Trams return to The Royal

After more than three months of trams terminating at Priestfield Monday 15th December finally saw the return of Midland Metro services through to The Royal although anyone wishing to travel through to Wolverhampton St Georges will still have a wait with works continuing on the section of rail replacement along Bilston Road to the northern terminus.

Midland Metro had previously announced that they were hoping to resume services as far as The Royal from 15th December but in the run-up to the day no official announcements were forthcoming. And so it was as the day dawned and services were still only running between Birmingham Snow Hill and Priestfield as essential final checks were undertaken on the track to The Royal. These were successful and it was shortly after 1600 that the first passenger services ran between Priestfield and The Royal thus bringing to an end over three months of disruption.

Of course not all of the disruption is over as extensive works are still required between The Royal and Wolverhampton St Georges along Bilston Road. No end date has been revealed for these works with attention still required to the uncharted mine workings which were discovered under the road in the initial stages of the work.

The completed scene at The Royal with the crossover in situ.

Looking beyond The Royal towards Wolverhampton and well...a mess!

The old track has been removed here but a significant amount of preparation work is still required.

Waiting for track to be installed.Track is almost ready to be installed here.

Now that doesn't look very straight! More track in the process of being installed.

Wolverhampton St Georges and still a lot of work seems to be required.

It seems that a pond is being fitted here! Presumably this lining is a key part of installing the new trackbase. (All Photos: Andy Walters, 14th December 2014)

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