The expansion of the Birmingham West Suburban Railway (and the concurrent conversion of New Street into a through station) resulted in its usurping of the line as the service's primary route.

It was hoped to resume local services on the route by the end of 2024 after a break of nearly 84 years, however a July 2024 article in rail magazine[full citation needed] suggested a further delay, and stated that the line would be reopening in autumn 2025.

Expansion of these services via new chords connecting the line to Birmingham Moor Street were still in the early planning stage at the end of 2024.

In 2016, the newly created West Midlands Combined Authority revived the plans to restore local passenger services to the line, and declared it one of their priority transport schemes to be delivered by 2025.

[8][9] In 2017, the newly elected Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, pledged to get work started on restoring services to the line by 2020.

Officials were said to be investigating the business case for a fourth station at Balsall Heath (previously called Brighton Road).

In September 2018, the designs of the new stations – Kings Heath, Pineapple Road, and Moseley Village – were revealed and were planned for reopening by 2021 with a frequency of two trains per hour.

[14] In June 2022, West Midlands Rail Executive announced that following on from a public consultation, the three stations would be named Moseley Village, Kings Heath and Pineapple Road.

[16] The reopening has been hit by a series of delays, with the West Midlands Combined Authority is now aiming to reopen the line for passenger use by the end of 2025, with incumbent West Midlands mayor, Richard Parker, labelling overpromising by his predecessor, Andy Street, as the reason for the delays.

[20] The chords would also allow a number of services from East Midlands destinations, such as Derby and Leicester, to be diverted into Moor Street.