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Cost of £8803.00 per meter... Cheap compared to HS2...

The addition of Willenhall and Darlaston should make this reopening a success!

Hello, great information on the Wolverhampton/Walsall Line, however there is another West Midland Authority railway project which has had its funding removed by the new WMA Mayor, the station at Aldridge had £30million funding in place supported by Andy Street, where has the money gone. Regards.

The new train line won't be able to beat the bus by cost, 2x£3 on the bus, how much by train?

7:16 ive been there to see Walsall Station

i live in Wolverhampton thanks for the news😁

A half an hour frequency would complete against thr buses where as hourly might not. Yes please keep the maps on screen a few seconds longer

I've noticed that all recent station and line openings have bern given a frequency of only once an hour or 2 hours, and this will be the case for the next stage of the East West railway too. While it's great that these areas are now getting some kind of railway service, if they want to compete with buses they need to begin these services with competition and convenience in mind in the first place.

Every bus and rail station could generate their own Green Hydrogen. (Check out JCB for further details).

Let's hope that "Rachel from Accounts" has already factored in the cost for this marvellous rail upgrade.

The direct Wolverhampton to Walsall line reopened on 24 May 1998. Even discounted fares did not prevent it from closing🤥 soon after!

I will say fun fact the Walsall-Wolverhampton line is technically still in service as it sees a weekly service from Walsall to wolves via the old line. Also I have heard of some 196’s weirdly skipping out wolves and going on that exact line. Edit: darlaston is going for a Worcestershire pway type of thing

Im wondering on improving frequency, would they not use Wolverhampton as the terminus and with the 2 direct trains an hour which go from Wolverhampton to Walsall via. Birmingham, have it so they loop back to Wolverhampton when they reach Walsall, so you have 2tph going Wolverhampton, Walsall, Birmingham Wolverhampton and then 2tph going Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton

It is not a reopening as the line is there and used . It is about bringing back passenger services

Something wrong here surely. Either £85m is a vast under estimation or that £100m bat tunnel on HS2 was a scam.

Oh this is going to take forever to complete... Btw New Street capacity has been stretched. Unable to improve frequency.

No EV Charging points then or Medical Centres with huge car parking but building more and more retail which is not a requirement as retail buying is mostly done online.

First time watching your channel and I'm impressed, you've gained a subscriber. Just a word of advice on pronunciation, Wolverhampton is pronounced more like WUL-verhampton, with the 'O' sounding more like a 'U', and with Willenhall, the 'H' is silent, like the 'W' in Greenwich, so sounds more like WILLY-nall. Also Rugeley is pronounced like ROOSH-lee.

25:02 The congestion in city's is caused by pointless stupid traffic lights in left turn lanes. Those cars waiting to turn left shouldn't have to wait. There is nothing coming. People know how to give way. They manage perfectly well at roundabouts. All you need is a give way sign.

The station at Darlaston is too far outside of the town centre to be of use for Darlaston. It will be more of a park and ride, like Tamebridge Parkway. Depends if parking is free.

Transport planners wanted the southern end of the service to be Longbridge, the northern end beyond Snow Hill (this requiring a new railway at Bordesley).

I live in Walsall & looking forward to using the new service as it could make going to places like Shrewsbury & Manchester easier then go to Rugeley via Stafford Crewe to Manchester & change at Tame Bridge for Shrewsbury. I would like to see a new station between Aldridge or Bloxwich & Walsall. Ether Ryecroft on Rutland Street or Forest Line on the existing chase line. The other site would be Mill Lane & the reintroduction of the South Staffordshire line to Lichfield. Having 2 platforms on the Sutton Park line & 2 for the South Staffordshire line. The areas of Rushall, Coalpool, Ryecroft & Harden would benefit from have a new station. Give new housing estates recently being built in these areas . having a new service from Aldridge to Wolverhampton via Mill Line, Walsall Darlaston & Willinhall more profitable & could serve 4 to 6 trains per hour at Mill line from Wolverhampton to Lichfield via Willenhall, Darlaston, Walsall, Mill Lane, Pelsall & Brownhills.

Not sure where the 70,000 population figure comes from. Walsall borough has over 250,000. My doubt about this is that the 15 minute station-to-station, especially with so limited a service, is largely irrelevant for most people in Walsall or Wolverhampton, who face a bus ride to the station and a median wait of half an hour.

BTW sorry if my pronunciation of “Darlaston” sounds a bit flat. A lot of this was recorded in the aftermath of a cold 😅

Very well researched and presented!!

Notice how many of the bus number signs aren't working properly 😂🤦‍♂️

Most enjoyable and informative. Interesting that electrification was justified as it was considered a diversionary route, when the prevalent attitude during the Marples/Beeching era emphasised 'duplication'. How many vital lines did we lose to *that* dogmatic oversimplification?

It's interesting when you look at the settings for Willenhall and Darlaston - Willenhall being very conveniently located for the town centre and surrounding residential areas - Darlaston being on the edge of an out-of-town retail and industrial zone but with a big car park that is likely to attract people from further afield. The main thing I would change would be that each service needs to be every 30 minutes, giving a ~15-minute frequency on the combined section to Wolverhampton - an hourly train on a local service in an urban area is just not good enough.

Most people know what has led to the downfall of Walsall but are not allowed to voice their opinions.

Good video, thanks,. May I suggest you leave the maps on the screen for a few seconds longer when describing the routes and history, as, for non-locals, it was a 'now you see it, now you don't' experience! Edit: The last 5 minutes definitely needed maps on the screen when discussing possible routes and stations rather than just shots of buses and trains.

Work began on this and the Camp Hill lines few years ago. Both are progressing extremely slowly. Since the West Midlands Mayor changed, it seems to be on hold. I don’t think there is any chance of trains going from Aldridge to Birmingham via Castle. Bromwich in the near future. The south east lines out of New Street are at capacity. The only way for it to work is to send the trains into Moor Street by a New Chord at Bordesley. There is a proposal for that.

Can't help thinking that one train an hour isn't enough. Especially if they're aiming at commuters and people in education, that means their market is people who need to arrive at a specific time. An hourly service means that, on average, people will have to arrive half an hour early and, on average, they'll have to wait half an hour for their train home. That's an hour a day sitting around waiting -- so is the train really saving you time? Add to that the fact that, unless you're going town-centre-to-town-centre, you're going to need to get to the station, too. And, since missing your train is going to make you really late for work or miss your class, you'd better aim to get to the station plenty of time before the train leaves. So, instead of being "a fifteen minute rail journey", it's fifteen minutes on the bus to get into Walsall, fifteen minutes sitting around at the railway station because you had to make sure you wouldn't miss the train, fifteen minutes on the train to Wolverhampton and half an hour sitting around in Wolverhampton because the train got you there too early. Wow, that 75-minute, 8-mile commute sounds so appealing!

Great video - I really like your detail on local industries and bus routes.

Not 24 hours ago I was wondering why no trains used this line to connect two pretty major places, leaving the 1 hour 9 minute train via New Street as the only direct link. Funnily enough it is actually faster to go the other way and change at Stafford and come back down via Rugely. I wonder how often a journey is faster changing trains than taking a direct one... Anyway it's nice to see I'm not alone in thinking running passenger services along this line would be beneficial haha

Nice vid, very good detail, look forward to seeing them open

Rouge-ly not Roogly \m/

Leicester services going into Moor Street would be great for me - I regularly have to walk between Moor Street and New Street as part of my three train work commute journey.

It would mean more space at Oxford for EWR services

That was very good, your knowledge, considering you're not from the area, was extraordinary. Well done not getting battered in Norris Green. Truly can't see those lines reopening again, part of me wishes they would but there'd be too much pushback now from those who use them for other means. I remember the last trains leaving Gateacre back in the day.

brilliant video- what a breath of fresh air you are

I don't know of any other terrestrial transport system that can move several hundred people in one go as quickly as a railway . I'm supportive of another railway station in Oxford . Maybe it will grow the case for rebuilding a line out to Witney and Carterton . Ps OUFC are set to leave the kassam stadium as there is a plan for a new stadium in Kidlington .

Okay, hear me out: extension of the Jubilee line from North Greenwich, where the layout allows for a diverging branch already . . . The branch swings back south and is in tunnel for stations at 'Millennium Village', 'Westcombe Park', 'Blackheath' and 'Lee', before emerging above ground at Grove Park and running down the branch to Bromley North. It would be less destructive to above ground property than other proposals and would provide the much needed link from Bromley to the Docklands. It would do all of this without compromising capacity on the already overcrowded Southeastern lines. I could envisage a Jubilee line service pattern where trains run from Stanmore to Stratford and from Willesden Green (using the existing turnback siding) to Bromley North.

Thanks so much for this interesting video. I've really enjoyed this one having found your channel via the Oxford video (and have now subscribed of course). My takes on this project are a) should be huge success, as its bringing new stations in a densely packed urban area, without having to build a new line b) the main uses will be commuting to Birmingham City Centre. Taking a car to Birmingham City centre is slow dirty and expensive. Bus routes slow and congested. Very difficult to park. So this facility will be fantastic for commuters, shoppers, students etc to reach the heart of Britain's second city in a 20 minute or so journey. c) half hourly intervals will be fine, provided nationwide cancellation issues get sorted, - and there should be more services at peak times too. d) electrification would be nice but getting any new rail project completed and paid for is immensely difficult, so very glad this has been done, even without electrification. Some day perhaps.. And do I see you've made these videos as a sixth former? Wow! Simply, wow! That's incredibly impressive.

Oxford to Cambridge is the priority for any cash.but we don't want mass houses on it at all.

Go ahead but go to Switzerland, eg Geneva, and see how bus/tram and rail operators do not compete with each other but complement each other, not running buses or trams to compete with trains and vice versa. Land use planning and transport planning need to a integrated policy to ensure that the upgrade supports sustainable development. Train power needs to be sustainable. Stations and trains need to be disability friendly. We need to get drivers out their cars if we are to challenge climate change.

There is great scrutiny for re-opening railways. There has to be 'value". There was little scrutiny about closing lines. It was all done in great haste and figures were not challenged at the time because it was almost impossible to do so. Figures were weighted to make them look worse than they were. There were no "value" equations put in railway closures only the amount of money that would be saved. Most railways when re-opened have far exceeded expectations, such as the Waverley and Okehampton lines.

The trains in Oxford suck. Every time I go north they massively overbook the trains to the point where people can’t even fit in the doors

as an ex BB Leys resident, i'd hope the the project is started asap for the reasons outlined. Oxford to Thame is a non-starter as outlined, plus the tunnel at Horspath is closed , there being a substantial at colony rooting there all year round.

I expect journeys from Cowley will probably tend to mostly head toward Littlemore, rather than Oxford. Although it was always somewhat walkable, it’d be valuable to take it down from 30 minutes to 10. Not to mention, the longish walk from Littlemore and Cowley to the Kassam (with the cinema, bowling, etc, unless those have closed) could be reduced which might be useful for people who’d done a bit too much celebrating at the restaurants. Not just on football days. Then, it’s just a bonus if you’d started off in the city centre to maybe stop off at Cowley on the way back if you’ve friends or family nearer to that station. (Though everyone I knew who once lived there were still quite a ways from the Premier Inn, if it’s on the same location.) However, Littlemore was in even more dire need of trains 20 years ago. At weekends or in the middle of the day you were lucky to get an hourly service, so most just walked into Cowley. I’m not surprised at all to hear it’s well within the bottom 10% of transport connections. I’m surprised there’s even two buses an hour now! Having family live there for a while really cemented my love of living in towns and cities proper - even a flat in Cowley seemed exciting and connected compared to Littlemore! Every child seemed equally as bored as me when I visited, and willing to bike all the way to Headington or Jericho if necessary to meet their pals. (Since there were absolutely no buses past a certain point in the evening.) Though there were some lovely family-friendly pubs, namely the King’s Arms, next to a nice riverside (canalside?) bike/walking trail. That made a nice summer afternoon and evening if you liked the pub food, and biking.