All rails lead to Birmingham for the 2022 Commonwealth Games

Friday 22 Jul 2022

All rails lead to Birmingham for the 2022 Commonwealth Games

Region & Route:: North West & Central

With less than a week to go passengers are being given top travel tips during the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

The West Coast main line between London Euston and Scotland, Chiltern main line between London Marylebone and Birmingham and all rail routes in the West Midlands, will play a crucial role in transporting games-goers over the 12-day sporting spectacle.

A predicted one million extra passenger journeys are to be made while the Games take place between 28 July and 8 August.

During that time Network Rail’s three tips to passengers and visitors are:

Check before you travel,
Plan your journey, and
Leave more time than usual to reach your destination.

Across Birmingham and the West Midlands, 15 venues will play host to 20 sports, with trains and stations expected to be much busier than usual.

Birmingham New Street, Birmingham Moor Street, Birmingham International, Coventry, Leamington Spa, Perry Barr, and Warwick are all expected to be among the busiest stations during the games.

Denise Wetton, Network Rail’s Central route director, said: “After nearly five years of planning since Birmingham was announced as host city in 2017, we are now just days away from welcoming tens of thousands of people from around the world to the West Midlands.

“Right across the rail industry and other public transport networks we are prepared to get spectators to where they need to be during this major international event. I’d urge people lucky enough to have clinched tickets to make sure they follow our top travel tips and check before they travel at www.nationalrail.co.uk, so they can get to venues in plenty of time and see sporting history be made.”

For detailed information about how to get to venues during the Commonwealth Games you can visit dedicated pages on the:

Passengers are also being reminded of national industrial action on the railway on Wednesday 27 and Saturday 30 July which will impact rail journeys in the first few days of the events.

Read more: Passengers urged to only travel by train if necessary on 27 and 30 July

People who need extra help getting on and off the train are able to pre-book assistance.

Passengers can do that in advance by phone, text phone or online by clicking this link or using the new Passenger Assistance app by Transreport, which speeds up the process to request assistance.

For more: Details on how to download the app click here.

Rail travellers can get the latest information and plan their journeys using their train operators’ websites or at www.nationalrail.co.uk.

Contact information

Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
Network Rail press office - North West & Central Region
07740 782954
NWCmediarelations@networkrail.co.uk

About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.