West Midlands Metro - Edgbaston Village Extension
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- Опубліковано 23 сер 2024
- Footage from 17th July 2022, the first working day of West Midlands Metro trams to Edgbaston Village on the Hagley Road. This video includes the refurbished route from Bull Street onwards. Note, there was much less bus traffic on Broad Street on this day due to a road closure in Centenary Square to dismantle a nearby crane.
For the first time, modern trams operate through the city centre of Birmingham - entering on the existing line near Jewellery Quarter and exiting near Five Ways before terminating at the new Edgbaston Village tram stop.
Development of the new 'Westside Extension' was split into two parts, Grand Central (Birmingham New Street Station) to Library (Centenary Square) with an intermediate stop at Town Hall, followed by the newly-opened section along Broad Street, stopping at Brindleyplace and Five Ways before terminating at Edgbaston Village. The first section opened briefly until a full-service suspension due to defects with tram vehicles. While this was happening, the opportunity was taken to reconfigure the track between Bull Street and Grand Central, including Corporation Street, to reinforce the existing trackbed from the original city centre extension, and to install a delta junction as part of the forthcoming 'Eastside Extension'.
The new wireless sections require trams with batteries and have allowed the route to avoid using overhead wires around the sensitive architecture of the Town Hall and Victoria Square, and for less clutter at interfaces with road infrastructure. Watch for moments in this video where pantographs are raised and lowered on entering and exiting different powered sections.
Since the first city centre extension in 2015, newer Urbos 100 trams have joined the fleet, these have a slightly different design and were delivered with batteries already installed on the roofs, unlike the Urbos 3 fleet which had to be retrofitted to use the wireless sections of the new extension. The first of these sections are between Grand Central and Brindleyplace, where the wires resume until the next stop at Five Ways, the second wireless section is between Five Ways and Edgbaston Village where the route dives under the Five Ways island (roundabout), a major junction on the city's ringroad.
The fare structure has also changed, now using a zonal system. All the stations in this video are in zone 1.
The Midland Metro is now known as West Midlands Metro with a new livery, it is now operated by Midland Metro Ltd, under Transport for West Midlands, replacing National Express and the pink branding.
What a fantastic video. Showing the progress of the city. Excellent shots, especially when the Tram passes by the canal. Great job.
Many thanks, I was waiting seemingly ages for that shot
Bravo! Well done.
Why did I spend 13 minutes watching this, I don't even live in Birmingham
They seem monumentally slow !
In the city centre streets, they follow similar speed limits to the rest of traffic, once off the streets they have a top speed of 70kmh (43mph)
I haven’t been to Birmingham for almost a year, and the trams weren’t running at all then due to the cracks.
Do they run on battery power on the whole of this new section?
They run on batteries to clear the areas of architectural sensitivity (ie., Vicky Square, Town Hall and Centenary Square.) They run the trams up to Brindley Place on battery, then run the trams on the OLE line up to just before Cineworld. This gives some time to reserve the battery.
From Cineworld the tram runs on batteries under Fiveways island, until it reaches Edgbaston Village stop and the pantograph goes up to charge the batteries whilst waiting for departure.
On the leg heading to Grand Central, the section past Town Hall has a significant downhill section and gives opportunity for regenerative braking, allowing the tram to recover the kinetic energy to charge the battery. The pan goes up outside Grand Central for OLE running all the way to Wolverhampton: St georges.
As for the Wednesfield Dudley/ Merry Hill extension, I'm not sure how much of the route is battery running and OLE running.
I was trying to work out where this finished…apparently just after five ways! Still a fair way to go to get to edgbaston!
The terminus is outside 54 Hagley Road, this is considered part of Edgbaston. Going much further along this road you would soon be in Harborne district!
@@RailSpots I used to live st Augustins and so for me that was edgbaston…if I get a tram to edgbaston village, I would have a couple mile walk to, well, edgbaston village where I lived. It does look great though and I’m sure they will extend it again later. Hill street, broad street and bull street do look iconic now, and even that tunnel at five ways looks the business now.
@@k.jamescarters9557 Edgbaston Village is what Calthorpe Estates call the triangular area between Hagley, Calthorpe and Highfield Roads, with Greenfield Crescent being the centrepiece, it's semi pedestrianised now with bars and restaurants lining it. Edgbaston as a whole is quite a strange shape and extends all the way down to Pershore Rd by the cricket stadium so this isn't really a central Edgbaston stop. Hopefully the more people that use the trams create a business case to extend it past St Augustine's and down towards Quinton
@@RailSpots many thanks, I had a feeling they had renamed the area just by the vibe. For me the village part was always down at the gardens, but it looks like they have made a second snow hill there, so fair play to them. It does look the business!
The annoying this is Calthorpe estates has set aside an 8 metre strip all along Hagley Road ready to have a track all the way up to the Kings Head Cross interchange up by Bearwood. I wish they sort out the adjacent bus lane and bus stop though.
CRICKET