I’ve been to Birmingham (work-related) and the journey time alone to Stechford and back was three hours.
It’s not that far as the crow flies but it was constant traffic that caused the issues.
Stechford, by the way, is the birthplace of Enoch Powell and I was thinking about his April 1968 speech as I drove through the city.
In it he quotes classic literature, ‘Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first they make mad’.