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".

Planes, Trains, No Automobiles

Albrighton was a proper English village.  Everything about it glistened with history and middle-class privilege, right from the proper Victorian station building.

Sadly it's no longer in use for railway purposes.  Looking through the window I saw a vacated office space, power cables laying across the floor, empty tables pushed up against the wall.  I followed a man with an adorable excited Golden Retriever puppy down the path to the street which was, of course, called Station Road.

Neat houses sat behind lengths of mown lawn.  I passed behind two elderly men, trim and spry with white hair, one of whom said, "I'll tell you what really gets my goat..." but he paused as I approached so I'll never know.  There were Neighbourhood Watch signs on the lamp posts and benches on the verges.  A mother pointed out the leaves on the bushes to her toddler and explained what they were, letting her rub her thumb over the surface, but stopping her when she tried to pick one,

As I neared the village centre, an old lady got out of her car and looked, puzzled, at a piece of plastic on a garden wall.  She held it up to me.  It was a winding knob, attached to a long metal screw.

"I recognise this," she said to me.  "It's from my daughter's wheelchair.  She went past here yesterday - I'll take it home to her."

"I hope it wasn't anything vital," I replied.

That perverted, inverted snob inside of me wanted to hate Albrighton for its adherence to the middle-class ideal.  For being quite so perfect.  I couldn't.  It had a tidy little centre around a green, with shops and cafes.  A library.  People sitting on benches, chatting, heading into coffee shops.  It seemed like a lovely place to live.

It seemed everyone else thought the same, which was why there was a banner hanging on the green saying No! To Overdevelopment.  A proposal was in to build 800 new homes, a surgery, a park and ride and a secondary school on fields outside the village; the Albrighton Village Action Group naturally opposed it, demanding that the council Save Our Green Belt.  Newsflash: you haven't got a Green Belt.  You've got fields round your village, but that's not a green belt.  That's just what happens when you live in the countryside.  

As I walked out of the village again, I thought about the disingenuousness of that "over" in "overdevelopment".  As though they'd be ok with 600 houses, or 400.  It was just 800 that would destroy the village forever.  I passed homes that were obviously built in the last thirty years; cul-de-sacs of 1970s semis; a block of 21st century sheltered accomodation.  Presumably these were all ok?  Or are those residents exempted from an opinion, as they're not part of the historic village.  It's a good, decent place to live with convenient transport links and plenty of space to build on.  If you don't grow, you die, as nobody can afford to move into your village.  All those lovely convenient businesses you enjoy will close down because there's nobody to run them.

At the bypass, the road was blocked by a load of construction traffic.  I approached a workman - a boy in a hard hat that made him look like a kid playing dress-up - to get permission to walk through.  He lifted his walkie-talkie: "there's a man walking through now."  I don't know why, but him calling me a "man" rankled.  It made me feel old.  One step away from "gentleman", which really is the tin hat on you being a pensioner.  Yes, I was definitely old enough to be this boy's dad, but that's not the point.  Call me "lad" or something to massage my bruised ego.

The bypass curled round the back of RAF Cosford; through the wire fence I saw the service homes, uniform, identical.  There was a ginger cat in the long grass but he ignored my psss-psss-psss noises; he was focussed on something, and I think it was about to die.  At the crossroads I turned to walk on the public road that ran between the two halves of the airbase.

I was doing nothing illegal, of course.  This was a through route for pedestrians and drivers.  Nonetheless, I felt I had to hurry on.  I didn't feel comfortable loitering, as though an MP would come out on a jeep and shoot me in the chin as a possible terrorist.  ("I thought he was wearing a suicide belt, your honour, but when we examined the corpse it turned out he was just a fat bastard.")

I walked past the railway station because I was headed for a museum.  RAF Cosford is home to the midlands branch of the RAF Museum, and I thought I'd visit since I was in the area.  It's not really been built for walkers.  The assumption is clearly that you'll drive, which is why the route from the station is a long straight road with no pavement.

Drivers beware, however.  The museum is free, and they're very proud of that fact, but parking is seven pounds fifty.  That is, quite frankly, taking the mick.  I strolled past the ticket machine feeling a little smug that they wouldn't be getting any of my cash that day.

The museum is spread across a campus of vast hangars filled with aircraft.  It's a little overwhelming when you first walk in; the sight of these huge machines stacked on one another, springing out of the floor and the ceiling.  

I'm not a plane nerd.  I can appreciate them as pieces of machinery, and I wouldn't fancy travelling to America without one, but they don't trigger the synapses in me.  My best friend at primary school, Mark, was very much into aeroplanes, and for one of his birthdays we went to the Shuttleworth Collection in Biggleswade (I thought it was very funny that it was in Biggleswade; he was entirely unbothered).  He wandered from aircraft to aircraft in raptures and I nodded and smiled.  It was alright, I suppose, and it was nice to have a day out, but I never felt the urge to go back.

The museum's greatest asset is its Cold War exhibition, which covers the period from the end of the Second World War to the early 90s, when all tensions ceased and the world became universally peaceful.  It's a sort of "here's all the things that could have killed you" exhibition, with a heavy emphasis on the many weapons of mass destruction the world powers pointed at one another.

There's something intensely sobering about looking at a device, then turning to the information board and learning it was a Polaris missile.  Being a child of the 80s, nuclear destruction was one of those things that registered at the back of my head as a constant possibility.  I couldn't really think about it because down that way madness lay, but it was always there; Sue Lawley talking about the latest US-USSR summit, images of Greenham Common and the Berlin Wall, grimy footage of vehicles being driven by the camera with their payloads badly hidden by tarpaulins.

On the other hand, I thought a nuclear holocaust would be thrilling.  This is entirely the fault of the James Bond films. where every other movie included an atomic device.  I was delighted to see a Vulcan bomber have pride of place, the same aircraft that is stolen with two nuclear missiles in Thunderball; looking at its payload I couldn't see the words Handle like Eggs printed on the bombs, which was disappointing.

We live in dangerous times.  As I type, the Middle East is a powder keg, a mess of tit for tat airstrikes mobilised by leaders with varying degrees of sanity.  Russia and Ukraine continue to war with one another, and the threat of terrorism never goes away.  At least in the Cold War you knew who the enemy was - it was the people behind the Iron Curtain.  Now it could be anyone, anywhere.  When the Berlin Wall fell it smashed the world into a thousand different pieces, all of whom seem to hate one another.

I had a wander round the museum shop, which was very much aimed at people for who aeroplanes were a very big deal.  There was a lot of Airfix and historical books with titles like Operation Kandy Heart and The Fulbright Offensive.  (I've made those up, but you totally believed they could be real, didn't you?).  And look, I know Lenin is a demonised figure to many, and capitalism won out over communism in the end, but making him the symbol of the shop and putting a bag in his hand is just disrespectful.

The final hangar was filled with more aeroplanes, but without the thematic link, I was a bit bored.  I will say it is absolutely impossible to take a bad photo of an aircraft.  Every angle made them look dynamic and exciting and dangerous.

I decided I'd had enough, and walked out the hangar, ignoring the touch pad begging for a five pound donation to keep the museum running.  With all due respect, I feel like the Great British Taxpayer has contributed quite enough to that museum.  It wouldn't have a single aeroplane without us, and every time I buy a cup of coffee, a little bit more of my cash goes to make future exhibits.  Perhaps take a fiver off my bit of Trident and give it to the museum instead.

There was a light drizzle as I walked back down the long road to the railway station.  Cosford holds an air show every year, and I can only imagine the crush of crowds along the road.  I wondered why there wasn't a back entrance, closer to the museum, with ramps for disabled access.  Instead it was steps up to the platform.

If you're wondering why I look even sweatier than usual in the sign pic, it's because I realised halfway down my gentle stroll to the station that if I got a wriggle on I could get the next train.  I did something I very rarely do, and ran, and my body went into a kind of shock.  

On the plus side, Cosford has a sort of sub-ALF.

My last station of the day was Shifnal, which wins points for being a little bit weird.  At platform level, it looks like any other railway station.

Getting out of it and into the town centre, however, means a long walk down a covered ramp, one with two 90 degree turns and a set of steps.  It's a long blank corridor that, after a while, has you wondering if you're going the right way; I half expected to step out into the staff mess room or possibly Wolverhampton city centre.  I wouldn't fancy walking this way to the platform as a lone woman after dark.

I was dropped into the very heart of Shifnal.  Sometimes you go to a town and it's like stepping into the past.  The UK is a very historic nation and you can't wander down a High Street without encountering some half-timbered pub or hotel where Queen Anne stayed or a Georgian terrace.  It's easy to convince yourself that you've time travelled.

Shifnal, though, felt like a town from a much more recent past.  The Seventies and Eighties, to be precise.  Something about its scruffy, sort-of tidied up main drag echoed with my childhood.  The shops were ordinary, plain, not glistening with neon and LED screens.  There were hardware stores and hairdressers and chemists and it all seemed small and contained.  A town that knew itself and was contented. 

I am, for example, obsessed with this shop, which looks like it was set up by Mr Rumbold after he retired from Grace Brothers.  Its stock was very much of the comfy slacks and neat sweater variety, and I wondered what will happen to it when its clientele die off and are replaced by men who wear jeans and hoodies.  Will it change or will it die?

There was a more historic Shifnal, but even that seemed to come with a slice of Princess Di-era goodness; one old building was a wine bar/bistro.  It reminded me of that mad plotline in Eighties EastEnders where Kathy ran a wine bar out of the cafe in the evenings, as though you'd ever get the smell of grease and chip fat out of the walls of that place.  "Bistro" has fallen out of favour, but "wine bar" has fallen even further.

I walked up and down the main street, looking in shop windows and trying to earwig on interesting conversations.  A sticker on the traffic light control box encouraged me to read The Light Paper; this turns out to be a remarkable source for every conspiracy theory you could possibly want, and some you didn't know you needed.  It had David Icke as an advertiser, for pity's sake, plugging his newest tour and sadly not those shell suits he used to wear that he reckoned gave him positive energy.  Being one of the lizard people illuminati, I of course dismissed it all as insane nonsense, but you may not be as much of a sucker for the MSM's agenda as me.

Fortunately I had a pint of beer to help me forget the reams of bollocks I'd accidentally consumed.  That one pint turned into a second, until finally I rolled out of the pub and back to that long corridor for my train home.