The opening of the full Birmingham City Centre extension to Grand Central (New Street Station) on Sunday 22nd May will see the introduction of a new timetable for Midland Metro with the promise of trams running every 6 minutes during peak times and 8 minutes during the bulk of the day Monday to Friday.
It was originally expected that when the extension opens to the public on Sunday 22nd May it would only see the addition of two new stops for Midland Metro – the terminus at Grand Central (named after the shopping centre rather than the adjacent New Street railway station it would seem) and at Corporation Street – but the new timetable and press release states that three new stops will be joining the network with the new Snow Hill stop seemingly ready for passengers from this date as well.
Trams will take 40 minutes to run between Wolverhampton St George’s and Birmingham Grand Central (and unsurprisingly the same in reverse!) and on the whole there doesn’t appear to be any major changes to when you can expect a tram to turn up although during the early morning period there are some minor retimings (which seems to take away some of the more erratic service gaps) and a larger number of trams seem to run from Wednesbury Parkway to Birmingham Grand Central as their first journey than previously. The first tram on weekdays from Wednesbury Parkway to Birmingham Grand Central is at 0443 which forms the first northbound full length journey at 0515. Wolverhampton St George’s sees it first tram from Wednesbury at 0457 with the first full length journey leaving the northern terminus at 0515. The peak time 6 minute service will run between 0730 and 0900 and then from 1610 until 1830 with the rest of a weekday seeing trams running at least every 8 minutes.
* The new timetable can be viewed on the Midland Metro website at http://nxbus.co.uk/files/MidlandMetro/current_timetables/MidlandMetroTimetable-22May2016.pdf.
Surely….SURELY… the new Birmingham terminus is going to be named New Street, as in “New Street Station”? Or are we to be saddled with Grand Central, which is the name of a shopping centre, (and one might add, an American imported name!) Yet your report refers several times to the terminus as Grand Central! Why?
Yep, unfortunately Grand Central is the name of the stop!
@John Gilbert: Grand Central was the original name of New Street Station when it first opened.
Not quite – it was known as “Grand Junction” station…
I echo your sentiments entirely. Why use the name Grand Central when the stop is immediately outside New Street station.
Presumably the argument will be that it is not in New Street.
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Yesterday morning the PIS at the terminal stop was showing “test runs this evening” or words to that effect. When I returned around 20.00 there were still barriers foul of the inbound line but lots of staff hanging about including one group who I at first took to be cleaning the grooves, but in fact seemed to be manicuring the joins between the sections of road service.
The area of the headshunt was cordoned off to prevent daytime parking so presumably the plan is an empty shunt rather than departure from the inbound platform.
Have heard this morning that 17 is a crew only vehicle
That should be tram 17
http://www.centro.org.uk/about-us/news/2016/midland-metro-services-to-new-street-station-hit-delay/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SocialSignIn&utm_source=Facebook
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