Wolves, Lower

 

Despite passing through it every time I headed for New Street, I'd put off collecting Wolverhampton station for a long time.  The reason was simple: shortly after I started this stupid scheme, they announced a comprehensive rebuild, and I wanted to see it at its best.

I say "comprehensive" but it mainly extends to the edge platforms.  In the centre, the buildings are still 1960s West Coast Electrification standard, with flat concrete and wooden roofs.  On the left and right, though, there's a lot of shiny metallic cladding and glass.

The most practical addition to Wolverhampton station in the rebuild was a massive new footbridge with lifts to all the platforms, replacing a subway which you can still see disappearing beneath platform 1.  It's a gargantuan, no-expense spared construction, mightily traversing the tracks and providing plenty of opportunity to stop and admire the trains going under.

All this redevelopment has to be paid for somehow, because heaven forbid you get something for nothing, and so the ticket hall has been given half a dozen retail units.  Fortunately it all works.  The new space is bright and airy with plenty of circulation room.  You don't feel like you've accidentally wandered into a small shopping arcade that happens to have trains at the back.

And, of course, this all comes with a glamorous and ostentatious sign in West Midlands Railway orange.

The outside was another reason for the delay.  For years a tram extension had been under construction - basically since I started doing this ill-advised nonsense.  The Metro terminated in Wolverhampton city centre, by the shops, but an extension with two further stops for the bus and rail stations was planned.  It was funded, it got planning permission, construction began... and continued.  And went on.  And on.  Admittedly there was a global pandemic in the middle of all that but it still took an inordinate amount of time to open a small spur of a tram line.

It's finally here though so I jumped onboard and went to buy a day ticket on the app.  The tram got going, negotiated the streets of the city centre, and dropped me at Piper's Row, and I was still trying to buy a ticket on the app.  It wanted so many details about me, demanded registration and security codes, but fortunately the conductor was busy chatting to the driver so he never came to me for a check.  I sat on a bench to finish the transaction, next to a man who smelt of weed telling his mate about the palliative care his mum was receiving.

From here it was a short walk through the city centre to reach the other terminus, Wolverhampton St George's.  It was very clear, from my brief stroll, that Wolvo was not having a great time.  It has the classic problem, shared with Gateshead and Salford and Birkenhead and Bradford, of being a very large city in close proximity to an even larger one.  Before mass transport this was fine - you stuck to what you knew.  Now we all have cars and buses and trains and trams to take us to the more interesting place, creating a vicious cycle where the big city gets bigger and sucks the life out of the smaller one.

Obviously, before a pedant appears in the comments, I am fully aware that Birkenhead is not a city.

The cumulative impression I got as I walked was that Wolverhampton should perhaps consider a large demolition scheme.  There were empty shops, and shops that would look better if they were empty, and sad looking memorials.  It didn't encourage lingering.

The council was doing its best.  There was an empty shop turned into a public engagement centre, a sign in the window asking how would you change Wolverhampton?  I saw banners on empty buildings advising me "site acquired for future development" and uplifting billboards naming new quarters.  It didn't feel like it was reaching the people, though.

I found the tram stop and was confronted with this message:

Naively I'd thought that in all that time sorting out the new branch of the tram line the old one would be swiftly and effectively merged with it.  No, apparently they've had to close that one now, for "integration works".  I couldn't see any works actually going on but I'm sure there's something happening somewhere.

Fortunately I'd collected Wolverhampton St George's eleven years ago.

I'd travelled on the Midland Metro once before, with Robert and Ian back in 2013, and I'd not been a fan.  No, that's an understatement: I was vitriolic.  If you think I've been a miserable sod in this post, try reading that one.  

I descended into a roundabout on the ring road, another wide open space surrounded by roads.  It'll never stop being thrilling for me, down under the road in a hidden world.  It appeals to that moleman part of me.  The grand arched bridge above took the tram across on the most direct route to its next stop, The Royal.  I got there by walking along a busy dual carriageway.  There were signs of regeneration here, with apartments and town houses opposite me, as I crossed to the centre for the island platform.

My plan, worked out on a spreadsheet a few days ago, was to visit every stop on the Midland Metro in one day.  This was a patently ridiculous idea.  Somehow, getting absolutely blitzed visiting 100 stations in Stockholm hadn't made me think that a lot of transport stops in one day is a stupid aim.  I simply do not learn.

(Click for a bigger version).

What had unfortunately happened was I had a combination of time on my hands and an anal desire to collect everything I saw.  I was in the Midlands to see a Bond film; the Mockingbird Cinema was showing Live and Let Die with an intro from Dame Madeline Smith the following day, so I'd booked a hotel for the weekend to make sure there was no chance of me missing it.  The hotel, of course, didn't let you check in until three, so I'd joined the dots in my head and thought "oh, just travel on the tram, it's a piece of piss."

There are some Metro stops on the West Midlands Railway map, so I'd have had to collect some of them anyway.  "Some" isn't good enough for me.  All or nothing.

Wolverhampton St Georges being closed was an annoying little glitch, however.  I'd planned on getting off the tram at The Royal, not on, and so all my careful planning was to pot.  I decided that I'd have to loiter at the next stop, Priestfield.

Instead of walking on again, I went up to street level, took the sign selfie, and walked back down again.  Some boys were in the shelter, loudly enjoying themselves (youthful bastards), so I stood on the end and quietly sweated until the next tram came in.

If you did read that bitter diatribe against the West Midlands tram network I linked to earlier, you'll have seen that I absolutely hated the noisy rattling trams with a strange raised platform in the middle of the cabin.  These have all gone now, replaced by something a bit more 21st century, silent and electric and elegant.

They've kept the onboard conductors to sell you tickets, but it looks like their days were numbered.  Ticket machines were springing up all over the place, covered with a tarpaulin to stop you trying to use them.  This is how ticketing on the Manchester Metrolink works, so it makes sense, though you do wonder how revenues will plummet without an actual person demanding to see your ticket.  In 2024 though, with travel cards and apps, the idea of a piece of paper given to you by a clippy seems increasingly antiquated.  

That sign could do with a wipe down with a damp cloth.  

I was now in the Bilston district, and it brought with it a pleasing mix of old buildings and parkland.  There was a library and a small Sikh temple.  The clock tower of the town hall showed the correct time, which is increasingly a rarity these days, and though nobody will come here for a romantic getaway, it seemed like a decent little area.  

Opposite the entrance to the tram stop, the bridge had been decorated with a piece of artwork, words from the locals and inspiring quotes - "Bilston is an urban village of its own" "You could see the air that you breathed" and, slightly worryingly, "Say hello to the master."  I don't think I want to delve too deeply into that one.

Bilston Central, as its name implies, was once a heavy rail station.  The majority of the Metro is on a repurposed railway line that closed in 1983.  Now you descend into a deep cutting with brick arches around you - quite the change from the minimalist architecture elsewhere on the line.

A quick ride and I was at Loxdale. 

This was, though I hadn't realised it, a landmark station.  Loxdale is the home of Wolverhampton's taxi licensing bureau and as such is a spot of national importance.  As this report from the BBC says, 21,188 taxi driving licences were issued by Wolverhampton Council in 2023/24: 813 for residents of the city, and 20,375 for people from the rest of the country.

There's some debate about why Wolverhampton is quite so popular for licences (they've had to take on extra staff) - it seems to come down to price and the speed they process the applications.  I wouldn't dream of suggesting that they are, perhaps, a little less thorough with their checks as well, but it's certainly riled up other councils, who are missing out on all that revenue concerned about the qualifications of drivers operating in their area.

The High Street wasn't, as the name implied, a delightful run of small historic outlets, but was instead a busy road running between ugly industrial units.  One had been turned into a bright red cube that promised a "dance bar, adult shop, and adult cinema"; it was barely half eleven but an A board advised me that the cinema was open.  I had a small moment of disquiet imagining the hygiene standards inside.  I'd advise taking your own bottle of Flash and perhaps a course of penicillin.

It seemed very on-brand for the West Midlands that a park with a playground also had a whopping great electric pylon towering over it.

I was now in a small estate of tight roads, built when the assumption was that council tenants wouldn't be able to afford their own cars and now littered with parked vehicles everywhere.  Front gardens had been paved over to try and make room for the two or three vehicles.  It meant that the cars that drove down the roads did so in a kind of wild slalom, swinging between gaps to make their way through.

I emerged the other side and headed for my next stop.

It was another island stop, and the indicator told me I had one minute before the next tram arrived.  I had a vague feeling of disquiet as I crossed.  I could see all the way down the tracks, and there was no sign, but part of me still expected to be mown down indiscriminately.

Wednesbury Parkway brought a brief moment of excitement.  Clustered around one end of the platform were a load of trainees in hi-vis being taught about the electrics for the line.  They gave the driver a cheery wave and went back to their lesson.

Perhaps they could've got one of them out with a mop and bucket because this was another mouldy sign.

I followed a small footpath under another roundabout.  As I turned the corner, a young mum with a little girl came down the steps, and I tried to shape my face to convey don't worry about being in this lonely spot with me, I'm not a rapist.  She moved past me quickly so I'm not sure I succeeded.  

Wednesbury Great Western Street is a stop that doesn't really exist for the public.  It's far too close to Wednesbury Parkway, and it's stuck down the back of an industrial estate.  However, it backs onto the tram depot and staff training facility, so it's very much "may as well stick a stop here as well".

One day soon this stop will acquire a new importance as it'll be the terminus of Metro's second line.  Currently under construction, this goes from Wednesbury to Dudley.  The completion date is apparently "Autumn 2025" but as with seemingly everything to do with the Midlands Metro, that's very tentative.

I think we'd best leave it there, hadn't you?  That's quite enough trammage for the time being.  Come back later for more hot Metro action.  And when I say "hot" I mean "tepid".