Birmingham Maglev

The AirRail Link is a people mover linking Birmingham Airport with Birmingham International railway station and the National Exhibition Centre (NEC), in the United Kingdom. The current system, originally known as SkyRail, replaced the earlier Birmingham Maglev system in 2003.

The Birmingham Maglev was opened in 1984 and was the first commercial Maglev transport system in the world. The system was fully automated and used an elevated concrete guideway, much of which has been reused for the current AirRail Link system.

The current system is a fully automated cable-hauled system that takes passengers from the high-level railway station concourse, over a dual carriageway and into the terminal buildings. It has a length of 585 metres (1,919 ft), is free to use, and handles three million passengers per year. During the day, the trains run every few minutes each way. At off-peak times, trains operate on demand, and to facilitate this, a button labelled "DEMAND" must be pressed by the prospective passenger.

Initial feasibility studies for a link from the airport to the railway station and exhibition centre were started in 1979 by the owners of the airport at that time, West Midlands County Council. The selected solution was based on experimental work commissioned by the British government at the British Rail Research Division laboratory at Derby.

Contracts were awarded in 1981 to a consortium involving GEC, Balfour Beatty, Brush Electrical Machines and Metropolitan Cammell under the name "People Mover Group", along with John Laing plc. The carriages were manufactured by MetroCammell at their Washwood Heath plant in Birmingham. The system was opened on 16 August 1984.

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