West Midlands Rail
MALCOLM HOLMES, Executive Director at West Midlands Rail, tells PAUL STEPHEN how the region’s new franchise will help transform local rail travel
“There’s a transport revolution happening at the moment in the West Midlands. We just don’t tend to shout about it quite as much as they do in the North. We just quietly get on and inch forward to get things done.”
So says Malcolm Holmes, director of rail at Transport for the West Midlands (TfWM), and whose remark can be taken in two ways.
Not only is it a mischievous dig at the city of Manchester, with which Birmingham has historically jostled for primacy as the UK’s second city, it is also a thinly veiled criticism of the media and where the spotlight has fallen in recent months.
That’s because, when it comes to the devolution of transport planning powers from Whitehall to regional bodies, it is Transport for the North (TfN) that has grabbed the majority of the headlines so far in 2018, following the publication of its draft Strategic Transport Plan in January (and containing an eye-opening £ 70 billion worth of planned infrastructure over the next 30 years).
With TfN expected to gain even more exposure in April, when it becomes the UK’s first statutory sub-national transport executive, Holmes feels that the time has now come for TfWM to receive some column inches of its own. So he invites RAIL to Birmingham, to share in its ambitious agenda for change in local transport and connectivity in and around the city.
In a national context, the West Midlands has always been a key hub for inter-regional travel. From its famous boast to contain more miles of canals than Venice, the West Midlands conurbation is also a major location
on the national motorway and A-road network - perhaps best illustrated by the notoriously complicated interchange located at Gravelly Hill, affectionately dubbed ‘Spaghetti Junction’.
Meanwhile, Birmingham New Street is the UK’s sixth busiest station, and with 42 million entries and exits in 2016-17 it is by far the busiest interchange outside London.
Looking ahead, inter-regional connectivity will be strengthened further in 2026, when Birmingham welcomes the arrival of HS2 services from London Euston at its two new high-speed stations located at Birmingham International and Curzon Street. This highspeed connectivity will then be extended to Manchester, the East Midlands, Sheffield and Leeds six years later, following the opening of HS2 Phase 2b.
At a local level, the region’s transport authority is not standing idly by in the face of national developments, says Holmes. His employer TfWM co-ordinates public transport on behalf of the West Midlands Combined Authority ( WMCA, a partnership of 18 local authorities and four Local Enterprise Partnerships, chaired by West Midlands mayor Andy Street).
We now have a new local brand that connects emotionally with the people and region it serves, but the brand we aspire to be like is Transport for London, which is iconic and epitomises the region it serves. Malcolm Holmes, Executive Director, West Midlands Rail
I think the rail industry is starting to realise that interfaces are through collaboration and not just contractual terms of agreement. Malcolm Holmes, Executive Director, West Midlands Rail
Granted a slice of the £1.1bn devolution deal agreed by WMCA and central government in July 2015 (and subsequently topped up with another £ 250 million earmarked for transport in a second devolution deal signed in November 2017), TfWM’s remit has been to modernise the region’s transport networks and to increase mobility for its citizens. This is not only designed to reduce congestion, unemployment and air pollution, it is also aimed at maximising the economic opportunities presented in particular by HS2, while also preparing the city for hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2022.
This includes overseeing the £1.2bn expansion of the Midland Metro that is currently under way, while TfWM is also working closely with the Midlands Connect partnership in order to develop a more comprehensive strategy to further improve local and regional transport networks - boosting the economy across both the West and East Midlands.
Crucially for TfWM, the 2015 devolution deal also confirmed that it would receive greater powers in highways management and bus franchising alongside increased funding, plus partial control over local rail services following the launch of the new West Midlands rail franchise on December 10 2017 ( RAIL 841).
Operated by West Midlands Trains (a consortium of Abellio, Mitsui and JR East), the franchise replaced London Midlandoperated services and represents an innovative ‘UK-first’ contractual arrangement in franchising.
That’s because it is being run as two separate business units, that fall under separate franchising authorities. For services concentrated on the West Coast Main Line between Birmingham, Euston, Crewe, Northampton and Liverpool, WMT operates under the London Northwestern brand which falls under the sole authority of the Department for Transport.
Meanwhile, local and suburban services are operated under the West Midlands Railway ( WMR) brand, which is jointly managed by the DfT and a limited company owned by WMCA and partner authorities from surrounding areas.
Holmes, who in addition to his role at TfWM is also executive director at WMR, describes this arrangement as “a stepping stone” to achieving full franchising authority in 2026, when the franchise is expected to be re-let.
This would give the West Midlands parity with TfN’s franchising powers (TfN will assume full responsibility for the Northern and TransPennine Express franchises in April). But Holmes says his ambitions go much further, with an aspiration to have even greater powers than TfN over fares policy and revenue retention.
He explains: “The stars have very much aligned in how we manage rail, and we can manage and influence it in a way that we could never do before.
“One option for the new West Midlands franchise was for the creation of two franchises - one for the West Midlands and one for the West Coast Main Line. But the arrangement we have puts us on a journey to full devolution, and provides the opportunity in a decade hence to do something different when HS2 kicks in.
“We now have a new local brand [ West Midlands Rail] that connects emotionally with the people and region it serves, but the brand we aspire to be like is Transport for London, which is iconic and epitomises the region it serves.”
He adds: “We currently have a very different contractual arrangement from TfL but finding a way to eventually do things like setting fares and raising revenue is absolutely what we want to do. For TfN, you can’t realistically restructure fares across the entire north of England with all the different operators up there, but you absolutely can do it here because we have a smaller geography. That’s exactly what we’d like to do.”
However, Holmes is a pragmatist first and foremost. He appreciates the size of the more immediate task that faces him and his team in supporting WMT to deliver approximately £1bn worth of improvements before the current franchise expires in March 2026 (with the option of an extension of a further two years).
These include a new fleet of 36 three-car Aventra electric multiple units on order from Bombardier for the Cross City Line, that will be maintained at a new depot in Duddeston. Diesel services will also be transformed by the arrival of 14 four-car and 12 two-car Civity DMUs that are expected to enter service in 2020 on services through Snow Hill. These are expected to be built at CAF’s new factory that is under construction in Newport.
The new rolling stock, combined with timetable adjustments, will provide an extra 20,000 seats for rush hour passengers into Birmingham, and 50,000 additional places on board when standing passengers are included.
Other franchise commitments (see panel) include universal provision of WiFi by 2019, and the extension of Nuneaton-Coventry services to Leamington Spa via Kenilworth (see Network News, page 20-21), Birmingham-- Wolverhampton services to Crewe via Tamworth and Stafford, and Cross City services to Bromsgrove.
Meanwhile, half-hourly frequencies will be introduced between Birmingham and Shrewsbury, and Sunday services across the region will be inrceased to more closely match Saturdays.
Holmes has also not ruled out new stations. WMT, working with WMR, is undertaking feasibility studies to open seven new stations, and to reinstate passenger services on the Wolverhampton-Walsall line, which is currently freight-only.
Another new innovation is the West Midlands Station Alliance between WMR, Network Rail and WMT, which is designed to improve facilities at stations where there would otherwise be little fare-box incentive to do so by the operator. Holmes confirms to RAIL that WMT is also committed to working with WMR on exploring smart ticketing schemes, and possible extensions to the franchise such as a potential transfer to WMT of Cross Countryoperated services to Nottingham and Leicester (see Network News, page 14-15).
With a brand new franchise model to pioneer, Holmes believes the key to its effectiveness and scalability will be the strength of collaboration between WMR, WMT, Network Rail and DfT
“This is fundamentally about working and talking together, and we have strong relationships with all parties that are only getting stronger. Look at our innovative station alliance and what it can do for a place like Kings Norton, which is frankly a dreadful station and not the type of customer experience we want to be offering.
“We will be working together to make it and others like it much better, and to get over the inherent shortcomings of contractual arrangements for stations. We like to think that there will be an opportunity to adapt that model elsewhere and use the lessons learned from here.
“A lot of what we do will be through collaboration - it means that I tend to drink a lot of coffee, but I think the rail industry is starting to realise that interfaces are through collaboration and not just contractual terms of agreement.”
These sentiments are mutual, with Holmes’ counterpart at WMT - Customer Service Director Richard Brooks - adding: “The key thing here is that this franchise model is very different. By having two separate business units, the relationship and partnership mentality is particularly powerful, and we have a once in a lifetime opportunity that we need to take now.
“It’s easy to think that the old London Midland franchise has just been tweaked and rebadged, but it really hasn’t. This is the test bed and proving ground for the next franchise, and a test of WMR as a franchising body.”
The conversation turns away from the new franchise, and RAIL is joined by WMR’s strategic rail policy lead Toby Rackliff and its rail scheme sponsor and Midlands Connect HS2 lead Pete Brunskill.
Rackliff was appointed in June, having been TfWM’s rail policy lead. Brunskill was formerly rail stakeholder manager at Transport for the North, before switching to the West Midlands, where Midlands Connect has been awarded £17m by DfT to develop plans to improve transport infrastructure and improve integration with HS2.
Both men are currently working on the business cases for WMR’s proposed new stations, plus much of the groundwork for an overarching vision to create a Midlands Rail Hub. According to Midland Connect, the latter would unleash £ 2bn of economic growth over the next ten to 30 years, and help cater for
an estimated 24 million additional annual passenger journeys forecast in the Midlands area by 2023.
Under the Midlands Rail Hub concept, Birmingham would benefit from a series of improvements enabling up to 150 additional trains to run in and out of the city each day, as well as better connections with HS2, making it busier than Stoke-on-Trent and Crewe stations.
Some £ 5m of additional funding has been provided by the DfT to work up an outline business case for improvements, including: building the Bordesley Chord to allow services to access Moor Street station instead of New Street, with new stations at Moseley, Kings Heath and Hazelwell; bringing additional platforms into use at Moor Street; building a fourth platform at Snow Hill; and upgrading Moor Street, Snow Hill and University stations.
Rackliff is hopeful of having most of these schemes completed by the end of the West Midlands franchise in 2026, but admits: “It’s been talked about since I arrived at TfWM 14 years ago. But it’s the easiest way of increasing capacity in Birmingham by up to ten trains per hour, given the constraints of expanding the tunnelled approaches to New Street.”
University is one of three station schemes being worked on by Brunskill. Built by British Rail in 1978 on the Cross City Line, it serves more than 30,000 students attending the University of Birmingham, as well as Queen Elizabeth Hospital (one of the largest NHS single sites in the country) and a large residential area of south Birmingham.
With eight trains per hour calling in each direction, and 3.3 million passengers using the station each year, its narrow platforms are now hopelessly inadequate to handle large peak-time passenger flows, resulting in WMT employing extra staff to manage crowd safety.
Options to expand or rebuild the station are limited, given that its two platforms are bounded by the Worcester and Birmingham Canal on one side and land owned by the hospital on the other.
Also, much of the surrounding area was occupied by the remains of a Roman Fort until being enveloped by urban sprawl in the 19th century.
Nevertheless, Brunskill says that WMR has completed a GRIP 3 study, and is due to carry out ground investigations in an adjacent car park where a new station building could be built to accommodate passenger entries. Existing station buildings would be retained for station exits, helping to segregate passenger flows.
He tells RAIL: “University is in a massive area of activity, and is the only suburban station where we need platform staff to help manage overcrowding. Doing nothing is not an option because it is creaking at the seams, and there is more growth planned.
“This place needs to be rebuilt, and we are looking at funding sources to do just that. It was already an important project, but when the Commonwealth Games were announced, the Mayor wanted much improved facilities.”
Meanwhile, Brunskill is also heavily involved in large-scale plans to redevelop the area around Birmingham’s Curzon Street HS2 terminus, and to link it with the city’s other central stations at New Street and Moor Street.
The number of passengers walking between the trio has been estimated to be between 1.4 million and 2.3 million from 2026, and so the ‘One Station’ Birmingham Interchange scheme has been devised to improve the walkways between them.
This could include a new plaza between the frontages of Curzon and Moor Street stations, which Brunskill enthusiastically compares to the heavily redeveloped area between London King’s Cross and St Pancras International.
Its potential to spark regeneration in the city centre is also being compared to the levels experienced around King’s Cross since the arrival of HS1 services at St Pancras in 2008.
He adds: “HS2 presents a huge opportunity for Birmingham, but could also create a physical barrier in the urban landscape, so we need to make it as seamless an experience as possible to travel between Birmingham’s stations.
“We’ve never had an opportunity like this since the Victorian times to design something this big from scratch, and with the hoardings currently going up around Curzon Street there is something tangible now. It’s difficult for people to imagine, but redevelopment will happen quite quickly and people will be impressed by its scale.”
Officially, most of these proposals await final capital investment decisions, and relevant delivery bodies including Midlands Connect, WMCA, HS2 Ltd, NR and DfT continue to take forward detailed proposals and early business cases.
But if a fraction of the identified transport infrastructure priorities can be implemented, then the West Midlands is unlikely to ever go short of headlines again.
We’ve never had an opportunity like this since the Victorian times to design something this big from scratch, and with the hoardings currently going up around Curzon Street there is something tangible now. Pete Brunskill, Rail Scheme Sponsor, West Midlands Rail