Are they that separate? Interchange is the other side of the NEC from International. There will be a people mover connecting it all up with an end to end time of 6 minutes.
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Birmingham Interchange HS2 station
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The Planner
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Its a mile at least.
Sure, but with the people mover every 3 minutes you could get from one to the other faster than walking between the extremities of some large stations.
The Planner
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Really? Its going to be a 20-25 minute mandated connection between the two of them. Easily 5 to get to the people mover from a platform as assuming one is waiting, 10 on the people mover, 5 at the other end.
Baxenden Bank
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What is the purpose of the interchange station? Are we/they building a quite large, quite expensive white elephant?
Okay, the clue is in the name but interchanging from where to where?
HS2 and beyond via the WCML connection (if ever built) will have direct services to London so no need to interchange. Will people from the north WCML interchange to double back to Curzon Street or transfer via the shuttle to International then New Street?
If on a west midlands area train calling at Birmingham International surely it will be quicker to remain on that train / change to an Avanti (post HS2 version) to Euston than having a 20-25 minimum interchange with all the hassle that entails.
I can see demand from car-based users from a very wide area, some from the local population plus of course the NEC and the airport.
Is it essentially a humungous parkway / park-and-ride station sexed up as an interchange?
Okay, the clue is in the name but interchanging from where to where?
HS2 and beyond via the WCML connection (if ever built) will have direct services to London so no need to interchange. Will people from the north WCML interchange to double back to Curzon Street or transfer via the shuttle to International then New Street?
If on a west midlands area train calling at Birmingham International surely it will be quicker to remain on that train / change to an Avanti (post HS2 version) to Euston than having a 20-25 minimum interchange with all the hassle that entails.
I can see demand from car-based users from a very wide area, some from the local population plus of course the NEC and the airport.
Is it essentially a humungous parkway / park-and-ride station sexed up as an interchange?
It's in a huge area of development, on the edge of Solihull conurbation. There will be buses aplenty as well as the people mover to join the Cov corridor services.
Land gets handed over in 2030 for the Arden Cross development.
I agree that Birmingham International should be renamed to Birmingham Airport. If that happens, then I think "Birmingham Interchange" would be fine -- avoids the two Birmingham Ints.
My more controversial view is to call the HS2 station "Birmingham Airport (Highspeed)", but I realise that won't catch on.
My more controversial view is to call the HS2 station "Birmingham Airport (Highspeed)", but I realise that won't catch on.
Baxenden Bank
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Yes, but will they use it, is it attractive to whizz between Old Oak Common and Birmingham Interchange to them bumble along at either end to reach your real destination. Are the time-savings of HS2 outweighed by the time-lost?
Plenty of people will use it. Depending on timetables, it will be far preferable to those that side of Solihull compared to using local stations such as Hampton-in-Arden, or using Solihull/Widney Manor for getting into the city centre.
The Arden Cross development is huge too, with the aim of creating high paid medical jobs etc, there is no time lost if you plan on starting/ending your journey at Interchange.
Their cars, and the airport / NEC.
It has been somewhat hamstrung by the curtailment of HS2. If the full scheme was being built, you would have traffic from the West Midlands, potentially as far down as Oxford changing for HS2 services to Manchester, Leeds, Scotland. Previously they would have gone via New Street. Some of that may still use Interchange, but the journey time advantage won’t be there as much.
William3000
Member
It also brings Birmingham Airport within the orbit of London airports. Journey times will I suspect be comparable or quicker than they currently are from central London to Gatwick and Stansted.
This is very much so. As someone living in West London, Birmingham Airport could easily become preferable on time grounds.
Not central London in its broadest sense, but certainly some parts of London in terms of the time from station kerbside to terminal.
From Heathrow, really?
absolutelymilk
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Yeah not sure how this is possible, even if you lived next to OOC station then it would be about 25 minutes via Elizabeth Line to Heathrow. OOC to Birmingham Interchange was around 35 minutes IIRC, so not much more but still not quicker!
TrainTraveler
Member
If it were in the GWR days it would be "Birmingham International Road" or similar.
A station not near the named place.
A station not near the named place.
No, from Gatwick or Stansted.
William3000
Member
Not quicker than Heathrow but budget airlines for example don’t fly from Heathrow so Birmingham may be quicker than Stansted, Luton, Gatwick which do!
Oh well yes, of course that’s a bit of a difference!
Not sure about Stansted though, with Elizabeth line to Liverpool St and Stansted Express? It does of course depending where exactly in “West London” you are.
Also it doesn’t matter when you’re necessarily going - a new high speed railway line is evidently going to improve connectivity for routes involving London-Birmingham as opposed to the status quo
Stansted Express is actually relatively slow (at least 46 minutes from Liverpool Street to Stansted Airport), making it "farther away" than Gatwick (at 40 minutes on Thameslink from Farringdon to Gatwick Airport), even if you don't include the extra 3 minutes on the Elizabeth line from Farringdon to Liverpool Street! (For comparison, Luton Airport Parkway is 35 minutes from Farringdon on Thameslink, or 22 minutes from St Pancras on EMR / Luton Airport Express, which is then followed by a 4-minute DART ride to the airport itself.)
Snow1964
Established Member
Been a HS2 press release that the 3 viaducts on the southern approaches to Birmingham interchange have been completed.
mediacentre.hs2.org.uk
HS2 completes trio of Solihull viaducts
B-roll - Drone footage shows all three viaduct structures Download images of Balsall Common, Marsh Farm and River Blythe viaducts
All three viaducts are of course 2 tracks wide. The Blythe viaduct is the most northerly of the three. Immediately after it, going north, the line widens to 4 tracks because of the approach to Interchange. The wide formation is visible in the Blythe video. The north end of the viaduct is where the river goes under, the south end is where the road goes under.