Introducing Birmingham Crossrail
In the city of Birmingham, poor air quality, and poor internal transport links, are symptoms of years of failure to maximise the potential of existing infrastructure. For example, present-day congestion on the Soho Road and Alcester Road was actually familiar to travellers in the 1970s.
For longer journeys in the West Midlands conurbation (and within the city of Birmingham itself) rail has the potential to provide a time-competitive alternative to private cars. But the transport agencies involved have preferred ‘image’ projects, such as the Midland Metro tramway, and the High Speed 2 railway to London.
An effective approach to tackling congestion in Moseley, Kings Heath, and Handsworth, would include implementing a Walsall – Birmingham Snow Hill – Redditch rail link, as part of a wider Birmingham Crossrail scheme. As well as a number of new stations, this would require new connecting curves at Benson Road (Soho), and Bordesley (Camp Hill).
beleben 
[…] railway use. In Birmingham, construction of the Benson Road chord would enable a Crossrail service linking the north and south sides of the city. But the Black Country would also benefit, especially following a reconstruction of the Great […]
Reconnecting West Bromwich « beleben
June 6, 2011 at 11:02 pm
[…] not aware of there ever having been any “Camp Hill Accords”. However, construction of a Birmingham Crossrail regional express system would require the construction of Camp Hill (Bordesley) chords, and a chord […]
Signing the Camp Hill Accords « beleben
November 11, 2011 at 4:33 pm
[…] is an area where cost-effective and relatively straightforward rail schemes – such as the Benson Road and Camp Hill chords – have been help up for years, because of lack of municipal support. So the eccentric […]
Quadrophrenia midlandia « beleben
December 29, 2011 at 2:15 pm
[…] benefits from an investment policy that improves connectivity within metropolitan areas (such as Birmingham Crossrail). Like this:LikeBe the first to like […]
Dispersed investment is better « beleben
July 31, 2012 at 11:27 am
The North end could equally be Wolverhampton. Whatever the detail, this could be very useful to the West Midlands
Bob
December 15, 2015 at 8:08 pm
This would be very easy to implement in parts – the Moseley addition would take an awful lot of traffic off the roads. Additionally the southern link should go one further to link Redditich to Evesham via Alcester again like it used to in the 80s. The amount of traffic on the roads from Redditich to Alcester is excessive.
James Lovatt (@JamesLovatt)
December 16, 2015 at 4:02 pm
I think you’ll find the land for the Benson Road curve was sold off a few years ago. Centro argued that the chord at this point would be extremely expensive to construct for very little benefit.
The business case for the Camp Hill chords is very strong and are a priority in the HS2 connectivity project
I’m just the messenger here, so please don’t shoot me down.
martin mullaney
December 16, 2015 at 4:36 pm
The Benson Road curve when plotted by a railway civil engineer displaced Midland Metro onto the street where it would aid with regeneration (the visibility of the tram in the City Centre has worked well). A railway junction and some excavation through to the old Soho Pool goods railway route would take the railway to the Perry Barr line. There are other solutions of course.
Roadman
January 22, 2017 at 11:15 am
June 7th 2018 and new Friends of Kings Heath Station held its first meeting. Local rail is progressing from a Re open Kings Heath Station facebook group.
John
June 9, 2018 at 12:53 pm