I watched some recent Videos of people who went on Birmingham Cross City and they went on the new class 730 WMR to Lichfield Trent Valley from Birmingham New Street. I would at least love to see Two 730 on BCC as it would be nice to the route, and Birmingham Cross City hasn't changed much so it would be nice to see Two 730's as they would fit the route and currently West Midlands Railway are using two of them on the line. Most of the time, they are formed into 6 car 730's but with the extra opportunity for 3 car. I think that this train would be nice, I like Aventra as well. I think this is my favourite Aventra train in service, I haven't been on the new London Northwestern one before, but this one would generally be good. Matt as well loves Aventra trains so it would be a great addition.
I completely agree. Although I didn't see any of these trains when I went on the Cross City Line to Cadbury World, I really like things to be modern, and the class 730 is a great example!
Birmingham Cross-City would be an ideal route for an expansion, such as by extending to places like Wolverhampton, Coventry, Walsall and Rugeley to create a West Midlands commuter network. The Class 730 would be perfect for this, along with the Class 323 from the current Cross-City route substituting in. We also badly need a WCML route featuring a Class 390 Pendolino to represent the express services at New Street, as well as on Cathcart Circle and the Glossop Line. Without such those routes do feel significantly more incomplete.
Let's have the 730 and a 350 to layer onto Cross City and get an East/West "Cross City" line from Rugby to Wolverhampton. I'm not an expert on 3D model making so I don't know whether the current 710 model can be altered to make a 730. The Aventra is a modular EMU, I don't know whether a 3D model would be as easy to make alterations.
The class 730 will be ideal as the current class 323's will now be gone, they should keep the class 323's and just add the class 730 to the cross-city line. But its still a shame the 323's have gone. But its time for something new i guess!
Although not connected directly to the Class 730 as well as the fact that it would require a WMR Class 170, the current BCC route could be expanded in the near future to include the Camp Hill line once it opens in real life in the same vain as the forthcoming Leven Branch for Fife Circle Line. Perhaps also bring Soho Depot for ECS moves.
As said already the 730 has replaced all 323 stock on WMR BCC line. Add to that adding the route detailed below. It really is about time WMR was expanded on.
Could go the whole hog and do the complete Birmingham to Worcester line as a separate DLC. It'd be a nice drive.
The 730s started training runs back in 2021 but I'm pretty sure they only entered service on Cross-City services back in April 2024. The 3 car units initially entered service on the mainline in November 2023 to allow the class 319s to go off lease.
