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.

Building HS2 - Curzon Street and Interchange progress.

Update 15/11/21

It would seem that the title of the blog should have been "the time for discussion should be over" as it appears the leg from Birmingham to Leeds is going to be heavily curtailed. I'll wait and see what detail emerge this week, but it seems almost certain that the government is going to be making a huge mistake. Not only will de-scoping HS2 East reduce the journey time benefits from Leeds to London and Birmingham, and mean there will be little to no increase in capacity,  but it will also mean that there will be no hope of improved regional journeys that would have been made possible by the construction of the eastern leg of HS2.

In 2009 when I first began actively campaigning in support of HS2 I never imagined I'd one day be photographing and writing about the construction of the project. At the time I was in my mid-20s and full of youthful optimism and felt that someone ought to be challenging the many myths about the project which were being disseminated by opponents of the project. At the time HS2 Ltd had no social media presence and no one working for the DfT felt it was the job of HS2 Ltd or indeed Government to promote the project. HS2 Ltd's job was solely seen as designing the line and ensuring the required bills made their way through parliament. 

In the end HS2 took 10 years to get from the initial planning phase to construction, but finally in June this year (2021) I captured my first images of the progress so far. Admittedly I'm a little late to the party, as construction has been underway for quite some time, in fact, the first TBMs christened Florence and Cecilia launched to dig the two 10 mile long tunnels underneath the Chiltern hills have already excavated 2 miles of tunnels between them. However the pandemic and living up North made it difficult to justify a trip south just to see what's been going on. So, during my visit to the Midlands for Rail Live 2021 I thought I'd have an extended stay so I could see for myself some of the progress that has been made so far on the construction of HS2. 

The first stop was the site of what will eventually be the HS2 Interchange station located close to Birmingham Airport. This station will be connected to Birmingham International railway station and Birmingham Airport using an automated people mover, which will be able to transport people from the station to the airport in just 6 minutes. Birmingham Interchange will also allow people from Solihull and the surrounding area to access HS2 services to London, Birmingham city centre and the North. The station itself will be comprised of 2 platforms, with 4 platform faces and a pair of through tracks for non-stopping services from the North to London. 

A significant amount of work has already taken place around what will be the new station, with a key road bridge over the M42 having already been constructed. The 65-metre bridge which now spans the M42 was moved into place by SPMTs (Self-Propelled Modular Transporters) over the space of just 2 days. A new road bridge has also been installed over A446/A452 which will link the A452 to a new link road and roundabout to Birmingham Interchange and NEC, a video of which can be seen here

 

Preparatory works taking place on the site of new link roads and roundabout connecting the A452 and A446 to the new station and the NEC

The new link road bridge over M42. 

 

New roundabout layout, which will connect the A452 to the B4438 and NEC

 

Groundworks appeared to have started on the site of the new 400m long station, however, the tender to build the station itself isn't due to be awarded until next year, so it's unlikely that any significant progress towards construction will begin before the end of 2022.

First signs of groundworks taking place for Birmingham Interchange

The next day I took a trip into Birmingham to check out the site of another new station, this time located in the heart of the city. Curzon Street station is being constructed alongside the WCML and will have an entrance next to Moor Street station, and despite claims to the contrary made by opponents of HS2 will be only a few minutes by foot from Birmingham New Street station.

A video taken onboard a WMR service into Birmingham New Street station showing progress as of June 2021 can be found here. 

Curzon Street station will be a 400m long station with 7 platforms, the main entrance of which will open out onto Moor Street Queensway providing access to Birmingham Moor St station, with a short walk through St Martin's Queensway to New Street station. There will also be a second entrance roughly in the middle of the station which will utilise the original building which formed the entrance to the former station which was the terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway and the Grand Junction Railway. The original station opened in 1838, but was closed to passengers in 1893, the station itself was later demolished but the Roman-inspired Grade I listed building survived. It is this building that has been incorporated into the design of Curzon Street station. The building which will form an entrance leading out onto Curzon Street is currently undergoing refurbishment. Once completed the building will include "a new steel structural frame to strengthen the building, a new lift giving access to all four levels, new glass balustrade for the historic staircase, internal fit-out, roof repairs, structural repairs to the external façade, and a full clean of the external building masonry." source HS2 Ltd

The original building which formed the terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway

There will be 3 departures from Curzon St to London each hour, taking just 45 minutes to reach the capital, stopping at Interchange and Old Oak Common. There will also be services to Manchester once HS2 phase 2b is complete, with the journey taking just 41 minutes, slashing the Birmingham to Manchester journey time in half. There are currently plans to operate services to Leeds once phase 2 East is completely, but there are currently questions over whether this phase will be built in full or not. If the section of HS2 to Leeds is built in full then the journey time from Birmingham to Leeds would be 49 minutes, cutting the journey time in half, down from 2 hours currently.

Komatsu excavator loading a Wacker Neuson Dual View dumper on the site of what will be Curzon Street station

Although there wasn't a great deal of construction to see during my visit to the West Midlands it was certainly good to see that some progress is finally being made after 10 years of discussion. Looking back at my 5 years of campaigning activity from 2009 I'm not sure what, if any impact I made, but I felt strongly at the time that someone should be challenging the myths from HS2 opponents. It's frustrating to see that although over 10 years have passed, some of the old tropes such it only saving 15 minutes are still being circulated, but despite the best efforts of a well funded and vociferous anti-HS2 campaign the line is being built and there's very little the current cohort of opponents can do but add to the cost, through the need for extra security and legal fees to force the removal of protesters.

For me, my brief foray into campaigning inspired a love of the railways which has stayed with me and has inspired me to continue campaigning, but now on more of a local level, which has seen me campaigning for improved rail links on the Wrexham-Bidston line.

I hope to be able to make it down the West Midlands and further south again to see how construction progresses on this monumental construction project.

 

 

Twitter - Facebook - Youtube 

 

 

Building a new North South railway - part 1 (update)

It is widely anticipated that the Bill giving the go ahead to construct the first phase of HS2 between London, Birmingham with a connection to the WCML at Rugeley will receive Royal Assent early this year (2017). So I thought now would be a good time to take a look at the methods that will likely be used to construct the new railway.

Update
The bill giving the go ahead to construct phase 1 of HS2 was given Royal Assent on Thursday 23rd of February.

This blog will focus solely on the construction and engineering involved, so I will leave a description of project and the political aspects of the planning to one side.

To begin with I want to explore how you go about altering the landscape in order to build a new high-speed railway that is as flat and straight as possible. With a maximum design speed of 400km/h (250mph) over the straightest sections of track it is important that the curve radius is long as possible, in the case of HS2 the minimum horizontal radius for 400km/h operation is 7200m.

Using knowledge gained from following other road and rail projects it's possible to examine how the new line will likely be built and the construction methods involved.

The closest recent parallel that I can draw upon is the construction of a new grade separated rail junction at Norton Bridge (Staffordshire), this project required the construction of 11 bridges and 9.6km of new railway.

Other parallels can be drawn from the construction of 7.5km of new dual carriageway connecting the M6 and M56 in Cheshire.

With both projects a large part of the work "simply" involved moving earth via moxy (articulated dump truck) from one part of the site to the other, although there was of course a systematic and very purposeful way in which this is done.

As with any large construction project the first stage will involve establishing compound sites along the route in which offices and staff facilities will be located and plant machinery stored.

Before any site clearance can commence the area within the site boundary must be free of protected species such as great crested newts for a number of weeks, during which time regular inspections must take place. 

Once the site boundary is established (and free of newts) and compounds complete the next task is to begin preparing the land through which the line will be built. In rural areas this will involve stripping and storing the initial layer of fertile earth. The earth is stored close to where it was originally excavated from, this is so it can be returned back to the land once final landscaping commences.

In built up areas the initial phase of construction will involve demolition and site clearance. For HS2 this demolition will mostly take place around the Euston terminus and Birmingham station. In this part though I'd like to focus on the groundworks required in rural areas.

In rural areas the fertile earth is stored close to where it was excavated from, by doing this much of the ecology can be retained, this will help with the process of reestablishing wildlife habitats and returning agricultural land back to use. 

A556 initial groundworks March 2015

The next phase of construction will involve deep excavation of cuttings and the building of embankments and structures. To do this excavators working in tandem with moxys will excavate and then move material from cuttings to areas where embankments will be built.

In this way it is possible to sculpt the landscape without having to move any earth off site by road or rail. Spoil from the excavation of tunnels can also be translocated to different parts of the site in this way.

Stafford Area Improvement Programme ground works.

The construction of a new grade separated junction at Norton Bridge is a good example how vast quantities of earth can be moved without the need to take any off site. In all 1 million tonnes of earth was moved in order to construct the 7.5km track and 11 bridges required for the project, yet non had to be taken off site.

This was achieved by creating a temporary road which extended along the length of the site, this haul road was then used to transport the material from where it was being excavated to where it was required. With 11 bridges constructed a lot of material was required in order to build approaches to overbridges. Earth was also used for landscaping either side of the line in order reduce the impact of the line on the landscape.

Of course for HS2 there will not a be a single 100km haul road, a project of this scale will be split up into sections, however withing each section it is likely that the same method of moving material will be employed.

A556 overbridge

The image above of a new overbridge constructed for the A556 project demonstrates where material is required in order to build new approaches. Earth was eventually built up on either side in order to build approaches for a new road overbridge.

It was suggested by a rural campaign group that millions of lorry loads will be required to take material off site by road, however the A556 and SAIP projects show that this needn't and will more than likely not be the case.


In part two I will discus the construction of bridge structures and look at how the impact on the existing road network can be minimised.


You can read part two here

Follow us on Twitter - Facebook For more information e-mail Blog@EngineeringFocus.co.uk

Midland Metro growing ambition

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 opened in May 1999. It was the intention that this first line (Line 1) would be the first of several lines which would be built connecting Wolverhampton to Walsall and Birmingham City Centre to Birmingham Airport. Unfortunately however in 1997 Centro had to concede that it was unable to find funding for it's ambitious 3 line tram network.

In 2005 The Nation Audit Office concluded that line had not reached it's full potential of 8m passengers a year, instead the number of passengers using the line reached a plateau of around 5m which was still the case in 2015. The reason given was that line did not serve Birmingham City Centre, stopping instead just outside at Snow Hill Station.

The trams

The line was served by 16 T-69 trams built by AnsaldoBreda in Italy, each tram had a capacity of 156 passengers, 100 standing and 56 seated. The trams were refurbished in 2013, yet only a year later the trams were phased out as new replacement trams arrived.

Between 2014 and 2015 the entire fleet of T-69 trams was replaced with 21 Urbos 3 trams built by CAF in Spain. These vehicles had a capacity of 210, 156 standing and 54 seated. The £40m contract for the new trams included the construction of a new maintenance facility at Wednesbury.

Urbos 3 tram passing New Street station

New Street extension

The arrival of the new trams coincided with a turning point for the Midland Metro line and a new extension to Birmingham New Street station. Government approval for the 1.3km extension from Snow Hill to New Street via Colmore Circus, Upper Bull Street, Corporation Street and Stephenson Street was granted in February 2012.

Work on the extension began in June 2012 and it was hoped the the first services would be operating by March 2015. Unfortunately a series of delays meant that by December 2015 trams were only operating as far as Bull Street tram stop. It wasn't until May 2016 that trams finally began serving New Street.

Urbos 3 tram at Birmingham New Street stop

The Future

A further boost came to Midland Metro in June 2016 when the then Secretary of State for Transport Patrick McLoughlin gave the go ahead to a £18m extension of the line in Wolverhampton. The project will extend the line along Pipers Row with stops at the bus station and the city’s railway station. The scheduled opening date for the extension is 2019.

Plans to extended the line from New Street to Centenary Square by 2019 are also at an advanced stage. Currently the line terminates at the junction of Stephenson St and Pinfold St. At this point trams turn back to make the return journey to Wolverhampton.

Stephenson St is currently the end of the line

Tram approaching Snow Hill stop passing No. 2 Snow Hill

Tram bound for New Street stands at Snow Hill stop

With a new sense of optimism and with HS2 on the horizon plans are now being drawn up to build a new line branching out from Corporation Street to Curzon Street and further still to Birmingham Airport. There are also plans for an extension to Edgbaston which it is hoped will open in 2021.

It may have taken several decades but appears that the West Midlands may finally get a network worthy of it's size and importance.

Follow us on Twitter - Facebook For more information e-mail Blog@EngineeringFocus.co.uk

Birmingham New Street redevelopment

On Sunday the 21st of September (2015) Network Rail finally unveiled the new enlarged concourse at Birmingham New Street station. The culmination of 5 years work requiring the effort of 1000 engineers working on site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The new concourse which is the size of 13 Wimbledon centre courts is now bathed in light thanks to a new 3,300 square meter roof made from steel and ETFE (Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene). The new roof introduces light to the station for the first time since the Brutalist concrete station was built to replace the original station in the 1960s.

The impressive roof which covers the new concourse

The £600m project to refurbish the station was part of a larger £750m development which also included the redevelopment of the old Pallasades shopping centre. The shopping centre now re-branded as Grand Central contains 200,00 sq ft of retail space as well as a new 250,000 flagship John Lewis store

Exterior of John Lewis and the "Media Eye" at the Southside exit

The £600m price tag of the station development may come as a surprise, especially considering that no new train capacity has been provided, however there was never any doubt that the station was in need of major redevelopment.

Birmingham New St is the busiest station outside of London serving 170,000 passengers every day, despite the fact the 1960's station was only designed to handle about half that number. The new station concourse and platform alterations will enable the station to handle almost double the number served today. 

In order to accommodate so many passengers, 30 new escalators and 15 new lifts have been installed, as well as 6 separate entry/exit points each with 10 ticket gates. Below the concourse all 12 platforms will be improved to allow better passenger flow and to open up the platform level making it seem less claustrophobic. Work was still underway on platform 5 on the day of my visit. 

The view through the de-cluttered platform level

An engineering train stands at platform 5 where work is still ongoing

Despite being the busiest station outside of London the 5 year development of the station continued whilst it remained open to the public. This was achieved by phasing the works, with a small concourse area developed first which opened in 2013. This allowed for the closure of a much larger area which involved the closure of the Smallbrook Queensway exit. 

The closure of the exit allowed for the massive task of the removal of 20,000 tonnes of concrete to create the new atrium. In order to bring light to the new concourse enormous holes were cut through several floors made of steel reinforced concrete. The removal of concrete relied on the use of special remotely operated excavators which allowed the operator to work safely from a distance whilst the machine broke up the structural concrete.

In order to reduce the impact of the development on commuters and people working and living within the city Network Rail made use of trains to transport waste material away. The use of trains saved 10,000 lorry journeys from the city centres roads. 

There was still a lot of work ongoing during my visit on the 22nd of September, Platform 5 was still being refurbished and external work is still yet to be complete on the Stephenson Street exit. Despite this passengers and members of the public were still able to enjoy the new atrium and the striking architectural features on the Southside and Smallbrook Queensway exists. 

Work continuing on the external features of the Stephenson Street exit. 

A few images of the striking architectural features, such as the reflective cladding and "media eye"

Some may question the £600m cost of the redevelopment, however I doubt that many will question that the station was in dire need of development or the success of the development itself. The building is striking and along with the Bullring it is a genuine architectural asset to the city. More importantly though the station now works for passengers and has enabled it to handle an ever increasing number of passengers.

The numbers

• £750m Total development cost

• 1000 engineers worked 24/7 for 5 years

• 20,000 tonnes of concrete removed to create the atrium 

• 3,300 square metre roof made from steel and ETFE

• 170,000 passengers use the station every day 

• 10,000 lorry journeys saved by using rail to remove waste 

• 30 new escalators installed

• 15 new lifts installed 

• 13 centre courts at Wimbledon, the size of the new concourse

More pictures can be found on our Facebook page