I use Solihull station everyday and it is becoming busier and busier, like many provincial places where the roads nearby get gridlocked in the morning.
What gets me is that it has quite slender platforms yet gets packed during the peaks and has trains travelling through at speed - the Reading/Manchester XC and some freight services come through at 60mph+. It's not always possible to 'stand behind the yellow line' without nudging and pushing people over towards the other platform or squashing up by the walls.
There is talk of increasing capacity with more stairs etc. but I expect nothing will happen for at least 5 years. Two LM trains arrived at Moor Street this morning, bursting London style and I don't know how they all fitted in. A train left with about 8 people on it the other way to Whitlock's End (it's as remote as it sounds). Bizarre timetabling.
No trains from Solihull go to New St (understandably), so there's an unwelcome walk through the Bull Ring in Brum for hundreds of people an hour.
When things get worse (which they will), will speed restrictions come in to mitigate the danger for people near the platform edge in future? As is the case around the country, public transport always seems years behind the needs of the people.
What gets me is that it has quite slender platforms yet gets packed during the peaks and has trains travelling through at speed - the Reading/Manchester XC and some freight services come through at 60mph+. It's not always possible to 'stand behind the yellow line' without nudging and pushing people over towards the other platform or squashing up by the walls.
There is talk of increasing capacity with more stairs etc. but I expect nothing will happen for at least 5 years. Two LM trains arrived at Moor Street this morning, bursting London style and I don't know how they all fitted in. A train left with about 8 people on it the other way to Whitlock's End (it's as remote as it sounds). Bizarre timetabling.
No trains from Solihull go to New St (understandably), so there's an unwelcome walk through the Bull Ring in Brum for hundreds of people an hour.
When things get worse (which they will), will speed restrictions come in to mitigate the danger for people near the platform edge in future? As is the case around the country, public transport always seems years behind the needs of the people.