SHA Small Heath Alliance

Apologies if been covered before but this reopened Camp Hill Line (hopefully next year or two) will pass very close to the new Sports Quarter so I was wondering if there were plans to incorporate it by the addition of a station/halt along its stretch at the midway point between Moseley village and New Street stations and if not why not?

Would seem a no brainer the ability to run direct trains to the sports quarter from Kings Norton, Solihull and Shirley three hotbeds of Blues support?

There are currently no plans for it.

The cutting the line is in is deep and the sides are steep with building right up to the edge so it would be very difficult (not impossible, Nik Zigic).

That being said, on the overview renders of what the SQ site looks like released by KH at the Open House, there is a building in the rough area of where the Camp Hill Line meets the WCML so maybe there are some tentative ideas in the works, but I'll believe it when I'm getting off a train there.

Solihull and Shirley are on different lines to this so even if there is a station there there won't be any trains to these places. There is a chord connecting the lines but having additional trains into New Street from different places on a new service rather than having an additional stop on an existing service is a different ballgame due to capacity issues.

Can see the capacity issues at New Street so how about a service that doesn't even go into town instead loops out forming an East Birmingham arc or crescent with the Sports Quarter at the hub of this network. I think might be worth considering even if as you suggest the cutting is very deep set

Unlikely there would be enough patronage for a service that doesn't go into the city centre to be viable outside of a match day.

Football/event specials could be a thing, but as it stands there is next to no spare rolling stock so it'd mean reducing frequency on other lines in the city which obviously isn't ideal.

That being said Chiltern basically suspend operations on the Marylebone-Aylesbury trains when there's a big event on at Wembley so they can provide extra trains to the stadium, so it is theoretically possible. Different TOCs will work differently but yeah it could happen, maybe.

There's a real risk of the council underestimating IMHO the demand for regular service between Pineapple Road and Spring Road changing at Sports Quarter thus saving folks the hassle of having to negotiate the (by then) 4 months long Xmas markets.

Seriously if they are shooting for a 365 days per year destination in the next decade there will need to be increased transit options over and above east Birmingham's current road system. Extended metro line is one of them but there needs to be more because of the location they've landed on it needs to be somewhere you can visit without having to through town like you can at many other stadiums nearby - Molineux the exception as it is smack bang in their town centre

Adderley Park will take up any non event day transportation slack.

The vast majority of people will be coming from the city centre, even if they do live in the south Brum outskirts.

Molineux is outside the Ring road. It's just that Wolvo is tiny in comparison to Brum
Hence the delightful subways to get to it from the city centre.

Also what we need is a monorail.
Preferably Maglev

Dingle dangle Wuppertal or Dresden style upside down thingy from Rotunda to Sports Quarter then looping round to Edgbaston via a revitalised Balti Triangle is surely the way to go

However not wanting to stray to far into my favourite topic to me at least it just seems a passed up opportunity if the Camp Hill line is there and a few hundred folks per day are going to be passing by the sports quarter en route from town to Moseley. Nothing fancy. A London underground style halt with elevator access to street level and if capacity is an issue then how about they re-route some of the Nuneaton/Tamworth trains into Moor Street or something ?

mad

Dingle dangle Wuppertal or Dresden style upside down thingy from Rotunda to Sports Quarter then looping round to Edgbaston via a revitalised Balti Triangle is surely the way to go

However not wanting to stray to far into my favourite topic to me at least it just seems a passed up opportunity if the Camp Hill line is there and a few hundred folks per day are going to be passing by the sports quarter en route from town to Moseley. Nothing fancy. A London underground style halt with elevator access to street level and if capacity is an issue then how about they re-route some of the Nuneaton/Tamworth trains into Moor Street or something ?

If it was that easy they’d probably already be doing it

Just hope they're not falling back on a single metro extension and fleets of 1875 buses. A comprehensive transport overhaul for the area needs to be undertaken. Otherwise we'll just be moving to a glorified Madjeski or Reebok stadium

mad

Otherwise we'll just be moving to a glorified Madjeski or Reebok stadium

That truly is bonkers

mad

Just hope they're not falling back on a single metro extension and fleets of 1875 buses. A comprehensive transport overhaul for the area needs to be undertaken. Otherwise we'll just be moving to a glorified Madjeski or Reebok stadium

Dunno if you’ve heard but they got 2.6billion in funding - that’s not just for the metro extension.

Wagner’s Dream

mad

Otherwise we'll just be moving to a glorified Madjeski or Reebok stadium

That truly is bonkers

No. It’s mad.

Wagner’s Dream

mad

Otherwise we'll just be moving to a glorified Madjeski or Reebok stadium

That truly is bonkers

And so out of character as well