Reopening line is not the answer

DEAR Editor, A recent item in the Post detailing the proposal by Andy Street, one of the candidates for West Midlands Mayor, to re-open the Birmingham Camp Hill rail link for passengers, including reinstating a station at Kings Heath, sounds enticing.

As a body dedicated to rail investment, Railfuture is very much in favour of this development in the longer term, as it would help alleviate growing levels of congestion.

However, we are concerned that it may not be seen as an affordable and deliverable scheme in the timescale suggested and that concentrating on this one scheme will relegate other worthwhile, more affordable, schemes to indefinite delay.

To create a Camp Hill line service would be very expensive and, to avoid over-loading New Street Station, would require construction of a link between this line and that to and from Moor Street. An estimated cost for this has been put at £175-£375 million.

Network Rail have suggested the building of links from the north as well as the south to release capacity in New Street.

However, their preference is to do this by re-routing trains from Worcester and Leicester into Moor Street.

A number of freight trains and cross-country trains between Bristol and Manchester already use the Camp Hill line. So to add a frequent local service could overload the two-track