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On the drawing board at last - work starts on re-opening Kings Heath and Moseley stations

There were more signs this week that passenger services could be restored to the railway line through Moseley and Kings Heath.

Campaigners are hoping to see trains running by 2018, cutting the journey time to Birmingham city centre to under ten minutes they claim.

Funding has been secured for design work on the £40m scheme and Centro engineers are now working on the structure and layout of a vital piece of track to make the link from the Camp Hill Line to Moor Street Station.

The region's public transport developer is expected to take three months to come up with a preferred design which will then be passed to Network Rail. The current plan is for building work to start in five years time.

Local councillor Martin Mullaney says Centro has allocated £125,000 for the feasibility study that is now underway. It is estimated that the cost of the new track will be around £35million, with new stations at Moseley, Kings Heath and Stirchley adding £1million each to the final bill.

The Moseley station would be located in the cutting between St.Marys Row and Woodbridge Road, while the Kings Heath station would be located immediately south of the High Street bridge alongside the retail warehouses.

The local stations closed in 1941 through lack of use. Cllr Mullaney says this was because trains had to take a roundabout route into the over-crowded New Street Station. A new link to Moor Street would solve those problems - it will also put Kings Heath and Moseley passengers less than ten minutes away from direct services to London via the Chiltern line.

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Comments

At 20:11 on 30th March 2009, commented:

it would be good to know how many trains they intend sending down the line and how often, particularly in the evenings. Our house backs onto the line and the increase in traffic will substantially alter our enjoyment of our garden. The increase in noise would be of concern too

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martin m

At 21:29 on 30th March 2009, martin m commented:

There would be a paasenger service every 20minutes, with the possiblity of eventually increasing it to one every 15minutes.

Achieving one every 10minutes, would be difficult, due to capacity limits at Moor Street station.

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Eileen K

At 11:23 on 24th April 2009, Eileen K commented:

Thank heavens! We really could do with a passenger service from Kings Heath, it would certainly make life a lot easier and I'm certain it would encourage a lot more local people to leave their cars behind. Not to mention the amount of work that would be generated locally!

I used to live in a house that backs onto the line and trust me you really don't notice the trains after a while. As a child I used to love watching the trains go by and as I grew up it never interfered with our enjoyment in using the garden.

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astyler

At 21:47 on 26th May 2009, astyler commented:

I think this is extremely positive for the area. It will not only help to bring more business in, but it will also help to reduce traffic - it's crippling enough at the moment on the Alcester Rd/High Street in rush hour.

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