How would a non-electrified Birmingham Cross City Line look today?

[Batman]

Here's a few points I was thinking about;

1) Is it correct that the only reason the Birmingham Cross City Line was electrified was because of the 1990 Mid-Staffordshire by-election?

2) If the electrification had never taken place in the early 90's, do you think it would have happened at some point since then or do you think people would still be talking about it as an aspiration?

3) What traction would be in use today on the Cross City if electrification had never taken place?

 

[150222]

Here's a few points I was thinking about;

1) Is it correct that the only reason the Birmingham Cross City Line was electrified was because of the 1990 Mid-Staffordshire by-election?

2) If the electrification had never taken place in the early 90's, do you think it would have happened at some point since then or do you think people would still be talking about it as an aspiration?

3) What traction would be in use today on the Cross City if electrification had never taken place?

Probably would have been as it is an ideal line for electrification. Traction probably 150 or 170.

 

[Batman]

I'm gonna say that if the 1990 by-election had never happened, the line would look like this today;

The line would have been electrified between between Four Oaks and Longbridge at the same time as the West Yorkshire electrification with the work being finished in about 1997. Electrification had been talked about for many years, so there was some political will for it. The line would not have been electrified to its terminuses becasue it would have been funded partly by central government and partly by Centro. Staffordshire and Hereford and Worcester County Councils would have had no part in it.

I'm guessing that the slam door DMU would have gone by about 1995. The government would have ordered extra Networkers (150's had stopped being produced by then) to go onto the Snow Hill Lines so that they could opperate out of Tysley depot along with some of the Neworkers used on the Snow Hill - Marylabone service. The 150's from the Snow Hill Line would have then been cascaded onto the Cross City Line with any left over heading up north or to the South West.

When electrification started in 97, slam door electric rolling stock would have been cascaded from the South East to run the Four Oaks - Longbridge trainds and these would have been replaced with 333's (ordered alongside those for West Yorkshire) in about 2000. These would also have replaced slam door electric trains on the Wolverhampton - Coventry and Birmingham - Walsall services.

Some extra 150's may have been cascaded from the Chase Line and possible from the North of England to provide extra rolling stock for when the service increased to 6tph in 2004, at which point Chase Line trains would have gone over to 170's.

So today, there would be a 2tph Lichfield Trent Valley - Redditch and Lichfield City - Longbirdge service opperated by 150's (about to be replaced with 172's) and 2tph Four Oaks - Longbridge opperated by 333's. That would probably cause a few capacity problems because I'm guessing that with 150's some peak time trains would be formed of 4 or 5 coaches when they ideally need 6.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

If it had never been electrified I imagine it would be almost a mirror image of the Snow Hill lines.

 

[MCR247]

Thats what I was going to say as well

 

[150001]

Mirror image of Snow Hill lines! A lot more 150s would be around, maybe from Northern and then maybe some Class 165s. The Snow Hill lines would've probably been handed over to Chiltern for them to operate with 165s. Or if LM had it, Class 150s and maybe Class 156s.

 

[bluenoxid]

Slam door stock would have soldiered through the 1064 drought. Looking at the orders placed for stock, either electrification would have taken place in the boom years of Railtrack or a lot more DMUs in the area. Possibly a stint of LHCS in the area for capacity creation in the mid noughties.

 

[40086]

Here's a few points I was thinking about;

1) Is it correct that the only reason the Birmingham Cross City Line was electrified was because of the 1990 Mid-Staffordshire by-election?

2) If the electrification had never taken place in the early 90's, do you think it would have happened at some point since then or do you think people would still be talking about it as an aspiration?

3) What traction would be in use today on the Cross City if electrification had never taken place?

Point 1 - no, WMPTE had been trying to get this electrified since the 70s! Think about Birmingham - Walsall! There were issues in that politicians used WMPTE for infighting for years and cross city electrification had a watertight funding case! In fact delaying it cost us money as aging & life expired DMUs had to be kept going!

I would suggest bus deregulation had an impact as electrification on the cross city would have impacted on a certain bus company!!!

If electrification hadn't happened the service would have got worse and worse with the aging DMUs and the service would have been far less successful! In fact possible candidate for a light rail Midland Metro line as happened in Manchester I think would have been a distinct possibility!

 

[Batman]

Point 1 - no, WMPTE had been trying to get this electrified since the 70s! Think about Birmingham - Walsall! There were issues in that politicians used WMPTE for infighting for years and cross city electrification had a watertight funding case! In fact delaying it cost us money as aging & life expired DMUs had to be kept going!

I would suggest bus deregulation had an impact as electrification on the cross city would have impacted on a certain bus company!!!

If electrification hadn't happened the service would have got worse and worse with the aging DMUs and the service would have been far less successful! In fact possible candidate for a light rail Midland Metro line as happened in Manchester I think would have been a distinct possibility!

Thanks, I forgot about the ligt rail proposal.

I think if I remeber correctly, the plans involved the Redditch to New Street section being electrified for heavy rail, whilst cross city north would have been coverted to metrolink between Lichfield and Aston and trams running on street from Aston to the newly redeveloped bull ring where they would either terminate or continue to the south or east of the city depending on which set of proposals were being discussed at the time.