Midlands Rail Hub

A version of this article was published in Rail Magazine issue 1016

Since November 2022 Volkerfitzpatrick has been working on behalf of the West Midlands Rail Executive and the West Midlands Combined Authority to deliver three new stations on the Camp Hill Line in Birmingham to replace ones which had closed in 1941. Thankfully the line remained open, however for the last 80 years it has only been used for freight traffic, empty stock moves and some Cross Country services in order to bypass the Cross City Line.

The £61m scheme to reopen the Camp Hill Line will see three stations rebuilt with accessible, two platform stations capable of handling six-car trains. The initial two trains per hour service will operate between Birmingham New Street and Kings Norton, with trains joining the Camp Hill Line at St Andrews Junction. As the line will remain unelectrified the service will be operated by West Midlands Railway using Class 196 DMUs.

Heading south from New Street the first of the rebuilt stations on the route will be Moseley Village, which is located on St Mary’s Row in Moseley, just to the north of the short tunnel which takes the line underneath what will eventually be the entrance to the station and St Mary’s Row.

Moseley Village station progress April 2024

The next station will be approximately 1km to the south, located close to the A435 High Street in Kings Heath, next to a small retail park. The new Kings Heath station will be situated alongside the car park for the retail park and will have access from a new pedestrian overbridge onto High Street.

CG render of Kings Heath station (West Midlands Combined Authority) 

The final station to be rebuilt will be Pineapple Road, located approximately 1.5km to the south of Kings Heath, just north of the bridge which takes Cartland Road over the line in Stirchley. From there, trains will head south to Kings Norton, where the trains will terminate, before reversing to head back to New Street station.

Rebuilding stations which existed previously would normally be relatively straightforward, however, the re-opening of the three stations has not been without its challenges as after eight decades almost nothing remained of the former stations. The sites for the three stations are also especially constrained and substantial remediation works had to be carried out in order to stabilise cuttings and provide space for the longer platforms. Piling work is clearly visible at Kings Heath and Pineapple Road stations, whilst ground anchors and concrete has been used to stabilise embankments on either side of Moseley Village station.

Image from 2024 shows the extent of the piling work required at Kings Norton to stabilise an embankment 

Lack of space is not the only challenge faced by the contractor. In June last year, it was reported that the discovery of badgers in Moseley was to blame for a significant delay in the reopening of the station. Badgers are classified as an endangered species, which means their sets cannot simply be removed. This meant that Volkerfitzpatrick had to work with ecologists to rehome the badgers to a suitable location before work on the station could continue.

Operating services to Birmingham New Street is currently the only practical way to get trains into the city centre, although capacity at the station has been constrained for a number of years. However, the new service will be able to make use of paths into New Street which have become available following the Pandemic. In particular, Cross City Line services have not returned to pre-pandemic levels and currently, four trains per hour operate in each direction, as opposed to six trains per hour before the pandemic. This also means that there will be capacity to turnback the new Camp Line trains at Kings Norton on the Cross City Line without any expensive infrastructure modifications.

Ultimately, following the completion of the Midlands Rail Hub project, it is proposed to restore six trains per hour on the Cross City line into New St and to re-route the Camp Hill Line services into Birmingham Moor Street station.

The Midlands Rail Hub scheme is being developed jointly by the Department for Transport, sub-national transport body Midlands Connect, West Midlands Rail Executive and Network Rail. The project involves the construction of a two new chords in the Bordesley area from the Chiltern Mainline onto to connect the Camp Hill Line and line from Water Orton with the existing Chiltern Main Line into Birmingham Moor St. The project also involves building additional platforms at Moor Street and a new platform at both Snow Hill and Kings Norton, as well as increasing the number of tracks between Moor Street and Bordesley.

Two new chords will be constructed in Bordesley linking the Camp Hill to the Chiltern Main Line

The western Bordesely chord would not only allow Camp Hill Line services to terminate at Moor Street, but together with other proposed infrastructure interventions south of Kings Norton would allow additional services from Moor Street to serve Bristol, Cardiff, Worcester and Hereford. Similarly, in conjunction with other infrastructure works east of Birmingham, the second chord at Bordesley will allow additional trains to head from Moor Street towards the East Midlands. In total more than 50 stations will benefit from the Midlands Rail Hub plans.

Constructing the two new chords is likely to be one of the most challenging aspects of the scheme and will likely involve the rebuilding of the bridge over Bordesley Middleway, and the construction of a bridge over the roundabout at the western end of Small Heath Highway. In addition, both the eastern and western chords would also have to cross the Grand Union Canal. Ideally, both chords would be constructed at the same time, which should provide overall cost savings, by delivering the works within a single package.

The budget for the combined Midlands Rail Hub interventions is estimated to be £1.75bn and it is hoped to complete the project around the early 2030s, should funding be agreed. At the beginning of March, the Government announced funding of £123m to progress the Full Business Case stage and begin design work.

Due to the scale of the project, the Government as well as agreeing to fund the scheme must also grant a Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO), which would provide Network Rail with permission to begin construction. The TWAO will only be granted once the full business case has been appraised and funding granted which is likely to still be a few years away.

The reopening of the Camp Hill Line will provide benefits for residents who live in the south of the city who currently don’t have access to rail services. The Camp Hill Line could also improve local and regional connectivity with HS2 services from Curzon Street should the western chord be constructed. The western concourse of Curzon Street will be adjacent to the entrance to Moor Street station, however, the current plans for the new HS2 station do not include full integration with Moor Street, it is therefore hoped that plans will eventually be progressed to fully integrate the two stations.

The main entrance of the new HS2 station in Birmingham will be adjacent to Moor St station

If the full Midlands Rail Hub scheme can be realised then connectivity with HS2 services will be further enhanced and could bring passengers from Bromsgrove and Worcester within easy reach of HS2 services.

From the very beginning, the location of the new HS2 station has come under criticism, due to the distance from New Street station. But if the Midlands Rail Hub is realised then Birmingham Moor St could become a much more convenient station for onward travel from Curzon Street to destinations across Birmingham and further afield to the West and East Midlands, should both of the chords at Bordesley be constructed.

The Government has claimed that the Midlands Rail Hub has been made possible by “reallocated HS2 funding” freed up by the cancellation of the northern sections of HS2. However, in addition to the improved regional and cross-regional connections it delivers, Midlands Rail Hub has always been seen as key to unlocking the full benefits of HS2 and in fact, the cancellation of the northern section appears to have reduced the overall benefits and limits the scope for further connectivity improvements.

Without significant upgrades to the WCML, or the construction of a new line between Handsacre and Crewe/Manchester it will be unlikely that services will be able to operate from Curzon Street to Manchester, the North West and Scotland. And whilst this shouldn't affect the business case for the Midlands Rail Hub, it will limit the usefulness of Curzon Street Station and ultimately curtail the transformational connectivity HS2 Phase 2b would have provided between Britain's two largest regional cities.

That’s not to say the Midlands Rail Hub will not be transformational on its own, if delivered in full, but the benefits could be spread much further if HS2 was to be constructed in full.

HS2, Handsacre

A version of this article was Published in Rail Magazine, issue 999

The small village of Handsacre has recently become the focus of attention after the Prime Minister announced at the Conservative Party Conference on the 4th of October that he was cancelling phase 2 of HS2 to Crewe and Manchester. Now the parish of Handsacre and Armitage, which is more often associated with the manufacture of bathroom fixtures has another claim to fame, being the likely permanent end point for HS2.

It was always intended that HS2 would join the WCML at Handsacre, however, it was assumed that this would be the first of three connections that would allow trains to leave the new line and head north on the existing railway. The other two were to be located to the south of Crewe and Golborne to the North of Warrington.

Before Phase 2 was split into phases 2a and 2b it was proposed that HS2 services would leave the high-speed line at Handsacre and continue on the existing network to Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow before the completion of Phase 2 to Manchester and Golborne.

The plan was changed in 2014, when it was decided to build HS2 to Crewe first (Phase 2a), then continue the line to Manchester and Golborne (Phase 2b). After the re-phasing, it was proposed that Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow could each be served by one HS2 service per hour to London Euston (later, further revised to terminate temporarily at Old Oak Common) until the completion of phase 2a to Crewe.

Site of Handsacre Junction, 2023

Once phase 2a opened, Manchester would have been served by three trains per hour, Liverpool two and Glasgow one train per hour, joining HS2 just south of Crewe. After which two additional services were proposed. One originating in Macclesfield calling at Stoke and Stafford, before joining HS2 at Handsacre utilising the capacity released by Phase 2a. The other would start at Lancaster and call at Preston, Wigan and Warrington Bank Quay before joining a service from Liverpool at Crewe to form a single 400m set (2x 200m). This service would then join the WCML at the connection south of Crewe.

Now though, after Rishi Sunak’s announcement, trains will join the WCML at Handsacre indefinitely, as he has cancelled arguably the most transformative section of HS2. HS2 Phase 1 will still provide some capacity gains between Rugby and London Euston, with benefits for commuters south of Birmingham, however, there will be no additional capacity freed up between Rugby and Manchester.

The PM's decision may also potentially create a severe bottleneck between Handsacre and Colwich, which could have implications for the WCML north of Lichfield, affecting both passenger and freight services.

HS2 - WCML Spur

To further complicate matters Handsacre Junction requires two separate junctions to work, with a flyover taking a down line over the core section (that would later have become Phase 2a), to the spur which would join the WCML. Now though, this first junction is no longer technically required, but work on the junction has already begun before being paused in March this year.

If the grade-separated junction from HS2 to the WCML spur is no longer required then it may be the case that changes to the Hybrid Bill for Phase 1 will be required, which could mean the bill would have to go back to Parliament. The best outcome would be that a stub be left so that HS2 could potentially continue north at some point in the future.

For the moment however, no one seems to know what will happen and those working within the DfT and HS2 Ltd are only now starting to understand what the implications of the PM's decision will be. When asked for comment, a spokesperson for HS2 Ltd said “We understand the Government’s ambition is to run HS2 trains via the Handscare Link to serve destinations in the North. We await formal notification as to whether the Government intends to repeal the Phase 2a Act, and therefore whether any amendment would be required to the Phase One Act powers for this train service specification to be delivered”.

For now, the sites between Lichfield and Handsacre have been mothballed after all construction north of Streethay (Lichfield) was paused. Since then, the most northerly work that has taken place was the construction of a bridge taking the WCML over HS2 at Fulfen Wood, which was moved into place in July. The Balfour Beatty VINCI joint venture delivering this part of the route is continuing work on the bridge that will take the A38 over HS2, but workers have been stood down between Streethay and Handsacre.

The situation at Handsacre was further complicated when the Phase 2a bill was deposited, as the WCML connection was redesigned so that the HS2 tracks would connect to the Up-Down slows on the WCML. The original proposal for Phase 1 would have seen the HS2 tracks join the UP-Down fasts, which would have been more costly and complicated but would have maximised capacity.

Handsacre original junction design

This change wasn’t as important with the plans for Phase 2a taking HS2 to Crewe and therefore reducing the burden on Handsacre. But without phase 2a, will provide a constraint which will impact capacity on the WCML.

Updated junction design

Professor McNaughton highlighted the issue during a Transport Select Committee HS2 update on the 16th of November, during which he suggested that the WCML connection will have to be redesigned if HS2 is to terminate at Handsacre permanently. When Jack Brereton, MP for Stoke-on-Trent asked “You are advocating a redesign of Handsacre?" Professor McNaughton replied, “I think it is inevitable and an unfortunate consequence, and then bang goes some of the money that you might have saved from not doing 2a.”

Prior to that exchange Professor McNaughton alarmingly said “Unless something has fundamentally changed in the laws of physics since I last looked at it, you cannot deliver the whole of the HS2 phase 1 service on to the slow lines without actually cancelling your freight trains.”

So it seems clear that significant design change will be required, to one or both of the junctions, from what would have been Phase 2a and the spur to the WCML at Handsacre. But even if the WCML connection is reverted to the original more efficient design, it would still be the case that HS2 trains will join the WCML at a section which is already constrained. Just a few miles north of Handsacre is Colwich Junction, which is a flat junction where the Stone and Colwich line meets the WCML from Stafford. This junction funnels Avanti services from the North and LNR services from Crewe down the Trent Valley line. Being at-grade means that capacity is inherently constrained and that’s before the introduction of additional HS2 services.

It is important to note that current Avanti services will largely be replaced by HS2 services, however, it was always proposed that some “classic services” would be retained. The classic services would not only retain or improve local and regional connectivity but would also free up seating capacity for passengers on the WCML. An indicative service pattern within the Phase 1 business case (which was updated in 2020), shows an hourly service from Manchester calling at Rugby and Milton Keynes, in addition to the three proposed HS2 services per hour.

Stopping at Milton Keynes not only benefits Milton Keynes commuters but also maintains connectivity between North and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire which has a population of 260,000. Milton Keynes is also home to head offices for several large international and national companies, and from 2025 will provide improved links to Bicester and Oxford via East West Rail

Not only would the PM's decision limit capacity on the WCML, it will fail to provide any meaningful capacity for passengers from the North. In fact seating capacity could be reduced unless the current order for 54, 200m long trains is modified. The expected capacity of the HS2 units that will be delivered by a Hitachi/Alstom Joint Venture would only be 550 seats. This wasn’t a problem with phase 2 providing Manchester Piccadilly with the ability to accommodate 400m long (2x 200m), 1,100 seat sets. However, without phase 2 the existing platforms could only accommodate 200m long units. If so this would lead to a reduction in seating capacity when compared to the 265m long, 11 car Class 390 Pendolinos, which have a capacity of 589.

Capacity comparison, 200m long HS2 trains vs existing Avanti Class 390

Even if the order is modified to deliver say 250m long HS2 units, that would only provide a marginal gain, versus the capacity provided currently. A potential for a 294 seat per hour gain from Manchester to London is hardly transformation, not when compared with phase 2, which would have provided up to 1550 additional seats per hour. This reduction also applies to Glasgow, which would only be served by one HS2 service per hour, instead of the 2tph that would have been provided with the completion of the Golborne Link. Liverpool could potentially still see two HS2 services per hour, but it is unclear if the additional service would be a straight swap for the proposed Avanti service calling at Liverpool South Parkway using Class 807s.

It's too early to tell what the implication of the PM's decision will be, but it seems patently clear that if nothing else, reliability will suffer by trying to squeeze more capacity out of the existing railway North of Handsacre and that the proposed capacity gains provide by HS2 will be marginal at best.