Engineering Focus

The 20km Midland Metro tram line between Wolverhampton and Birmingham was officially opened on the 30th of May 1999. Plans for a network serving the West Midlands were first proposed back in 1984, however it took a further 4 years before a serious proposal was announced. Plans for a new light rail network were announced in 1988 and in November of that year the Bill to give powers to Centro to build the first line was deposited in Parliament. The initial line would follow much of the disused track bed of the Birmingham Snow Hill to Wolverhampton Low Level Line. The Bill became an act of parliament a year later, however construction of the £145m line ( at 1995 prices ) did no begin until 1995 and was expected to open in August 1998. The consortium building the new line missed the deadline by 10 months and was forced to pay compensation. The new line which was initially constructed between Wolverhampton St George's and Birmingham Snow Hill, with 23 stops in between finally open

Work to construct a new 7.5km dual carriageway connecting the M56 and M6 has been progressing steadily since 2014 and despite a very wet 2015 the project looks set for completion in early 2017.  If you are unfamiliar with the project you can find some background information  here My last update was published only 2 months ago, however since then a lot has happened so I thought I would return back to the project to check on progress. During this visit I was granted privileged access to parts of the site not easily photographed from the public highway.  With the help of my guide for the afternoon I was able to get some close up shots of a number of bridges being constructed. It was also a chance to see close up how much work had progressed on the road itself, with some stretches requiring only 1 last course of tarmac and lines to be painted.  The first major milestone to report is the completion of the bridge that will carry traffic travelling on the A50 over the new A