West Midlands Railway

[Bob]

Its a 30 min frequency most of day on a Sat pity the fast ones going. Still least itll only be Tame Bridge btwn walsall and brum for the most part. Hourly to London presumably via Cov etc? Will all journeys be 350s? Is there still a possibility of electric trains on a weekend well before December???

[Bob]

Are the existing times changing at all or just an extra train slotted in during the day?

[mikestone]

By reducing the journey time and utilising the time the sets lie over at Walsall and Rugeley no extra stock is required, which is just as well as it has been suggested that the 172s won't be coming from London Overground any time soon as the Cl.710s for Gospel Oak-Barking have an unspecified problem..
;
Has the line been re-aligned through Bloxwich Crossing yet?

[Tony]

By reducing the journey time and utilising the time the sets lie over at Walsall and Rugeley no extra stock is required, which is just as well as it has been suggested that the 172s won't be coming from London Overground any time soon as the Cl.710s for Gospel Oak-Barking have an unspecified problem..
;
Has the line been re-aligned through Bloxwich Crossing yet?

Yes, relaid between the crossing and the station on a slightly different alignment

[Bob]

By reducing the journey time and utilising the time the sets lie over at Walsall and Rugeley no extra stock is required, which is just as well as it has been suggested that the 172s won't be coming from London Overground any time soon as the Cl.710s for Gospel Oak-Barking have an unspecified problem..
;
Has the line been re-aligned through Bloxwich Crossing yet?

Will we be having electrics of a weekend from the summer?

Also will there be reduced journey times from May???

[Tony]

Will we be having electrics of a weekend from the summer?

Also will there be reduced journey times from May???

No

[Bob]

No

Im sure i read sonewhere on here that it was possible some electrics poss 323s could run on a weekend on the route

[The Real 4778]

...it has been suggested that the 172s won't be coming from London Overground any time soon as the Cl.710s for Gospel Oak-Barking have an unspecified problem..

There are some tech issues with the Aventra fleet for Crossrail (Class 345) which need to be ironed out in the design of the in-build 710s before the latter can release the GOBLIN 172s for refurbishment and modification to WMR spec for use around here.

[BK63 YWP]

Today I brought a West Midlands Day Ranger and I went from

BIrmingham - Stafford - Rugby (Virgin) - Birmingham - Worcester via cross city line  (this was a 2 carriage train and got busy very quickly, is the cross city running to capicity or could the Birmingham to Hereford but increased to two trains an hour?) - Pershore Every train I caught I never got checked for tickets and the barriers were open at new street so access to the platforms were free no checks either

[BusMan Greg]

And then they moan about fare dodgers

[mikestone]

Mr. Prosser, chief inspector of Railways tweeted last week that he had authorised Kenilworth to open, but in a reversal of previous practice the woman at Warwickshire CC said that it was subject to more work being carried out!

[markcf83]

How many units have been repainted so far,apart from 172339?

[BK63 YWP]

None.... according to West Midlands Railway they will get rebranding once they go in for heavy maintence... I thought they got additional class 319s to cover the repaints

[Tony]

None.... according to West Midlands Railway they will get rebranding once they go in for heavy maintence... I thought they got additional class 319s to cover the repaints

The livery on 172339 is only on vinyl, not painted and might not be the livery the fleet is put into. TfWM have another idea.

Two more 319s should have arrived this week taking the total to 9, with a 10th due in May. The extras are partly to cover the Bromsgrove cross city extension, not directly though, It is looking like another 5  will also arrive before December to cascade 350s for the Hednesford services

[BK63 YWP]

Will it still be the purple and orange scheme? With the 350 (350/3s maybe) cascading to the Walsall line hopefully they will rebrand them to West Midlands Railways as it confuses some passengers having the London northwestern trains turning up