Rare Track Days #1: Avoiding Wolverhampton

New year's resolution: write more, shorter blogposts.

I've been on many trains over the last few months, but no big multi-day excursions like I usually blog about. Instead I've been on lots of little day trips, most of them to cover a short section of "rare track".

Most of the British railway network is used day in, day out. But there are a few bits of track that aren't used much, or are only used by freight trains. I'm trying to travel on the whole British railway network, so when one of these rarely-used bits of track is called upon for diverting trains, I jump at the chance.

So, here begins a new series of reports about the many little trips I do.

On New Year's Day, I traversed a line which avoids Wolverhampton; it was probably the weirdest day's train travel I've ever done.

Cynics might think that that avoiding Wolverhampton is a good thing; but it's a big enough city that everything stops, and skirting round the edge rather than going through the station is mostly pointless these days. That opinion, however, was not shared by the builders of the Grand Junction Railway, one of the pioneer railway companies of the 1830s who set out to join the country together by rail, by linking the London and Birmingham Railway to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; they saw fit to completely avoid Wolverhampton, giving it only a station at Wednesfield Heath, nearly a mile north-east of the current Wolverhampton station.

The Grand Junction and the L&B shared a station in Birmingham at Curzon Street, a little way east of New Street; only the frontage survives, but you can see it on your right on your way into New Street from the east, just before the tunnels. Their original route from Birmingham through Aston, Perry Barr, Bescot, and Wednesfield Heath survives, but has been supplanted for through traffic by the main line heading west from New Street through Soho, Smethwick, Tipton and Wolverhampton proper.

The original route through Bescot is still used by trains to and from Walsall, but the last three miles through Wednesfield Heath - between Portobello Junction and Bushbury Junction - do not see many regular passenger services, with only some of the London-Glasgow sleeper trains using it (but only on a Sunday night!).

Except on New Year's Day, when engineering works shut the WCML between Rugby and Stafford, and the only option was to divert London-Manchester and Liverpool trains via the original Grand Junction route. Well, that was the plan, anyway...

1151 Coventry to Milton Keynes Central, arr 1219
Headcode: 1B38, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390121
Distance: 44.25 miles

The astute among you will recognise that, from Coventry, Milton Keynes is the other direction to Wolverhampton. Unfortunately, while the trains were being diverted via Wednesfield Heath, they weren't stopping between Milton Keynes and Stafford. So in order to go on a bit of track near Wolverhampton, I had to go to Milton Keynes, in order to go back through Coventry to Stafford, and then repeat on the way home. So off I headed to Milton Keynes, where I had a half-hour wait to change trains.

1251 Milton Keynes Central to Stafford, arr 1416
Headcode: 1F17, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390137
Distance: 91.25 miles

The train from Milton Keynes to Stafford is probably the weirdest train journey I've ever made in my life. As I said, we were booked to run non-stop from Milton Keynes to Stafford. On the mainline via Nuneaton and Lichfield, this would be perfectly normal. But we weren't on the mainline, we were diverted to run non-stop through Coventry, alongside platform 3.

Running non-stop through a station you normally get off or on at is really weird. Admittedly we were following a stopping train, so we only went through Coventry at 40mph, but it was still seriously weird.

From Coventry the plan was that we'd to go along the mainline to Birmingham as far as Stechford, use another little-used bit of track from there to Aston, and then join the old Grand Junction main line through to Stafford. In fact, we were to use exactly the three dashed lines on this map:

Bad news: unfortunately, there was a track circuit failure near Bescot, and so we were unable to run via Wednesfield Heath. (Boo! That was the whole point of going on the train!) Fortunately, a check of Real Time Trains suggested that trains in the other direction were able to run normally, so I crossed my fingers that coming back we'd go through Wednesfield Heath.

Good news: being unable to run via Bescot left us with just one option: go via Birmingham New Street. Since we weren't booked to call, we proceeded through without stopping.

Yes, we went through Birmingham New Street station without stopping. (At the full permitted speed... of 10mph.) That was so weird it was slightly disorienting. I still can't quite get my head around having the line

Bham New St pf 6   13/47½ (!)

recorded in my logbook (where the / means that we passed without stopping). We continued to also run non-stop through Wolverhampton; surprisingly, we arrived at Stafford exactly on time, the diversion through New Street not having cost us any time.

I trotted over to platform 1, and waited for my train back:

1448 Stafford to Milton Keynes Central, arr 1615
Headcode: 1A40, operated by Virgin Trains using Pendolino 390006
Distance: 89.5 miles

I joined the train and sat for the next fifteen minutes with my fingers crossed, hoping desperately that we'd turn left at Bushbury Junction and not go back through Wolverhampton. We duly slowed down on approach to Bushbury Junction, consistent with turning left... and we did!

I'd honestly been waiting years to do the three miles of track between Bushbury Junction and Portobello Junction, so finally succeeding had me very nearly singing the Hallelujah Chorus to myself. You see, when they rebuilt the West Coast Main Line a few years ago, and upgraded the line between Rugby and Stafford from two to four tracks, they used the Wednesfield Heath line to divert trains every single weekend for four years. And I missed my chance. So to finally get the chance was super!

Once we joined the mainline at Stechford, instead of crawling along, we were afforded a short burst of a clear run, and accelerated up to 100mph - a speed we kept even through Birmingham International, but approaching Coventry we caught up to a stopping train and slowed down again.

Normally a train non-stopping Coventry towards Rugby would use platform 2; but the Nuneaton shuttle happened to be departing from platform 2, and rather than delay us, the signaller decided to send us across, through platform 3, and back over. So in one day I passed through Coventry platform 3 without stopping... twice!

We duly arrived at Milton Keynes, and I crossed the platform for the next train home:

1628 Milton Keynes Central to Coventry, arr 1733
Headcode: 2Y34, operated by London Midland using Desiro 350267*+350233
Distance: 46.25 miles

It happened that I'd just missed the fast Virgin Trains service, so the best option was to sit on the stopper via Northampton instead. An hour later, I found myself back at Coventry station for the fourth time that day - though only the second time that I'd stopped there...

So, in summary, I spent nearly four and a half hours on trains, travelled over 270 miles, and spent £38.05, just to go on a short bit of track outside Wolverhampton. Was it worth it? Yes, not just for the track; going non-stop through Birmingham New Street is not an experience I'd ever expect to repeat.