West Midlands Metro

[Arglwydd Golau]

Having travelled on the West Midlands Metro on a number of occasions over the past two years (after realising it went to Bilston!), I have a (probably) simple question....why did it not run to Wolverhampton HL instead of veering off the former GW mainline to St George's Square? ..or was that a deliberate move to bring the tram to the centre of Wolverhampton? (apols if this has been raised before)

 

[Robertj21a]

Follow on point.

Why on earth do all the trams go so incredibly slowly both arriving at, and departing from, Wolverhampton ? I realise that there are a couple of points involved but the speed must be about 2mph.

Robert

 

[edwin_m]

If Metro had stayed on the GW line it would have ended up at Wolverhampton LL, which was and largely still is in a bit of a wilderness and quite a long walk from the actual centre of Wolverhampton and on the wrong side of Wolverhampton HL for the entrance. The original plan was for a one-way tram loop round the centre of Wolverhampton, but I think this was cancelled to save money. Centro recently consulted on a double-track extension to the HL station.

The slow speed at the terminus was mentioned on another topic recently - I think it's due to the points being heavily worn.

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

If Metro had stayed on the GW line it would have ended up at Wolverhampton LL, which was and largely still is in a bit of a wilderness and quite a long walk from the actual centre of Wolverhampton and on the wrong side of Wolverhampton HL for the entrance. The original plan was for a one-way tram loop round the centre of Wolverhampton, but I think this was cancelled to save money. Centro recently consulted on a double-track extension to the HL station.

The slow speed at the terminus was mentioned on another topic recently - I think it's due to the points being heavily worn.

I understand your point but I stayed at the Premier Inn which is partially built on the LL site...it is extremely easy to access the HL station from there via the subway, so even if the tram had terminated at LL it wouldn't have been more than a couple of minutes to HL. It is clearly a longer walk to the centre....I suppose it could have been a situation where it was impossible to do both, but the opportunity to integrate rail and tram at Wolverhampton was lost.

 

[dvboy]

Route the metro into LL and you'd have lost all those passengers to buses that stop in the centre of town.