Little Used Lines in Birmingham

[DavidGrain]

Next Saturday 26th May 2018 There will be no trains in or out of the east end of Birmingham New Street Station. Bus replacements on the lines to International and Coventry, Sutton Coldfield and Lichfield, Walsall. Cross Country trains to/from Oxford and further south will require passengers to travel between Birmingham and Leamington Spa by Chiltern trains.

Cross Country trains to the East and North East will run via the Birmingham West Suburban Line and the Camp Hill line. This means that passenger trains will run over the following lines

Lifford Curve usually used only by ECS workings
Camp Hill Line usually only used in passenger service by XC trains to/from Bristol and South West
St Andrews Junction Landor Street Junction normally freight only

I am planning with a few friends to be on one of these trains which will mean that I have over the years travelled on every line within the Birmingham city boundary

 

[45rpm]

In the late evening a few services are also being routed via Soho.Perry Barr,Walsall & Sutton Park.

 

[DavidGrain]

Yes, I have just become aware of the use of the Sutton Park Line.

A few years ago I did a trip to Derby when, because of engineering work, we went via Lichfield, a route I had done occasionally on Sunday services from Yorkshire. We chose to come back from Derby on a Nottingham-Cardiff train as these were running via Sutton Park.

Last year I managed to complete every path through the Soho Loop in both directions as I was on an excursion train which ran from Soho North Junct to Perry Barr North junct. This train also did the Galton Curve but I had done that during the years that Birmingham Snow Hill was closed. XC have services over the Galton Curve at beginning and end of service daily

I had done the Aston Stetchford Line by accident back in BR days when I got on a Wolverhampton train at Birmingham International expecting it to stop at New Street. I did not realise that it was non-stop to Wolverhampton via the Aston Stetchford line and the Soho Loop. In the days of the late lamented Wrexham and Shropshire Railway, Tame Bridge Parkway to Marylebone via Aston and Stetchford was my preferred route to London.

The Camp Hill line I have done often on XC services to Bristol. It is only in the past week that I have discovered that WMR have a service every Saturday afternoon over this line from Worcester Shrub Hill

 

[DavidGrain]

Just to report that I did do a journey from Birmingham New Street to Nuneaton and return last Saturday thereby completing my plan to cover every railway line within the Birmingham city boundary. On the return journey back on the Birmingham West Suburban, we passed many XC trains in the opposite direction either going to Bristol & beyond or to Derby and Yorkshire. I have checked on RTT to see if any of the local WMR trains had been cancelled to provide paths for these extra trains. Very interested to see that many of the WMR cancelled trains were actually running to/from Bromsgrove. Obviously running to a dummy unadvertised timetable