A trip on Birmingham’s new suburban railway

Railway re-openings are always a cause for celebration and invariably see passenger forecasts vastly exceeded, as has most recently been the case with the Newcastle-Ashington Northumberland Line, so with no indication when the Oxford-Bletchley East-West Rail route will see its first passengers, it is good to be able to head to the West Midlands and sample opening day on the UK’s newest passenger service.

While the Northumberland Line was closed to passengers during the Beeching era (July 1964) and the Varsity Line from Oxford to Cambridge in January 1968, residents of Moseley and Kings Heath to the south of Birmingham have had to wait a good deal longer for the restoration of Camp Hill Line services, whose local stations were closed 85 years ago (in 1941) as a war-time economy measure.

The six-mile line has fortunately survived since World War II as a freight route away from congested New Street station and also sees regular use by XC passenger services travelling to and from Birmingham, as a means of avoiding the congested Cross-City route from Kings Norton to New Street via Bourneville.

There has been considerable investment in local rail services across the West Midlands, and the launch of services between New Street and Kings Norton via the Camp Hill line on 7 April 2026 is part of a £185m investment programme that saw the opening of new stations at Darlaston and Willenhall in March 2026 and now sees a trio of new stations on the Camp Hill route – Moseley Village, Kings Heath and Pineapple Road.

Weekday services on the Camp Hill Line comprise half-hourly West Midlands Trains’ Class 196-worked services shuttling between Birmingham New Street and Kings Norton to New Street, with an end-to-end journey time of 18-20 minutes and services operating between 06:00 and 23:00. Late evenings and Sundays see an hourly service.

Travelling to Birmingham on a bargain-priced Chiltern Railways’ super off-peak return (£26.60 with railcard), due to the absence of WCML services from London Euston, I then found a cheap way of sampling the new line and visiting each of its new stations by buying a £2.70 off-peak day return from New Street to Kings Norton, which would allow me to alight and look at each of the new stations on my return journey.

Arriving at Kings Norton aboard a service formed by two-car units 196002/005, which were sharing opening day duties with four-car 196102, what struck me first was how nothing had been done to reinstate the centre platforms (2/3), with the new Camp Hill services arriving and departing from platform 4, which already sees three Redditch/Bromsgrove services each hour as well as being passed by hourly XC services and anything else using the Camp Hill route.

Kings Norton is a very busy station, as evidenced by it large and full car park, so it seems remarkable that nothing has been done to future-proof the station from the almost certain success of Camp Hill Line services by increasing platform capacity here.

The three new stations all seem well-designed, with accessible lifts, cycle racks and lengthy shelters on each platform. They are, however, unstaffed, which probably accounts for each having a feature I have not encountered before – an enclosed space at the end of each platform called a “passenger place of safety” that is equipped with an emergency help point, as seen below.

Opening day passenger traffic was substantial, which bodes well for the future of this long-awaited service, with large numbers of local people and enthusiasts turning out on a fine and sunny day. There was a noticeable security presence at the new stations, but no sign whatsoever of any ticket checking or revenue protection teams.

While the new stations at Darlaston and Willenhall feature extensive car park provision, that is not the case with the three new Camp Hill Line stations, where there are simply drop-off areas, in the hope that passengers will use the new train services instead of their cars, to help ease congestion around the stations.

Despite the route having remained in use and all the new stations being built on previous station sites, there is a long and tortuous history to the restoration of passenger services, dating back to a local petition calling for re-opening in 2007. At that time the City Council began examining construction of a new West Chord that would have taken trains into Moor Street station via a new west-north curve from Sparkbrook to Bordesley.

Construction of this West Chord remains a long-term aim, along with an East Chord off the Camp Hill route that would allow trains from places like Derby and Leicester to be routed into Moor Street and Snow Hill stations, reducing congestion at New Street. This would, however, require platform openings/re-openings at Moor Street and Snow Hill as well as closure of Bordesley station.