A special timetable over a 7 week period has been introduced for commuters on the Cross City line through Birmingham by West Midlands Railway.
This is in order to combat delays caused by autumnal leaf fall.
The new timetable will operate on weekdays only during the period from Monday the 14th of October until Friday the 29th of November 2019.
This timetable will be affecting services from Lichfield, through Birmingham New Street, to Redditch and Bromsgrove.
Under this new and revised timetable, some trains will have an amended stopping pattern during the middle of the day, with the normal timetable resuming at across all stations by 16:00. The amended pattern has been put in place to allow services greater leeway to recover from delays caused by leaves on the line.
The timetable is focused on providing a normal level of service for commuters who are travelling to and from Birmingham city centre, with every train arriving at New Street before 09:30 being unaffected. Trains heading out of the city after 16:00 will also call at all stops as they do normally.
The leaf fall timetable involves missing out some of the stops that are on the route in order to help deal with slippery conditions on the rail.
Autumnal weather creates challenges that are significant for train drivers, as wheels and rails can often become coated with a hard residue. As a result of this, trains do often need to slow down in order to adapt to the driving conditions that there are because of this.
The Cross City line is particularly affected because of the high frequency of trains that are run on this route, and the short distance between these stations – meaning acceleration and deceleration is required – as well as the density of foliage near the tracks.
The stations with amended calling patterns are Wylde Green, Chester Road, Erdington and Gravelly Hill (Cross City North) as well as Bournville, Kings Norton and Northfield (Cross City South).
West Midlands Railway is continuing to work closely alongside Network Rail on a number of initiatives to reduce the impact that they have on services. Vegetation has been cut back along the route and rails are spray-cleaned throughout the day.
What did the officials say?
Richard Brooks, customer experience director for West Midlands Railway said:
“Our priority at all times is to provide a reliable service for passengers on the Cross City line and we know from experience that introducing a leaf fall timetable brings major benefits to punctuality in the challenging autumn period.
“The new timetable we introduced in May 2019 brought such a big increase in the numbers of trains that this reduced autumn timetable still carries 80 more stops than last year's regular timetable.”
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