The press releases on the Birmingham Eastside West Midlands Metro extension keep telling us about the progress being made on the construction of the route in various locations whilst also reminding us that it will be some time before trams actually start running because of the HS2 works at Curzon Street. Whilst we do have the promise that it won’t quite be as late as it might for some of the route with a temporary terminus due to be built by the Clayton Hotel there do remain significant sections of the 1.7km long route which will not be seeing a tram for some time.
One of those sections is by Birmingham Coach Station – one of the big selling points of this line is that it will give good interchange with both the Coach Station as well as the aforementioned HS2 Railway Station – where there has been excellent progress on both the laying of tracks and also putting down the final road surface.
Birmingham Coach Station is the “wrong” side of Curzon Street so this track will have to wait a considerable time before it sees any trams running it.
With Birmingham Coach Station in the background, this is Meriden Street which is currently the limit of track installation (this is to the city centre side of the line). The track are down as is the road surface.
More tracks and road surface down here as we’re in Digbeth (from towards the rear of the coach station) looking up the hill towards St Martins. (Both Photographs by Chris Allsop-Buckler, 19th March 2024)