Rail campaigners urge Transport Minister to reopen Birmingham branch line

Campaigners will urge Transport Secretary Chris Grayling to restore a disused rail line in south Birmingham when the minister visits the West Midlands today.

The campaigners want the restoration of the Camp Hill line, which closed in the 1940s.

The restoration of the rail line is part of the new rail strategy being implemented by Transport for the West Midlands, the transport arm of the West Midlands Combined Authority.

The reopening of the line also formed part of Andy Street’s campaign when he successfully won the ballot to become the region’s first elected Mayor.

The Camp Hill Chords project, as the wider campaign is dubbed, aims to open up new suburban rail lines and stations for northern suburbs like Castle Vale and Castle Bromwich and Moseley and Kings Heath in the south.

The growth in the area’s population since the line closed and the mounting congestion in Birmingham city centre make the scheme highly desirable, campaigners claim.

The Camp Hill line lies between Kings Norton on the Cross-City Line and Birmingham New Street via Grand Junction on the main lines from Derby and Coventry.

Birmingham City Council has been looking into the reinstatement of passenger services along the line for some time. In 2007, it announced it was looking to the possibility of reopening the line between Kings Norton and Birmingham Moor Street providing a new viaduct could be built between Sparkbrook to Bordesley. This would take trains into Moor Street Station.

Costs prohibited the scheme and the plans were shelved five years ago.

However, with Moor Street situated adjacent to the planned HS2 station in Curzon Eastside, the opportunity to have a commuter route so close to the new hub would be highly desirable.

TfWM has declared it one of its priority transport schemes, which it aims to deliver by 2025.

Only last month, Mr Street said that the proposed viaduct as no longer needed as Hereford to Birmingham New Street trains could be diverted along the new line, meaning extra capacity at Birmingham New Street was no longer required.

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