West Midlands Metro

The West Midlands Metro first started operation on 30th May 1999. The route when it operated between Wolverhampton and Birmingham Snow Hill station. The route ran mostly along the former track bed of the former heavy rail line between Birmingham & Wolverhampton. The former railway fully closed in 1992 so made perfect sense to utilise this route for the tram network.

Services continued along this section until 2015/16 when the line was rerouted and diverted into the city centre using street running. The new extension through the City Centre as far as Grand Central forming an interchange with Birmingham New Street.

In 2019 the line was extended to the Library tram stop. This was later extended in July 2022 to Edgbaston Village which is the current day terminus at the southern end of the network.

In Wolverhampton the network has recently been extended to Wolverhampton station to form another interchange with the national rail network. There is now 4 direct interchange stops between the West Midland Metro and national rail with Jewellery Quarter and The Hawthorns been the other two stations.

Future expansions to the West Midlands Metro are already underway! The line from Wednesbury to Dudley is in the advanced phases of construction. Most of this is following the former heavy rail route that used to run to Dudley. It is estimated that the line to Dudley is expected to enter service in late 2024. It is expected that the line will be extended beyond Dudley to Brierley Hill where it will terminate at the Merry Hill shopping centre. Further to this there has been proposals to extend the line to Stourbridge Junction, and maybe even to Stourbridge Town.

another proposed extension to the West Midlands Metro is to the east of the network. Funding is secured for an extension to be built from Bull Street in the city centre to Curzon Street where it will meet with the new HS2 station. Work is already underway on this with work as far as Digbeth underway. Digbeth will form the terminus of this line until the rest is built. Furthermore it is proposed to extend this line to Birmingham International Airport. This extension will very much depend on funding being available.

At the Wolverhampton end of the network their are plans in place to build a loop line from the station around to the currently disused stop, Wolverhampton St Georges, this has got the green light to happen, but can only do so when funding is available for it.