What use is Tame Bridge Parkway as a station for Birmingham?

Question

After lacking a direct rail service to London for nearly 20 years, a new company, the Wrexham, Shropshire & Marylebone Railway company is starting one at the end of this month from Wrexham. The trouble is that because of prior agreements between Railtrack and Virgin, this new company will not be allowed to stop at Birmigham New Street. Instead, the stop for Birmingham will be at Tame Bridge Parkway, a station I had never heard of before.

How much use is this station as a stop for Birmingham? Can you get connections from here to New Street or other services? Can you easily get from this station to the centre of Birmingham?

Answer 1

There are frequent trains from Tame Bridge Parkway to Birmingham New Street, which take 20 minutes, but for other reasons I think this new

Wrexham to London Marylebone service is daft and is unlikely to succeed. Wrexham (sorry Wrexham people) is hardly an economically vibrant place with people bursting to use 5 trains per day to London. Shrewsbury on route which lost its direct service to London more than a decade ago,

badly needs direct trains to London, but this new service takes one hour longer than the existing route changing on to Virgin Trains at Crewe or Birmingham New Street. If the new service offered competitive cheaper fares as Chiltern Railways does between Birmingham and London Marylebone, it might attract some custom, but its fares appear to be just as high as those on existing routes. I travel to Shropshire frequently and I shall continue to travel by Virgin from London Euston changing at Crewe on to Arriva Trains Wales; this route is one hour faster and frequent.

POST SCRIPT

I accept your points Robert. I am usually going to Ludlow and sometimes Church Stretton. Virgin Euston to Crewe and then Arriva Trains Wales has been 100% reliable for me unlike the southern route using First Great Western (lol) from Paddington and changing at Newport that I used to use. I will try the new service from Marylebone.

Answer 2

It is about half way between Birmingham New Street and Walsall.  Services run in both directions roughly every 20 minutes.

Answer 3

There is a frequent train service between Tame Bridge Parkway and Birmingham New Street, operated by London Midland.