Rail renaissance in the West Midlands

A related project, which has been on the backburner for some years but which now needs taking forward as part of this overall scheme, particularly to allow extra services into Birmingham from the Derby and Leicester directions, is to fully four-track the railway between Water Orton and Birmingham. 

A previous scheme, then costed at around £35 million, was a candidate for the current Control Period 5 (2014-2019). Rackliff says that while the concept proposed then does not address all of today’s issues, “the problem of capacity here and into central Birmingham still needs to be tackled and it needs to be tackled soon. We need to do this and the Camp Hill Chords together.”

Rackliff agrees that progressing the Chords and related schemes is becoming urgent if they are to be completed before 2026, although negotiations are still continuing with regard to scope and funding. 

The WMITA’s draft Strategic Transport Plan - Movement for Growth (RAIL 784) - proposes the establishment of a ‘West Midlands Transport Investment Fund’ linked to local levies, to raise a significant proportion of the funding needed for this and the other schemes in the 20-year blueprint. “We think we have defined where the money for the STP could come from, but the package isn’t fully put together as yet,” says Rackliff. 

The Camp Hill Chords, Snow Hill Platform 4 and Water Orton four–tracking schemes should also align with Network Rail’s West Midlands and Chilterns Route Study due to be published early in 2016, and which is expected to highlight the need to resolve the ‘Capacity Challenge’.

The economic value of improving transport connectivity between the main centres in the East and West Midlands (through schemes such as Water Orton) is also being considered as part of the wider ‘Midlands Connect’ initiative, which is designed to support the Midlands’ “Engine for Growth” ambitions.  

“The strategic case for progressing the Camp Hill project, which meets many diverse objectives, is becoming overwhelming,” Rackliff tells RAIL. “Given the growth in rail traffic we’ve seen in recent years and the need to access HS2 at Curzon Street from 2026, undertaking this project can be delayed no longer.”

A more detailed overview of the region’s aspirations for rail can be found in A Rail Vision for the West Midlands, published in Autumn 2014.

But one topic that warrants particular attention is HS2 connectivity in the West Midlands, with Holmes highlighting the potential if it is delivered to best effect. “Work done by WMITA/Centro has indicated that the economic benefits of HS2 are doubled if you get the local connectivity right and maximise the benefits by spreading them out across the wider region,” he says.

Thus there is a strong emphasis in the West Midlands to really make the local rail network connect well with HS2 services to the major cities, not just London. That will require a great deal of capital expenditure, and in the case of the West Midlands the timescale is (in railway terms) short. (The Midlands HS2 Growth Strategy, already submitted to Government, can be found on the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP website.)

And, of course, the West Midlands will have TWO HS2 hubs. The second, dubbed Birmingham Interchange, is just as strategically important as Curzon Street, being located close to Birmingham International station and Birmingham Airport. 

While there will need to be a quick and efficient ‘people mover’ for transferring passengers between those three facilities, the HS2 station here can also be considered the natural interchange for rail passengers coming from the likes of Warwick and Coventry, and from Walsall and Wolverhampton, and who may prefer the people mover link to the alternative of changing stations in central Birmingham (see panel).

Rackliff notes that the present intention is for most HS2 services to/from Curzon Street to also stop at Interchange.

“But that does not really help us from a regional perspective, and there would be far greater economic and transport connectivity benefits if the HS2 services heading for the North and Scotland stopped at Interchange. 

“As an example, once HS2 Phase 2 is complete, passengers travelling from Coventry to Manchester or Leeds could potentially save an hour’s journey time by changing here. And whether passengers ride HS2 from Curzon Street or Interchange, journey times from the West Midlands to the North’s major cities, particularly Leeds and Manchester, could be halved - something that will be of considerable economic benefit to both regions.”

Rackliff concludes that HS2 is all about capacity: “The key thing that HS2 does is give the capacity for more trains on key parts of the existing network so we can grow the local markets further - for example, by increasing the number of cross-Birmingham local services between the Black Country and Birmingham Airport/Coventry, and allowing new semi-fast services to be developed from regional towns such as Walsall to destinations such as London or the North West.”

The advent of HS2 means many things, but in rail terms it particularly means some serious infrastructure projects on the existing lines being delivered before 2026, for the full benefits of the new high-speed line to be maximised and spread across the wider region. Any future fully devolved West Midlands franchise - starting (say) in 2024 - will need to be very flexible so as to best exploit the capacity and opportunities that HS2 offers.

If the work of Watt and Boulton was a key element in the nascence of the nation’s railways, and of the West Midlands’ industrial might of the 1800s and 1900s, then the advent of HS2 - along with such developments as extensions of the West Midlands’ tram network alongside the realisation of franchise and infrastructure aspirations - could well herald a true renaissance for the region, delivered through the ‘Engine for Growth’ agenda. But politicians, investors and project developers will have to move speedily and surely to ensure that the fullest gains are enjoyed. 

• This feature was published in RAIL 785 (October 14 - 27 2015)