British Trams Online News

Over the past year (and earlier) we have often reported on overhead line faults on West Midlands Metro, causing major disruption to the service. But now major work is to be undertaken on upgrading the overhead in an effort to improve the reliability which will hopefully mean the major disruption seen at several times in 2018 will be a thing of the past.

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We gave a quick look at the end of last year at recent progress on the construction work to extend West Midlands Metro at the Birmingham end of the current line and now in this pictorial update we take a look at recent progress at the Wolverhampton line. With track now in place between the points on the current line just before St George’s to a point just short of Wolverhampton Railway Station tarmac has also been put in place. With no overhead due to be installed for this line – trams will run under battery power – other major work for this extension will be tram platforms and the section just outside the railway station; this latter work won’t follow until later once other works at the station are completed. As a result of this required work trams aren’t due to start running until 2020. Andy Walters provides us with the latest images.

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When the West Midlands Metro extension into Birmingham City Centre opened a new stop was provided at Snow Hill to provide access to the railway station of the same name, and replacing the former terminus which was actually in the station. However, access to the station was convoluted and as such a few months later the stop was renamed St Chad’s with passengers for the railway station advised to travel to Bull Street and change instead. But now plans have been confirmed for a new station entrance to be built giving much better access for passengers transferring from between the two.

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