New Street to close for five days at Christmas, with extra Snow Hill line trains

Birmingham New Street will close for five days over Christmas for a £13 million upgrade to its overhead power lines, but passengers on the Snow Hill line will get extra trains while the work goes on.

No trains will run through New Street from Thursday 24 December to Monday 28 December. Normal services resume on Tuesday 29 December.

Using the quietest days

Network Rail is timing the work to make use of the annual Christmas Day and Boxing Day shutdown, when no trains run anyway, to keep disruption as low as possible. The closure will affect journeys on Christmas Eve, on Sunday 27 December and on the bank holiday Monday, 28 December. Services will finish early on Christmas Eve, as they normally do.

Mark Goodall, route director for Network Rail's Central route, said: "Passengers want and deserve a railway they can rely on and our teams will be working over Christmas to help make journeys more reliable for years to come."

"I know the changes will affect Christmas journeys and I am sorry for any inconvenience caused," he said. "My advice is to plan ahead, check before you travel, and allow extra time for your journeys."

More trains on the Snow Hill line

Snow Hill line services will keep running throughout. Trains that normally run between Hereford, Worcester, Bromsgrove and New Street will instead be diverted at Droitwich Spa to Birmingham Snow Hill.

Those diverted trains will stop at Kidderminster, Stourbridge Junction and Smethwick Galton Bridge, giving each of those stations an extra train an hour in both directions during the closure. Snow Hill and Moor Street stations are expected to be busier than usual.

Buses and long-distance trains

Replacement buses will link New Street with Birmingham International and Wolverhampton. Some long-distance services will be diverted or changed. Wolverhampton will still have direct trains to destinations including London Euston, Bournemouth, Liverpool, Manchester, Scotland and Mid and North Wales, and hourly long-distance trains are expected to run each way from Worcestershire Parkway on the Edinburgh to Plymouth and Nottingham to Cardiff routes.

More work at the same time

Network Rail will also use the closure to renew track between Birmingham and Sandwell, and to carry out work at Berkswell on the line between Birmingham and Coventry.

Plan ahead

For anyone travelling to see family over Christmas, the message is to check the Christmas timetables early and allow extra time. Network Rail says the work will make journeys more reliable for years to come.