Chase Line trains to be diverted to Snow Hill?
Half-hourly proposal for 2002 still on the boil
Electrifcation case goes to SRA
SRA halts Central franchise replacement
Ticketless travel still a problem
Sunday trains for Rugeley - all day service
Next station stop - Bridgtown Parkway?
If it were to go ahead, the scheme could be bad news for Chase Line passengers. Snow Hill is a 10-15 minute walk from Birmingham New Street, where most onward connections are to be found. Trains from Snow Hill run to Stratford upon Avon, Stourbridge, Leamington and Kidderminster, with an hourly service to London run by Chiltern Trains. All other destinations would require a trek through the city centre, which could be nightmarish at night or with heavy luggage. Also, Snow Hill is a cold, windy and miserable station, with very few facilities. Toilets are regularly locked out of use, and the one shop has limited opening times (closed in the evenings and all day Sundays). An upgrade is urgently needed, and has been for several years.
STAFFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL'S LTP FOR 2000 has also been published on its website. It lists the electrification of the Walsall-Rugeley line as one of its five major schemes, although it acknowledges that it is not seeking any LTP money for this, instead expecting the rail industry to pay up. It appears that this is the council's view for all other rail projects as well, so everything mentioned should be viewed as unlikely until actual details of what is to be done and how are published. Staffordshire gives its service aspirations as 35 minutes Hednesford-Birmingham journey time, half hourly frequency and improved services north of Hednesford (including later into the evening). It would also like to see an upgrade of the principle stations on the line, although in terms of booking offices the document only states that rail companies will be "encouraged" to provide them, which I'm sure will make all the difference.
The plans have been forced by the redesign of the timetable for local trains running through New Street caused by a planned increase in trains on all of the Virgin CrossCountry routes. Arrival and departure slots have had to be amended, and to avoid the problem of arrival slots from Walsall at New Street being three minutes after departure slots back to Walsall, the two trains per hour all stations Walsall-Birmingham service is being linked with the Worcester services via Stourbridge, resulting in a through Walsall-Worcester service (though it is unclear whether just one or both of these all stations trains will be extended). The Birmingham-Walsall semi-express slots will be used by Chase Line trains, and as both the Chase Line and the Worcester line are without overhead electric power lines, the dieselisation of the entire Walsall service is necessary.
Although not specifically stated by Central Trains, it is believed that the Chase Line service may run as Birmingham - Hednesford - Birmingham - Stafford - Birmingham - Hednesford etc. This would allow a greater efficiency in the use of the Walsall line units. Speculating on this timetable, it looks as if Central Trains had been faced with a forty minute wait for one of its semi express trains, either at Walsall or Stafford, which would have wasted unit and staff time. Extending the train that terminated at Walsall to Hednesford could have been seen as the best option, even though the company would incur higher fuel costs (and possibly additional track access charges as well). As timings would be tight, it is likely that the extra service to Hednesford will miss out Bloxwich and Bloxwich North, which generate hardly any business during the day. This is all speculation, though, as the full planned timetable has not been published, and could change dramatically between now and implementation.
Although not set in stone, the proposals stand a good chance of getting through. Unfortunately, there appear to be two downsides. First, it could well weaken the case for electrification. Centro's bid for the upgrade scheme (in the WMPTA Local Transport Plan for 2000) contained very little detail and suggested that electrification was necessary for increased services and reduced timings - Central Trains's proposal shows that this isn't the case. The bid for the upgrade gave very few other benefits, and even suggested that the Chase Line currently terminates at Walsall and that the authority does not want to extend diesels to Birmingham to replace electric trains. This is inaccurate, and the worry of dieselisation academic now - it looks like being forced due to circumstance.
The second downside is that once the timetable is set, there is very little scope for changes in the short-term, so Rugeley Town is likely to be trapped in an hourly frequency for some time to come. Even electrification wouldn't shave enough time off the journeys to allow the train that will terminate at Hednesford to go through to Rugeley. Any rejigging of the timetable could be awkward.
Aside from the Walsall line, other changes are proposed for Birmingham services. The Cross City service will be increased to six trains an hour (which could make it the most intensive local service in the country), although not all stations will be served by the extra two trains. The Wolverhampton-Coventry local service will be split up into an all stations Wolverhampton - Birmingham International service and a Birmingham-Coventry service running semi express between New Street and Marston Green - both will run twice hourly, giving Marston Green and Birmingham International four Centro services an hour. An hourly all stations Birmingham - Derby - Matlock train is also on the cards, with existing Birmingham - Derby - Nottingham trains running semi express.
The WMPTA is not prepared to give up on the scheme yet, but they are currently not having much luck with their proposed heavy rail schemes. The proposal to reopen Longbridge to Frankley was apparently rejected last year, but is being submitted again this year. The plan to reopen Walsall-Stourbridge for passenger traffic is likely to be scrapped after a study showed that there was little demand. Nothing is known of the other schemes. The Government has given very few heavy rail schemes the go-ahead - only the more showy light-rail projects seem to be getting anywhere.
Both companies were said to be very surprised and disappointed, and Central Trains has called a halt to all of the schemes it was planning to fund itself, including various schemes around Nottingham. The company said that it couldn't afford to invest when it didn't know if it would hold the franchise in a few years' time. Investment in new trains has also been halted.
This would appear to be another failure on behalf of the Strategic Rail Authority. Its full Strategic Plan is not expected until this Autumn, a full year after it was due, and franchise replacement is six months behind schedule. It looks as if rail passengers in the area may have to wait until 2004 to see any future improvements to the local infrastructure.
Cannock Chase Council recently approved funding of £16,000, but is likely to have to pay £26,500 for the April 2001 to March 2002 period. A report put before the council last year, however, speculated that ticketless travel on the whole line could amount to as much as £66,000 a year.
The main problem appears to be that there are not enough staff to collect tickets. Although ticket collectors are employed on some trains, other trains rely on the conductor working on his own to collect fares and issue tickets while going back to the rear cab every four or five minutes to open and close doors. On Sundays and evenings, this is no problem, but on Saturday mornings, where one or both carriages is full to standing, a whole carriage of people can travel the full length without paying. And with ticket checks in the Birmingham - Stafford direction not very frequent, many people don't bother getting a ticket back at Walsall or Birmingham.
Cannock Council asked Centro to introduce a penalty fares scheme, but this is only permitted where ticket issuing facilities are available, and all intermediate Chase Line stations are currently unstaffed. However, it is believed that Staffordshire County Council have bid for money from the Government for ticket offices for Hednesford and Cannock, and possibly Rugeley Town as well. If this is the case, this would ease the problem considerably, as these stations are easily the busiest ones on the line, and a single conductor could issue tickets for passengers from other stations relatively easily.
Also changed is the Walsall-Wolverhampton service, which has been extended to Wellington via Telford and runs hourly from 6am until 10pm, Monday to Saturday. On Sundays the Walsall-Wolverhampton and Wolverhampton - Wellington/Shrewsbury services run separately. Unfortunately, this means that no Wolverhampton trains connect well with Chase Line ones - including the morning rush hour connection. Centro hope to eventually run a half-hourly service on this route, at which point connections would be better.
Unfortunately, patronage on the Sunday service along the Chase Line is not very high - in fact, lower on average than it was a couple of years ago. The likely cause for this is the number of bus replacements on the line, some of which were planned for in the timetable and some of which weren't. In the period May 2000 - April 2001, there have been 17 bus replacements along the line - the majority between Walsall and Rugeley/Hednesford, but some have been between Walsall and Birmingham. As the majority of the business on the Chase Line on Sundays is to and from Birmingham, any disruption to any part of the line affects most passengers. The worst example of bus replacement planning happened in December, when two weekends saw Walsall-Birmingham trains replaced by buses. Traditionally these are the busiest Sundays of the year - the bustitution drove off custom so that when the service ran through again a week before Christmas, the number of people using the trains were half that of the previous year. When people go for trains, they do not want slow, uncomfortable buses driven by people who have no idea where any of the stations are instead. Pick-up points are not planned, so passengers don't know where to wait, and buses stop at any point they can find that nearest the station. With eight more weeks of engineering works planned for the Summer, we can not expect patronage to increase signficantly at all.
Pay phones have also now started appearing at Chase Line stations. Booths have appeared at Bloxwich and Bloxwich North stations, although unfortunately both regularly see their glass kicked out. The booth at Bloxwich appears to have been converted from card and cash use to card use only, probably as a result of yobs stealing the money. And recently a pay phone was installed inside the weather shelter of platform 1 at Hednesford. This is a very positive move by whoever is responsible, although unfortunately the phone is often no use in the evenings when yobs occassionally occupy the shelters (although happily they appear to be being moved on now).
In addition, display monitors are now in operation at Walsall station. The monitors give details of the next departures from the platforms, with a departures list within the main booking area. Confusingly, however, a quarter of the daytime departures from Walsall to Birmingham are listed with the destination 'Stafford' - these are the trains that go along the Soho loop and pass through Birmingham New Street to head back to Stafford as one long continuous service.
Birmingham New Street's train departure board and monitors are due to be replaced this summer by new hi-tech versions. The old flip board currently in use is inflexible - new stations are hard to accommodate (the two Rugeley stations are lumped under 'Rugeley') and inaccuracies are common (the Birmingham-Hednesford evening and Sunday services are sometimes shown as travelling north of Walsall to Bloxwich, Bloxwich North and Chester). A new plasma screen display is to be used in the flip-board's place, and monitors will be updated. The system is expected to offer better and more up-to-date information.
The outline specifications for the station include a car park with spaces for 100 vehicles, plus set-down and pick-up points and bus stops, two platforms and a waiting room. Pedestrian access would be from the A34. Apart from serving local businesses and residential areas, it is hoped that the station will entice commuters off the two busy trunk roads nearby, and will provide much needed extra park and ride spaces (Cannock and Landywood station car parks are full almost every weekday by mid morning). The extremely successful Tame Bridge Parkway station, on the Walsall line, may be used as a template for the new station - it too lies on the edge of residential areas rather than in the middle, and entices passengers with its large car park and frequent services.
The feasibility study estimated that up to 90,000 passenger journeys per year could be made from the station, which would improve the chances of the line being electrified and the frequency doubled to half-hourly - the council's ultimate aim for the line. Railtrack is already investigating ways of improving the infrastructure to speed up journeys, and Centro is looking into possible ways of introducing extra capacity to services to cope with the additional passengers. One of the options being considered is electrification. (See elsewhere).
Originally named Churchbridge, Cannock Chase Councillors agreed to rename the station Bridgtown after complaints from local parish councillors. The site of the station, although near the Churchbridge junction, is actually within Bridgtown's boundaries, and councillors gave the okay to the name change at a recent meeting.
It is also understood that Staffordshire County Council have also thrown their weight behind the scheme - their decision was said to have been made after considering the higher than expected numbers of passengers using the recently opened Rugeley Town station. Two hotel developments are planned for nearby land, with both developers expected to contribute towards the cost of the station.
Story Update: (11/12/99) An investigation of the site has revealed the presence of methane gas in the area, which used to be a landfill site. Cannock Chase Council has instigated a detailed survey of the land as a matter of urgency, as design work cannot continue until the matter is resolved. Councillors have said that if methane is discovered in the ground, this would not put the station plan in jeopardy, but would just mean that the design would have to include trenches to allow the gas to escape into the atmosphere.
Further Update: (26/04/01) Developers of the nearby planned Kingsbury development are said to have agreed to contribute towards the cost of Bridgtown station. The sum involved is not known, but this is the first new reported development since December 1999, so progress can be seen as being very slow, and it is doubtful that the station will join the rail network before 2004.
