings Norton will eventually be delivered as well, that will be desperately needed for any frequency increase.
It's looking likely that the Midlands Rail hub will be delivered, but will be a few years until we know for sure, even if we end up with a Labour government.
This is what I hate about this country. How long everything takes. I'll be dead by the time it gets done 😂😅😂😅
It's a real shame that Central Government has been too shortsighted to get this line electrified, before it reopens as a passenger line. The work could be getting done at the same time as the replacement stations are being constructed and would then be able to take modern electrified trains which have better acceleration and breaking than diesel trains.
Now this like is going to have to be upgraded after it builds up a passenger base, which means that customers the line wins, will then be pushed onto replacement busses for the works that will have to eventually be done anyway.
Indeed, let's just hope passive provision has been built into the stations to allow for electrification in future. For now the focus is on delivering a passenger service for people in this part of Birmingham.
Would be interesting to see a follow up a year or two after they open to see how they all look while in use and to see what the passenger numbers turn out to be (and if/how bus routes have been adjusted).
Absolutely, will be keeping an eye on the reopening
I think it will make a big difference, I don't know why it wasn't done years ago. Driving along Alcester Road from Moseley up to Kings Heath & along Kings Heath High Street has been a joke for years.
I drove to get the footage, luckily on a Sunday, but even then the roads were busy, so I can only imagine what it's like during the week.
Live in Stirchley, will still use Bournville as it's closer than Stirchley station.
it may be more convenient for people from Stirchley who don't live exactly where you live though
Nice to see new railway stations to be built on the Camp Hill Line. Will the Camp Hill Line might be electrified to allow Class 730 trains to operate between Birmingham New Street and Kings Norton and onwards to Bromsgrove and Redditch.
West Midlands Railway Class 196 Civity trains will mainly operate on the Camp Hill Line.
What Andrew said. No electrification is planned at the moment
i’ve visited these station locations a while back . great news. once open there scope to build a chord to link up this line to the Chiltern Line and route then into Moor Street. Later on a possible new station could be built at Garrison Lane to serve the new birmingham city football stadium planned for the Wheels site. this service would use New Street as far as Bromsgrove on match days
That’s a pretty short run. It’s pretty obvious it needs to be electrified so trains can be amalgamated into the cross city network. Why is everything always “Arthur Job” half job?
Absolutely
It would be good to see new stations opened on all of Birmingham’s regional lines, then it could begin to operate more as a metro system.
That was Andy Streets Plan, but alas, he's been voted out.
@@BrianCunningham-kp1qt I'm pretty sure Richard Parker will continue with those plans. I don't think Park and Street or indeed Street and Labour are very far apart on most policies.
Pineapple Road… Brilliant Name So Funny
Same 😂
I was under the impression that the Pines Express, which I often went on as a child, used to use the Camp Hill line in the 50s and 60s so as to exit New Street in a southerly direction, hence to Camp Hill, and to arrive from the south into New Street so that it was facing the correct way to exit north. But I have a book on the Pines which I can't find right now so I will have to check this.
I have found my book on the Pines Express. It confirms that on tuesdays, wednesdays and thursdays the Pines was routed via Camp Hill. Indeed, there is a photo dated 25th August 1962 showing the Northbound Pines at Lifford heading towards Camp Hill. However, I can actually remember the Pines passing Cadburys at Bournville and the canal enroute to Bath but that was on a saturday. At least this might be of some interest to show that mainline expresses were in fact using Camp Hill 60 years ago.. I no longer live in Birmingham but used to live in Moseley and bordering the line.
Great vid👍
Thanks
Despite the sett back. I see what you did there
If only I was clever enough 😅
As much as im happy that rail lines being opened, it has become to Birmingham centric. What with all the metro extensions, HS2 and now stations, they have seem to have forgotten the rest of the west midlands. The money, billions of it, is being spent in Birmingham when the rest can only hope to maintain a decent bus service.
The Midlands Rail Hub will widen the benefits beyond Birmingham, but we shouldn't forget Birmingham is the UK's 2nd city so does require and deserve investment.
Ah i was under the impression the Hereford - Birmingham servixe would form the new services. IMO would make the msot sense to increase those to 2tph and route them on this slightly slower route. The bordesley chord is desperately needed to relieve nee street if these services ASAP
Let's hope the Midlands Rail Hub is delivered in full 🤞
With 3 new railway stations to be built on the Camp Hill Line. Does that include electrification between Birmingham New Street and Kings Norton. And for West Midlands Railway to use the Class 730 between Birmingham New Street and Kings Norton.
Served by Class 196 DMUs for the foreseeable future.
Yep. 👍
I do wonder if it would have been cheaper not to close them in the first place!
Post war austerity cuts, I don't think they were really thinking too much about the future
@@Rail_Focus Do capitalists ever? Just look at climate change!
@@Rail_Focus Back then it was very much the car, only the car and build every around the car. Thankly we move away from this now.
Will they be putting the infrastructure in place for future electrification? I understand of the new scotland tracks have the foundations in place require for electrification.
Not sure to be honest. I hope the new footbridges at least have provision for electrifying in future
It should be a service to Longbridge not kings Norton, and given past delays imo its likely to be 2026 before it will be open. No mention here about park and ride facilities, so looks like the local roads will be used for parking which could limit passenger numbers.
Where are you getting 2026 from, or is your assessment?
This has the potential to cause significant disruption at King's Norton surely. I wonder whether this is why cross city services have stayed at 4tph since covid rather than reverting to the previous 6?
Apparently there is capacity, but in the long term a new platform will be required. I don't think it's the reason the Cross City line hasn't reverted to 6tph, but will benefit from the spare capacity in the short term.
The Pineapple Road (intersects with Cartland Road) station is in the corner of Camp Hill Boys School playing field. Can I have my time there over again please?
I am surprised the operator of Birmingham New Street did not object to this project seeing the station was/is running far above capacity - the last figure I saw was like 130%
Network Rail is the operator and is one of the delivery partners for the reopening, so it would be difficult for them to object to themselves 😉. As I said using paths previously used by Cross City services and hopefully only temporary.
It's a joke. For a station that was refurbished at a cost of nearly £1 billion, not even 10 years ago. Why didn't these idiots increase the capacity into the station like everyone was saying at the time?
Birmingham New Street is the busiest train station in the UK outside of London. Anyone with half a braincell would know that it's going to reach capacity.
You go down on the platforms in rush hour (especially platform 12 for the Cross City Line & it's actually dangerous because the platform is so overcrowded & kiss goodbye to actually getting a seat on the train when it comes lol.
I just avoid travelling around that time of day if I can.
@@BrianCunningham-kp1qt space or the lack of it.
As of within the last week, Richard Parker has announced the line opening will be delayed by upto 1 year.
Pretty much the only notable thing hes done.
Frustrating, but even as I was recording the video I was sceptical that it would be open this year. But that's what I was told at the time.
@@Rail_Focus oh yeah it’s what all the articles said. apparently everything was going to plan and it should have been finished to date so where wasn’t really any tip offs
I'd even spoken to someone involved.
They can't easily electrify the line due to Moseley tunnel being too low unfortunately, and the original intention was to run it into Moor Street or Snow Hill, so the line is quite heavily compromised. £61 million? In London, this re-opening would've receive £250million in London!
It’s either a reason or an excuse; there are sections of the electrification being installed in S Wales where they are using long neutral sections to avoid some clearance problems, including one of the tunnels - Caerphilly tunnel, so presumably a similar technique could be used here.
@@johnkeepin7527 Personally I want to see full electrification of all the lines witjin the TfWM boundary and a kind of ULEZ for TOCs pushing them to use electric or bi-mode trains if they wish to operate or pass by the area. So foe example, XCountry switching to OLE in Longbridge and then diesel when they get to Nuneaton. It would certainly help improve the air quality in New Street Station.
In a lot of places they have lowered the track bed through tunnels to gain the appropriate height for the overhead wires.
@@raymondflanagan9355 They did some of that on the GW Main Line electrification as well - including one or two that never got finished properly (Box Tunnel), but there are also quite a few with Overhead Contact Rail in lieu of cables, e.g. Chipping Sodbury, and the Severn Tunnel.
The NxBus 50 service Birmingham to druids heath via Moseley and kings heath going to lose passengers
Hopefully the shift will be more from people who currently drive
My understanding is that the plan is to eventually connect this line to Moor Street to free up capcity in the hopeless bottleneck this is New Street.
Not sure why so many Wmca rail projects are always so delayed, the university station expansion was delayed by a few years with few updates.
nothing ever gets built on time in the UK
@rockerjim8045 that's wrong, some things do actually. Besides, is it acceptable for a 2 to 2 and half year delay for stations to be built?
If the Bordesley Chord is constructed then services will go to Moor St, but it's still subject to funding.
@Rail_Focus I thought the former mayor had secured funding for the chords after the hs2 cancellation. Without the chords this will just add to already hugley congested New Street. The location of new street is a huge bottleneck.
@@CA_I no, usual Tory spin. Midlands Rail Hub funding is subject to positive business case evaluation. The funding provided recently was just to progress the scheme to the business case and preliminary design stage
It’s the ‘Camp Hill line’ not the ‘Camp Hill Line’, for reference. 😊
When is a line and Line and not a line 🙃
There is still no definite opening date given for this long delayed re-opening.
Information I was given is the end of the year. Seems ambitious, but that's what they're saying
The information I was given was December, it seems ambitious, but that's the working deadline at the moment.
I could buy a ticket at Longbridge, travel to Kings Norton, then catch a DMU to New Street.
If the ticket was any permitted route then technically yes I guess
Once again, a well organized set of individuals badger authorities into delays and disruption of transit projects.
🤷
What is going on with the sound? Very poor quality.
No idea, sounded okay when I played it back. No other complaints
use the subtitles!
Or just enjoy the video and stop complaining. Simple.
Oh crumbs, I forgot to update them to make sure they're accurate 😅
No problems here.
Will be a white elephant no parking facilities at any of the stations
🐘🙄
Those are slopes, part of cuttings, not embankments.
I guess if you want to be picky 🙃
We are still in England. Please talk in miles!
Nope. When discussing engineering projects people talk in km, even in eNgErLaND