I would definitely suspect so. Having used the station regularly for the past five years, I have witnessed many times people travelling ticketless through the station – often willing to take their chances with the ticket barriers at Five Ways or New St.
Yes, ive noticed them open more often recently, along with the ones at Five Ways. University to Five Ways is a popular passenger flow, as is University to Selly Oak, where there are no barriers.
Trains at 10 minutes are gone never to return unfortunately, according to WMR's statements to Modern Railways. They're permanently bringing the Cross City Line to 4tph. I hope they at least change it from the stupid way this is being done now, where you'll have ten minutes between two trains, then twenty minutes until the next...
Good luck with that...
Yeah I knew better than getting my hopes up don't worry.
And where did this group end up? That's right, university accommodation...
There is no desire by West Midlands Rail Executive nor Network Rail to permanently move to 4tph on the Cross City Line indeed Dave Penney in Modern Railways has been misinterpreted as he is quoted in the article as saying "Mr Penney thinks that at some point in the future 6tph will be required again" so the two unused paths per hour will be retained .
That's certainly not what I took from that article. Even that language is deliberately vague, and seems to have the perverse effect of saddling us with 4tph at uneven intervals for years, because the other two paths might be needed "at some point in the future" so you can't rewrite the timetable for 15 minute intervals...
I think the station was built in the late 1970s. The style was established for many of the stations. My favourite was Five Ways.
Bigger stuff happens in the summer, various Sunday blocks in the plan.
There were repeated announcements* about a line closure between New Street and (I think) Bromsgrove; presumably this is related to the rebuild?
For the sake of accuracy the Modern railways article goes on to say ".....is optimistic that 6 trains per hour frequency will be needed at at some point in the future......"
Which is about as close to "no plans for the foreseeable future" as you can get without saying so.
I appreciate that, what you can't see is often the most important. However, to the uninitiated it does rather look like they've just dumped a lorry load of stone and given up for the day with the piling work! (For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not suggesting this is the case!
)Yes, it is.I appreciate that, what you can't see is often the most important. However, to the uninitiated it does rather look like they've just dumped a lorry load of stone and given up for the day with the piling work! (For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not suggesting this is the case!
Is it still on track to be finished in time for the Commonwealth Games? I suppose if it was behind schedule, they might be working at the weekend, so the absence of any activities suggests to me that it's going reasonably well.
That's good to hear, hopefully it'll stay that way!
Andy Street has a quick video with the site manager who suggests you will see some major works here soon.
Camp Hill new stations won't work with 6tph Cross City...
Simple solution: build the track diagram shown in the West Midlands route study from a few years ago, with all that lovely grade separation...
If hypothetically the central platforms were reinstated with full electrification through the station, would this provide the additional flexibility? Say if the southbound cross-city services ran through what would be the new platform 2 before switching to the down slow, whilst the Camp Hill services terminated in the new platform 4 (current P2), or it is the conflict with the current moves across the junction that is problematic?
I presume that you are refering to conflicts at Kings Norton. My understanding from information given by WMCA a year or so ago is that the present Worcester/Malvern trains will no longer call at University but will be diverted via the Camp Hill Line to serve the new stations. This was a compromise to avoid having to build the new curves at Bordesley into Moor Street. I personally do not think that will work because passengers for stations beyond Bromsgrove wiil have to compete with local traffic on the Camp Hill Line to get on their trains. In the longer term, although Covid might have changed projections, I think that the demand for the Camp Hill service will build up requiring more than 2tph.