This is part one of a walk along the route of the West Midlands Metro extension to Dudley showing recent progress on construction work. Slated to open in late 2025, the extension leaves the current West Midlands Metro line at Wednesbury and will run to Flood Street, Dudley using a mixture of reserved track on a former railway line and street running. In this part we start at the beginning of the line (for it’s a very good place to start) and see some of the good progress made recently. Andy Walters with the images.
A general view of the start of the extension where work is still at an early stage. The trackbed is being readied with one small section of ballast seen in the centre. Plenty of sleepers wait to be installed on the right.
More track is going down here. The track in the distance also has ballast down.
At Bagnall Street looking towards the location of the first stop at Great Bridge.
Track and ballast wait to be used at Railway Drive.
Horseley Road tramstop where the panelling has now been completed.
We go a little further along the line and with track down into the distance the ballast is ready to be smoothed out. More sleepers wait on the left too.
The iconic Hanson’s Bridge (or at least a replica of) was put back into position in June.
Shelters being installed and platforms under construction. (All Photographs by Andy Walters, 3rd November 2024)
Excellent stuff from Andy as usual.
They do now seem to be motoring and we should see some development the other side of Flood Street now that the money is in place to carry on to Brierley Hill.
Thanks Andy.