On Thursday, following a delayed Railweek visit, West Midlands YRP had the opportunity to tour the new Willenhall and Darlaston station sites; two Midlands stations that haven’t yet opened to the public.
We spent the morning walking the sites with Victoria Kinally and the wider project team, talking through everything from the original business case to design development and construction delivery. What made the visit particularly valuable for our YRP members was the openness in discussing not just the engineering and programme milestones, but also the bottlenecks experienced including funding constraints, delivery challenges, stakeholder coordination, and how these are navigated in live infrastructure environments.
It sparked some brilliant conversations from construction, design and customer experience perspectives. Understanding how decisions made on paper translate into physical assets (and future passenger experience) is something you don’t always get exposure to early in your career.
We also got to see the artwork taking shape at Willenhall.
Huge thanks to West Midlands Combined Authority for enabling a fantastic behind-the-scenes experience for our members.