Love empty but available rail lines; hate their waste, their disuse, their lying idle!

Reflections after my first Railfuture conference

This was an excellent and well organised conference with a range of interesting speakers who all held my attention.  This was easily good enough for the professionals to attend, of whom we did have James Freeman of FirstBus and Matthew Golton of GWR who spoke and, stayed for the whole day.  They are a credit to their profession and I give both 10 out of 10!  More of their colleagues from around the UK should have attended and could have learnt so much from what they are doing, in my opinion.  Now for something different.

To make it less tedious to read, these are my jaundiced and bolshy views about the English rail industry and their transport planners - and, put in bullet points because my stuff and nonsense, I am convinced, never ever gets read, because nothing ever changes!  The professionals, on very good salaries, are making far too many mistakes, from what I can gather.  Here goes:-

• 15 tram lines, covering 200 miles by the year 2000 as the professionals predicted were never delivered.  After 34 years, only the one line has still to be completed to Birmingham Grand Central!
• 38 Km unused, strategic and nationally important double track rail line, called the Black Country Line, for 50 years without passenger trains - only some freight for 6 Km!
• Next door, 57 Km in Birmingham of double track rail lines with their stations demolished and no passenger service - for 50 years!
• Yet, 160 Km to Birmingham of HS2 at £50 billion of brand new, greenfield, super fast rail lines are essential said Toby top man Rackliff of the (gone)West Midlands (dis)Integrated Transport Authority.  Essential in order to release capacity on the rail network.  But 38 plus 57 Kms are already released and available now to take passenger trains in the Black Country and Brum!
• Today, in Bristol, some of the nation’s most enthusiastic railway campaigners were not at all put out by being told this.  It seemed to be a thoroughly normal state of affairs for every single one!  Neither Toby top professional Rackliff (when I saw him on the 15 October in Centro House) nor the 130 Railfuture rail enthusiasts, today were at all impressed with unused or underused rail lines in a heavily road and rail congested, urban conurbation.
• No-one was bothered that, on the 38 Km, a fully operational rail line of freight or trams must be done FIRST before stations are rebuilt and the re-introduction of possibly only a shuttle passenger service can be achieved (so says very top Transport Officer, Laura Shoaf in September 2015 and Passenger Services Director, Tom Magrath in 2000)
• Both the professional and amateur rail enthusiasts seem to want new trains on new lines but not new (or old) trains on existing urban (partly used) rail lines literally alongside or very near to commuter congested roads in the heart of the densely populated Black Country.
• They think that HS2 and HS3 should have been built 20 or 30 years ago (GWR Commercial Development Director, Matthew Golton) but are not at all bothered that today urban rail lines are used for freight but not for passenger trains - as was the case for 100 years!
• Should not electrification have been completed first, 20 or 30 years ago?
• The professional and amateurs think it is lovely for the Swiss to have electrified their rail network in only two decades, 70 years ago but believe it is quite normal for the hopeless but so brave, battling around the Middle East, Brits to be still at it after five decades and, still, nowhere near being completed!
• Goodness me!  You can’t have one rail project completed before you go on to the next.
• Never allow the successful 100 year old passenger service to return to the freight lines but let them stew and steam in their cars in bumper to bumper traffic alongside the lines!
• President of Railfuture, Christian Wolmar said that there is a rocky road ahead for rail in the coming years but failed to say that this will never be the case for HS2 or HS3 and, certainly, never the case for Crossrail 2 because that is in London!
• The 40 mins service on the short Walsall to Wolverhampton rail service was a dismal failure last decade but a 20 mins turn up and go will attract the punters, says (no)Railfuture (their top rail re-opening)!
• Is this, Railfuture being over ambitious in wanting a turn up and go on the 8 Km line or lacking in ambition in not wanting the really useful, SW to NE cross country trains and commuter service between the 38 Km of Stourbridge and Lichfield?
• Smart Motorways and, now, high speed and underground rail lines must be built before returning the trains and stations to the most important and easily available rail line that could be opened in all the UK.
• This is the strategic, 38 Km Black Country Rail Line that goes through the heart of a densely populated urban conurbation.
• New housing estates are going up next to the line but the proud owners must jump in their motors but never walk/cycle or bus to the train station because it will never be re-built!
• Ah!  But that is where you are wrong, Tim.  Laura says it will be in the 2040s, at the earliest!
• How very strange that neither the professionals nor the amateurs have it as their top priority.
• Cross Country Trains should be clamouring for this rail line to be re-opened, double quick.  It would give them a new rail path to bypass Birmingham Grand Central and the competition  between the tocs for the paths there.
• It would grow their business and boost their profits when the passengers are there for the taking.
• It would help them to be given the next franchise.
• How very peculiar that having spent £¾ billion on Grand Central Shopping Centre and basement station to improve the passenger (shopping) experience but never the train congestion there, the professionals and the amateurs still don’t get how the Black Country Line could help reduce the very grandest rail and road congestion bottlenecks in the UK - the ever so shiny and mirror-like Grand Central!
• How very strange that for all of them, their tops for a Beeching reversal was the £10 million per mile, partly single track rail line through the heart of beautiful, rural, depopulated southern Scotland to the middle of nowhere.  Well, had you heard of Tweedbank?
• The actual top priority for the West Midlands professional and amateurs is the £100 million per mile tram extension through pedestrianised shopping streets in Birmingham city centre, when bio or electric buses would be more sensible.
• How very strange that both the professional and the amateur experts want Light Rail, or Very Light Rail or the tram-train or the Parry People Mover on the nation’s most important and strategic, national rail line.  Never good ol’, ordinary diesel or electric trains for passengers to use instead of their cars.  Ghost trains, perhaps!
• Never, ever learn from what our forebears did with rail lines.  They used them for trains.  Today, we confuse ourselves, love to complicate matters and most definitely waste our taxes on not using them for passenger trains.  Sometimes for freight and, in the past, for roads and, as an interesting innovation, even for offices, hotels and homes to run down them!
• All your eggs in one basket transport policy of always cars and buildings on urban rail lines and, now in the case of the Black Country Line, carbon capturing trees and shrubs but never trains.  So what?  Whatever next?  Climate catastrophe in a fast warming world?  We better get more trees on urban rail lines.  Double quick.
• Love empty but available rail lines; hate their waste, their disuse, their lying idle!