Work on the reopening of the Camp Hill Line in south Birmingham, UK, continues in earnest as it moves closer to becoming operational in Autumn 2025. The building of three new stations will provide faster and more reliable transport to the local community, which has dramatically grown since the original stations were closed over 80 years ago as part of the Beeching Cuts.
Part of the West Midlands Rail Programme (WMRP), the project is restoring passenger rail services to Mosely Village, Kings Heath and Pineapple Road, and is predicted to shorten travel times into central Birmingham by up to 31 minutes.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Costing over £60m, which has been invested by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), Department for Transport (DfT) and the Birmingham City Council’s clean air zone fund, the new services are predicted to replace up to 25% of local car journeys, also reducing congestion and pollution.
“Increasing the public transport options does a number of things – it connects communities where those connections don’t currently exist, gives people better access to education and employment, and improves journey times,” notes Kate Trevorrow, rail delivery director at Transport for West Midlands.
“This route roughly follows that of Alcester Road, one of the most congested roads in Birmingham. These congested neighbourhoods are desperate for these stations, to allow their journeys to become quicker and more reliable.”
Bringing new stations and services online
Much of the WMRP work revolves around rebuilding existing stations including Perry Barr and University, so this project has been a bit of a step change for the organisation, as the focus here is bringing new stations and services online.
Planning permission for the project was secured in October 2020, followed by a full business case and funding approval in early 2021. As principal contractor, VolkerFitzpatrick was appointed to design and build the three new fully accessible stations.
Each station will have two platforms suitable for six-car trains, pedestrian footbridges, stairs and lifts, ticket machines, information systems and secure bike parking. Pineapple Road and Moseley Village will also have a pick-up and drop-off area.
An important part of the design work was ensuring the stations were resilient to potential risks caused by climate change. This included ensuring the size of attenuation tanks and drainage runs could accommodate certain magnitude storms and flash flooding.
The design of the lifts was also altered to ensure they would remain operational during the increasingly hot weather we’re likely to experience. Having completed the enabling works and started putting in platform units, workers are now getting ready for the next stage of construction, which focuses on the superstructures.
“Across all three stations, you’ll really see their shape and footprint now. We’re out of the ground and finishing the platform units, then we’ll start to do the drainage work, put canopies in and then the superstructures; lifts and footbridges,” says Trevorrow. “That work will continue into the middle of 2025, the year that our focus changes from construction to readiness to start services.”
Badgers and bombs
While on track to complete work on time, this project hasn’t been without its challenges. At Moseley Village, for example, there were several issues to overcome. Firstly, they discovered a badger set on site; as a protected species the animals had to be relocated before main works could begin.
“Unfortunately, they returned, which had an impact on our programme,” Trevorrow explains. “As a protected species, we couldn’t relocate them during hibernation or breeding season, so we had to put a pause on that particular part of the project.”
Another issue is that Moseley Village is a very congested site, as the station is located in a deep cutting adjacent to a tunnel and the access down into the railway corridor is limited. This required the team to install 1,400 soil nails to stabilise the slopes, but before they could do this, they had to check the entire location for unexploded ordinance.
“Birmingham was heavily bombed during World War Two, so as a result this is something we have to check for. That work was quite an engineering challenge, given the angle of the slopes at that location,” she says.
The project has also had to deal with several historic assets including an uncharted well at Kings Heath and a listed wall at Pineapple Road. “We had to take it down brick by brick and then put it back up using those same bricks,” Trevorrow says.
When it came to timetabling, compromises had to be made due to constraints at Birmingham New Street station.
“Due to tunnels at either end of the station, there had to be compromises around what the timetable will look like,” Trevorrow explains. “It used to be six trains an hour that run on the Cross-City Line, but two of those services are now going to run on the Camp Hill Line.
“It’s worth noting, however, that the Midland Rail Hub has the potential to change this,” she continues. “Services could run into Moor Street through the West Chord, and if there are alterations at King’s Norton that free up capacity, you could increase services, but this is dependent on future works.”
Project success
Project success isn’t about building infrastructure, it’s about getting people on trains, reducing cars on the road, and enabling quicker, more reliable journeys says Trevorrow. With the Camp Hill Line, the focus is on creating small stations that feel ‘owned’ by the community and serve their needs.
Upon completion, it’s forecast that there will be a million journeys a year made on the new line, “which will have a massive impact on the local transport network – there will be a huge benefit,” she enthuses.
Trevorrow concludes by highlighting that the success of this project is down to taking a whole industry approach.
“While we’re building the infrastructure, it will be West Midlands Trains operating services, and Network Rail will become the asset owner. To bring all these elements together and get new services at new stations we all need to work closely.
“Next year, for example, we’ve got to think about driver training and how these stations are going to be operated,” Trevorrow continues. “So we’re working really closely with all our rail industry partners to get the best outcome for the local community and get more people on trains!”
