Inbound CAF Urbos tram at Jewellery Quarter, with the railway station directly to the left
Birmingham, the centre of
the West Midlands, was the last stop on this year's extensive visits
to all the tram and metro systems in the U.K, in preparation for my
forthcoming 'Tram Atlas Britain & Ireland' due to be published
towards the end of October 2015. Many years ago, in 1988/89, I
actually lived around here, working as a language assistant in
Walsall, but at that time the tram, of course, did not exist, and
even the suburban rail system, except for the Cross City Line, were
considered rather pathetic, and Walsall was rarely served by trains
from Birmingham.
In the meantime I had been
back several times, but not since the entire fleet of original
Ansaldobreda trams had been replaced by the new CAF Urbos trams. The
only thing I liked about the Ansaldos was there colourful livery, but
as trams they never convinced me, too small, felt too narrow, and
well, apparently they had lots of wiring and other problems so that,
like in Manchester, they withdrew them long before their actual
normal life would have expired.
Now back to Birmingham,
first on a day trip from Nottingham on Monday, 7 September, and again
a few days later on my way back from the Isle of Man, the first
impression when I got onto the new CAF trams was how wide (2.65 m)
and spacious they feel. And with an increased length, they certainly
offer double the capacity. Their interior purple and green design is
nice, and would actually also fit the Nottingham trams (the two lines
there are now shown in green and purple).
Purple & green interior of CAF Urbos trams, though with rather hard seats
When I had seen the first
pictures, I was wondering, like many other people did, whether pink
was a good option for a modern tramway (not even purple and pink
loving France uses that colour on the outside of trams....), but I
have to say, they look good, it's a nice pink, not magenta, and it is
not used exaggeratedly, in fact the dominating colour is white with
some grey and pink. The seats are rather hard though, and the
wheelsets not too well spring-suspended, so the ride is o.k. on good
railway track, but a bit bumpy when running over points, and probably
also on the future street running sections. I just realise, I didn't
ride them on the long street-running section between Priestfield and
The Royal, because I walked that stretch to take pictures (there
should really be an intermediate stop on this section!).
Like Sheffield, the
'Midland Metro' as it is sometimes called, has not really seen any
extensions since it first opened in 1999, despite modest plans to add
some. With some delays and being built at crawling speed, as it
seems, a short city centre extension is finally becoming a reality
possibly before the end of the year (although seeing the state of
construction right now in mid-September, I would even doubt that!).
The original line has always suffered from its somewhat marginal
existence. In Birmingham, the terminus has been hidden away inside
Snow Hill Station, accessible via a very slow lift or a long flight
of stairs (upwards there is an escalator, too). Apparently, the
second track there has not been used for a long time, so the line is
virtually single-track from Snow Hill to St. Pauls. The platforms
are just about long enough to accommodate one of the new CAF trams,
so when there are problems (and I saw one tram stuck there because of
a door failure), a second tram can come into the station, but
passengers need to step down to street level to get off).
Improvised boarding at Snow Hill during problems with tram in the rear
Leaving
Snow Hill, on the right you can see that track laying has just begun
on what will become the new Snow Hill stop at the very end of the
railway station, but the trackbed where old and new lines should be
connected has hardly been prepared yet.
The line gets double-track
just before reaching St. Pauls stop, from where the tram continues
on an old railway route all the way to Priestfield. This is mostly a
grade-separated route, but being an old railway it is badly
integrated with the areas it serves. Most stops are in a cutting and
rather deserted, so waiting there may not be too pleasant, especially
after dark. Except for the major stations along the route, like West
Bromwich Central or Bilston Central, which have major bus
connections, the intermediate stops have few passengers. At
Wednesbury, one of the major towns along the route, both stops are
quite a long way outside of the town centre, with none of them being
directly served by any buses either.
Birmingham-bound CAF Urbos tram on street-running section between The Royal and Priestfield
The street-running section
from Priestfield to the Wolverhampton terminus does not seem to cause
many problems, maybe during rush hours, but as said before, there
should be an additional stop. It was curious to learn that they have
actually reduced the Wolverhampton terminus from two to just one
track. As a passenger, I always find it extremely annoying when you
have to wait outside the station because the terminus is still
occupied by the departing tram. There can be many reasons for that
tram to stay there longer than normal, so if the terminus has to be
single-track, then there should at least be a secondary platform for
people to get off the incoming tram. Anyway, I couldn't see a reason
really why they removed the second track:
On the right, removed second track at Wolverhampton terminus
Probably saves them a few
pounds in maintenance at the cost of risking their reputation due to
more delays. I'm sure it is not because the line may be diverted to
the railway station anyway. Who knows whenever or if ever that will
happen, as there have been many projects for Wolverhampton and
nothing has happened. The current terminus is actually quite well
located for the central shopping area, and if the line is extended to
the railway station, this situation will in fact get worse, so I'd
suggest to keep the current terminus, too, and have every other tram
terminate here, and the other go to the railway station instead.
The Birmingham city centre
extension, when open, will certainly give the tram a completely new
presence in the city, many people who never use the tram will
actually see it regularly. The route will, however, be very slow as
the trams will run down the busy Corporation Street where pedestrians
will cross the tracks at any point. So, in about 20 years, like in
Manchester, talks will start about a second city crossing.
State of construction at Bull Street stop in mid-September 2015
Some
preliminary construction has also started on the follow-on extension
from New Street Station via Victoria Square (City Hall) to Centenary
Square, but I guess this extension will take a few years to be built
as it involves a completely new road layout between the latter two,
where the once motorway-like inner ring road will be rebuilt to
become a more urban space once again. A further extension down Broad
Street to Five Ways, which has always been a priority, will be a bit
trickier as despite its name, Broad Street is not really a wide
street and either shared street running will have to be chosen, or
current road traffic will have to be almost completely diverted onto
other roads instead.
For many years still,
Birmingham will have just a single tram line, although plans have
already been published for a branch to the future high-speed rail
station and Digbeth. But Birmingham still lacks the big vision, a
real 'big bang' Manchester was able to make a reality, and despite
being the larger city, in this respect Birmingham is running years
behind Manchester. The West Midlands have a dense and rather good bus
network with good maps and quite good information, almost at level
with Greater London, but the buses are slow and get quite full as I
could experience yesterday when I travelled a long way across the
county to get from Stourbridge to the Black Country Living Museum and
then on to the tram at Wednesbury Parkway.
S-Bahn-style Cross City Line at Selly Oak
The West Midlands are
served by various regional railways, most operated by London Midland
(among them the funny shuttle train at Stourbridge), with the
north-south Cross City Line offering a train every 10 minutes for
most of the day within the City of Birmingham. Unfortunately, like
all the other routes, the efficiency of this S-Bahn-style service is
significantly reduced by the bottleneck at New Street. It seems that
trains always have to queue up to enter the station, and then there
is quite a long buffer anyway, so for passengers travelling across
the city centre, it is a slow service. Starting with this line, they
should really separate different services properly, for example by
building a dedicated flyover east of New Street and operate this line
separately using the southernmost tracks at New Street exclusively or
shared by only similar services. This way trains could run without
any hassle through New Street station, the way German S-Bahn system
do in cities like Frankfurt or Stuttgart (although in those places
sometimes too many S-Bahn lines are bundled and they have to queue
again...). For whatever reason, the similar, though not as frequent
east-west service between Wolverhampton and Coventry seems to be
split at New Street, so that many passengers travelling, for example,
from Wolverhampton or intermediate stations to the airport will have
to change trains, although they can also use long-distance Arriva
Wales or Virgin trains. Also, stopping patterns between New Street
and the airport station (called Birmingham International) are a bit
strange if you want to travel just between two of the intermediate
stations, e.g. from Marston Green to Stechford. So, like in all other
places in the U.K., I miss a clear distinction between what are local
and all-stopping services and regional or long-distance services,
although on the other hand I like the fact that tickets are valid on
all sorts of trains. Line numbers would be great again, although I
have almost given up convincing the British that line numbers are a
nice and useful thing. But unfortunately even the well-established
term 'Cross City Line' is no longer used officially, they just
announce it as 'a London Midland service to Redditch', for example.
Funny diesel-powered people mover on Stourbridge Town Branch Line
If you ask me, the entire
project with the new high-speed rail station planned at Curzon Street
east of the city centre is completely wrong. I understand that they
want to build a new line from London to Birmingham and north, simply
to increase capacity, but the potential reduction of travel times
will be so insignificant that it is not really worth creating a
separate system with a separate terminus. Though not too far from New
Street, it is too far to consider it part of the station complex, and
what passengers will gain in journey time to London they will lose on
their way to the new station. Especially those taking a train into
Birmingham to catch a fancy new high-speed train to London will not
be on the winning side, instead they have to add at least half an
hour to get from one station to the other, no matter how they will do
that, walking, or waiting for a tram, which will eventually crawl
between the two stations, whereas now they just need to change
platforms within a recently upgraded and pleasant station. But given
the capacity constraints of New Street Station as described above,
why didn't they design a real Birmingham Central Station, instead of
just a high-speed terminus and relocate all long-distance services
there, plus a full-scale station for all suburban services? At the
same time the entire East End of the city could be properly
developed. As the eastern approach lines to New Street actually pass
close by the future high-speed terminus, I can only hope that in the
end a new station will be added adjacent to it, so that all suburban
trains can actually serve Curzon Street directly. Another option
would have been to build additional platforms in tunnel below the
current New Street station, similar to what has been done in Zurich.
Ticketwise, the West
Midlands have quite good fare integration, but looking at the booklet
about fares and tickets, I would say there are too many different
types of tickets, so what we call the 'fare jungle' in Germany, also
applies to many British cities. To explore the entire system within
the West Midlands boundaries, a Daytripper for 6.40 GBP is the best
option, it's valid on all buses, the tram and all trains, but make
sure the rail station you're travelling to is still within the area,
as those zonal maps are not posted anywhere, so you'd better check
beforehand by getting this booklet, for example. On the tram, like in
Sheffield, tickets are sold by a conductor, there are no ticket
vending-machines on platforms. To explore just the tram line, there
is also a cheaper Metro Daytripper ticket (5.60 GBP). On weekdays,
Daytripper tickets are valid only after 09:30!
LINKS
Midland Metro (Official website)
Birmingham at UrbanRail.Net
