'Booming Brum' says Railnews; Birmingham is a rail desert, in fact

In Brum and the Black Country, there has been 50 years of nearly 50 miles of freight lines that used to have successful passenger trains for 100 years.  This is disgraceful negligence for 50 years.

There are a further 50 miles of urban rail lines in Brum and the Black Country that were closed 50 years ago and now all built on.  Not even one mile was mothballed out of these 50 miles!  This is disgraceful incompetence and thoughtlessness.

Now, we are to see all of one mile of the 50 miles of freight only lines, that is to get a shuttle tram when the full 13 miles of the Black Country Line would give much better value for money, would return it to a mainline instead of a new branch line and, do much more to increase capacity and reduce congestion.

“(The UK) has one of the biggest deficits in the world”  Nick Robinson BBC Chief Political Correspondent on ‘Today’, 8 May 2015

ABOUT TEN TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE FOR TRAMS ON RAIL LINES THAN REINSTATING THE MISSING TRAINS!

Public expenditure for 34 years has been syphoned away, by the West Midlands Integrated (actually, Disintegrated) Transport Authority (ITA), into one very expensive project to put LR trams on railway lines to replace trains and, on roads, to replace buses.

Yet, in 34 years, only one tramline out of the dozen or more that ITA, PTA, Centro wanted, finally gets opened - and, finally completed, in September.  Yet, nearly fifty miles (80 Km) of successful passenger lines for 100 years remain closed and stations demolished.  This is negligence, incompetence and an improper use of public funds; and, serious failures in transport policy and practice.  It needs investigating, stopped and turned round.

It is further compounded by the utter and complete idiocy of now developing and testing Very Light Rail trams on one mile of the 13 miles (21 Km), Black Country high speed Line.  This is the UK’s only north-south line that can easily be reinstated.  It is the most important but wasted asset for 50 years in our national rail network.  It will remain so for the next 50 years by Centro’s and the ITA’s decision to deliberately reduce rail capacity and increase road and rail congestion by this one, stupid decision.