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.