West Midlands Improvements

[Donny Dave]

With the announcements in the past few days that Birmingham New Street and Wolverhampton High Level are to be redeveloped, it begs the question ....

Is the government interested in other parts of the country?

Those 2 projects between them are going to cost roughly £750 million. Following on from the extended works to upgrade the WCML (and all the delay penalties NR have had to pay), will there be any money left for anywhere else?

Parts of the ECML are crying out for a major upgrade, and lots of local routes in the North need work doing on them as well. The East Midlands and Midland Mainline need upgrades in places as well, and doubtless the same could be said for Anglia, GWML and the West country, as well as parts of the 3rd rail network in the South.

Discuss ....

 

[David Sinnett]

Although BHM falls into the WCML area I wouldnt have thought any developments there would reduce travel times from further north. There are so many other services through Birmingham that it should benefit most long distance travellers. My major concern is the delays and cancellations that are going to occur due to the redevelopment. What facilities are in place for rail diversions or are we going to see fleets of buses ferrying rail passengers through the city?

 

[Bonemaster]

I personally believe the closures will be partial and only full on rare occasions as they have done previously when BHM has been shut, when it has been totally shut bussing passengers from Aston, otherwise most services can enter from either end albeit with limited platforms.

To be fair both BHM and wolves are crying out for investment to passenger facilities upgrades, and the number of passengers who will benefit from the work, will be far greater than on some northern lines. Leeds, and both Manchester stations have had a vast amount of money spent on them in recent years, where as the midlands has had a through line upgraded, but station enhancements to the midlands cities have been limited to an extra platform at Wolverhampton.

Not to forget that station redevelopment is more about a revenue source than an expenditure in todays railways with the enhancement of retail facilities which bring in a long term rent not only to in the long term pay for the redevelopment, and generate a profit that can be reinvested into other projects upon which the returns are more marginal

 

[AlexS]

I would say certainly - stations like York, Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester, Carlisle get a lot of money spent on their upkeep and are truly magnificent structures.

Wolverhampton is a lump of concrete that's unattractive and not even that functional. You currently walk the length of the platforms to get to the bridge crossing, there's a shedload of redundant space and the whole structure does need to be started again. I know there's similar locations elsewhere but I would also say that the north as a general rule never suffered the wholescale destruction of it's stations by BR in the 1960s modernisations - yes, many closed and were replaced by bus shelters, but the buildings generally remained. The whole West Coast however was turned into a somewhat concrete nightmare.

What can be said about New Street except that as the entrance to the second city and the national railway hub that it's an absolute disgrace.

 

[Mojo]

The Government spends far more money on the North than even its own internal documents suggest compared to its economic significance, it's all about political friends. But then again I am mostly speaking in terms of urban transport here - I don't know what the situation is on local services, but it's certaintly better protected than in some special regions of the South West.

 

[Ascot]

Haha took long enough to get cracking, get used to New St after a while but yes New Street and Wolverhampton, in fact most stations in the West Mids apart from those posh Bling Bling Chiltern ones, are all naff.

Not going to get my hopes up just yet as the downstairs looks just as grim on the images as it does now and only thing different is moving the entrance round the corner, remove half the Palisades from the top and put some glass on (where the sun will come from I haven't got a clue if you seen Brum's skyline with the Brooke centre down the road.

Give it another paint job maybe add some funky textiles around and automatic ticket barriers that maybe have more IQ than the current ones.

As the Second city it's shocking that our airport station is some dark red brick, and our main hub is similar to something off Saving Private Ryan.

Makes you proud to be Brummie we finally are being looked at, remember on the Wednesday morning after it was announce on the news, everyone was talking about it on the bus.

Now what about Lea Hall, that place has always been a bomb shelter.

 

[will1337]

It seems the usual debate is London vs the rest of the country and much as I live there, it's great to see some investment elsewhere as it's clearly woefully inadequate. New Street is an absolute dive and it's great to see something being done about it, as the hub of the Crosscountry network it's about time.

However, it would have been nice to see more substance as well as the very needed cosmetic improvements. Also the amount that's been spent on the WCML already really should have gone into getting a start on HS2, IMO.