Your excellent piece in the Chronicle 19.4.18

Good morning, Mark.  A very good read, once again - thanks!  But Dudley, capital of the Black Country, gets a shuttle tram service to ferry people to the national railway network on a mainline railway that is already more important than the mainline railway passengers are shuttled to!!  And Station Hotel will have to renamed Tram Stop Hotel.  

A possible 7 new railway stations (3 for Brum) but a definite 17 tram stops for Wednesbury to Brierley Hill tram extension.  From the Express and Star I have copied and pasted the Magnificent Seven Stations.  My suggestions in blue:

Willenhall and Darlaston St James on a restored Walsall-Wolverhampton service.  BUT, this service was underused in the last decade and soon stopped.  The difference, this time, seems to be two stations being built, first.  Yet, there is a good, frequent Platinum bus service between Walsall and Wolverhampton.  Should not all available money be going to complete the 120 Kms Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance" (Network Rail and DfT) FIRST?  Only then do Wolverhampton to Walsall to Sutton Coldfield to Brum for passenger trains.

Merry Hill Shopping Centre, which would sit on the Walsall – Stourbridge line.  Please could journalists call it the Black Country Mainline Railway.  Merry Hill gets the tram which will wreck the high and landscaped canal embankment that has to be rebuilt to take the heavy trams.  It does get a tram stop, only but, on the high embankment.  Some kind of link will still have to be provided into the shopping centre.  SIMPLER TO: Reinstate the Black Country Railway and the driverless Shop-Rail Link but, this time, remember to connect it to the railway line!!  Merry Hill and the DY5 Enterprise Zone then gets a railway station on the railway "of national strategic significance".

With my suggestion, everything is upgraded from tram to proper railway with stations linked to buses.  AND, there are no changes between train to tram and back to train again to make progress across the Black Country between Worcester and Derby.  ALL OF THIS AT A FRACTION OF THE PRICE OF THE GROSSLY EXTRAVAGANT TRAM, especially if you start with diesel locos and, then, Alstom's hydrogen electric train!

West Midland Safari Park located on the Severn Valley Railway.  W Mids Railway working together with SVR is brilliant.  And, learning from SVR how to reopen railways.

Moseley, Kings Heath and Hazelwell on the Camp Hill line.  This was going to be another tram line until quite recently - 2015!!

​But completing the 120 Kms Black Country Railway gets spoilt for ever by 6.7 Kms of tram lines and tram stops, a test track, an innovation centre, a trail of trees, Himalayan Balsam and a jungle of undergrowth!

"I am absolutely committed to restoring some of the routes that were lost under Dr Beeching.  You've got routes that are still there with freight trains running on them in what are busy city areas. It makes no sense at all to me not to restore passenger services.  It's blindingly obvious this Moseley line and the Walsall to Wolverhampton line I visited earlier are places linking important centres and important commuter routes and there should be trains running on them.  We are trying to deliver a revolution in commuter railways in Birmingham."  Chris Grayling quoted  by James RodgerAdvanced Content Writer BIRMINGHAM LIVE  13 APR 2018

What about delivering a revolution in commuter railways in the Black Country, too, Mr Grayling?​  We get pedestrian trams at 22 mph average speed and stops at every 650 metres on a half used railway "of national strategic significance". (Network Rail and DfT on 8 March 2018 in a letter to me)

GOOD NEWS

GOOD NEWS

Twelve months ago, in the  December 2015 Strategic Transport Plan, the plan for "buses on rails" on the 9 Km Camp Hill line was reversed and now it is down for passenger trains and stations to be, eventually, reinstated.

From September 2016, the DfT is wanting the tocs, that are up for franchise renewal or commission, to see if Worcester, Black Country, Derby man line could be progressed and delivered in the future." (W Mids Stakeholder Briefing Document, Sept 2016, paras​ 5.49 and 50)
In October 2016, Chris Grayling talked of "a looming capacity crisis on our railway network."  Completing the 120 Km strategic railway between Worcester and Derby would be a huge help to him, if you could please mention it to him when you next meet him, Stephen.
In November 2016, a TfWM/WMCA report spoke of "the expansion of the West Midlands Rail franchise."  (See quote 1, below.) But, it meant only passenger trains on Brum's double track railway lines, not ours in the Black Country!

EVIDENCE:

106 Kms = 56 Km Stourbridge to Burton - still nothing after 50 years

            +39 Km Camp Hill and Sutton lines - now all down for trains and nothing for "buses on rails" even after 35 years of being very trying.

            +11 Km Walsall to Wolverhampton - still nothing after one failed attempt (it went off half cock) at a passenger train service last decade.  They chose the wrong line. It should have been Stourbridge to Burton but, that was down for "buses on rails" on 20 Km, to be achieved in tiny, nibble sized chunks.

Meantime, over the last 50 years, London and the SE got

• new underground and overground lines
• Eurotunnel
• HS1
• Cross Rail 1 - and, Crossrail 2 to go ahead.
• Docklands Light Railway - superb, driverless, automatic trams swinging in, out and through buildings and linked at both ends to the London Underground.
• Thames Link

The Black Country and Brum got:

• "buses on rails" as second best, on a train line, after Terry Davis MP of Hodge Hill stopped Midland Metro going through his constituency of Hodge Hill in the 1980s or 90s.
• Wolverhampton Low Level railway station demolished and 2 Kms of double track railway line lost.
• Only one railway re-opening of 6 Km between Moor Street and Smethwick Galton Bridge
• The Brum, north-south, Cross City line was upgraded, with two or three new stations, I believe (University, Five Ways - any others?)
• Brum is still bereft of its desperately needed additional tunnels and platforms at New Street.  But, a £3/4 billion, magnificent, 'all that glisters is not gold' shopping centre and diesel perfumed railway station tagged along as an afterthought in the basement of the John Lewis store.
• A 1990 (circa) monorail at Merry Hill Shopping Centre that soon closed when it fell short by 400 metres of the Worcester, Black Country, Derby nationally important railway line that was never reinstated then or, still to this day.  This must be the absolute exemplification of both stupidity and incompetence! Or, was it meant to be one ever so funny joke by the authorities and I have missed the humour of it all?

The rest of the UK got:

• 6 trams systems - Blackpool, Manchester Metrolink, Sheffield Supertram, Croydon Tramlink, Nottingham NET and Edinburgh (Edinburgh cost for 14 Km and 15 tram stops is over one billion pounds over the 30 years of loan repayments and, the bus is quicker and cheaper, anyway - in 2016!)
• UPDATE: In April 2018, 6 out of the 7 have extensions planned or being built.  Not Croydon.

My Manifesto for 2020 W Mids Mayor

Future proofing the West Midlands against human climate change, resource depletion and the further destruction of our green and pleasant land

Fareless for all electric buses paid for by abandoning tram line building.

Fareless electric buses instead of electric trams.

On 100% bus lanes and priority at traffic lights.

All of our remnant, existing railway lines not yet obliterated by roads and buildings, to be used for passenger and freight trains.

Promoting the British built Alstom hydrogen electric train that were sold to Lower Saxony, Germany in 2017.

Arguing against tram trains and train trams that are inappropriate for the 120 Kms Black Country Railway that, since the 8 March 2018, is officially "of national strategic significance".

Every cycle-walkway and towpaths tarmaced and made fit for purpose.

Especially, the 18 Kms Black Country Puddle Strewn Mudway.

Compulsory purchase the remaining land of the 6 Kms Dowery Dell Trail (Halesowen Railway) for it to become a public right of way over its full length.

Promoting modest sized, highly insulated, solar powered new homes.

Promoting house extensions that are highly insulated and solar powered.

Promoting small family size; upgrading all homes to low carbon dwellings; promoting bus, train and tram commuting instead of car commuting to free up road space for essential vehicle use.

I WILL VOTE FOR YOU, IF ...

Ray, you can satisfy me over these questions.  Please put your answers under each bullet point in a different colour font: 

• What did you do in the late 80s/90s over the 16 Kms KBH motorway bypass?
• What did you do over opposing the 87 Kms WOM in the 90s?
• Do you have any kind of track record in opposing the obliteration of our Black Country and Birmingham railway lines?
• Did you do anything to oppose the building of roads, homes, trading estates and retail units on these railways?
• Did you do anything to oppose the house being built on the southern side of Manor Way (Halesowen Bypass) on the Halesowen Railway line in 1976 or 1977?
• Have you been a member of the Planning or Development Control Committee when these railway lines came up for new building?
• When you were a councillor in the past, have you ever been a member of the PTA?
• From your recollection, has the PTA ever been active in opposing the obliteration of railway lines in its area?
• Has the PTA ever opposed the building of any road scheme?
• Did you do anything when you saw or were told or found out that the Lapal Canal restoration in Leasowes Park was going wrong?
• What has your Council done about putting the matter right, since your party regained power?
• What are your reasons for supporting the Black Country Tramline going on the Black Country Railway line to mean that half of the 120 Kms will continue to be wasted with it being a test track for Very Light Rail, an innovation centre, a trail of trees, Himalayan Balsam and undergrowth - and a cycle-walkway in south Staffordshire?
• Can you recall anything coming before Dudley Council about the building of roads, homes and businesses on the southern end, in Brierley Hill of the former Brierley Hill, Wombourne, Wolverhampton Railway?
• As a councillor or a Dudley resident, did you do anything about stopping the unnecessary movement of the Grange roundabout two or three metres to the west, last decade?
• Did you approve the loss of the second of the two left turning lanes from into Manor Way to help morning rush hour traffic eastbound to the M5 at Jct 3?
• Have you done anything about the absence of landscaping on this only major, 30 metre diameter roundabout that does not even have a blade of grass or a single weed on it?
• Has there ever been a Cabinet member responsible for watching over and improving bus and train travel and promoting cycling/waking in Dudley MBC?
• Will you ask Cllr Karen to please reinstate the tetra-pak food and drinks recycling bank at the Birmingham Street car park in Halesowen?
• What do you think I mean by the MMA/TfWM/WMCA continuing the tradition of all our eggs in one basket transport policy?
• Would you be prepared to advocate publicly and privately my suggestions, below?:

Please, can our Black Country LEP do anything to further these enterprising ideas of mine?

• 6 Kms Halesowen to Longbridge railway line to be compulsory purchased from the individual landowners to allow a new public right of way to be created on the 4 Kms, former single track, from Manor Way, Halesowen to the M5.  This, to link with the existing right of way in the pedestrian subway under the M5.  The Frankley to Longbridge section is nearly complete, with St Modwen working on the last section to the smart, new Longbridge Shopping Centre.
• 18.5 Kms Black Country Puddle Strewn Mudway to be converted to Black Country Cycle-Walkway by tarmac applied on the full length to make it fit for purpose.  To be used by cycle commuters who have given up on the car and jam packed trains, horse riders, walkers and all others needing non-motorised help to get about.  The OS Explorer map think it is already used as such!
• 6.7 Kms of the Black Country Tramline and 2 Kms for VLR innovation centre and test track to be converted to its former use as a 120 Kms railway "of national strategic significance" (Network Rail and DfT) - and, for the Alstom hydrogen electric train to provide the regional passenger service between Worcester and Derby.  This, to allow us to compete more effectively with the honey pot that is Brum, to help relieve the very long standing train congestion at Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Basement Station and, to give a new direct commuter railway between our four boroughs and Snow Hill via Bescot.  We then have Derby to Devon via Dudley; Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill and the new DY5 Enterprise Zone.   Both Landranger and Explorer OS maps think it is already in use for trains!

These three projects put the Black Country on the UK map for sensible enterprise, initiative and leadership.  They reduce road and railway congestion, obesity and ill health, human induced climate change and resource depletion.

I look forward to much good news over these helpful, constructive and positive suggestions for progress - in the right direction!

Best wishes and many thanks, Ray

3 enterprising Black Country projects

Please, can our Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership do anything to further these enterprising ideas of mine?

• 6 Kms Halesowen to Longbridge railway line to be compulsory purchased from the individual landowners to allow a new public right of way to be created on the 4 Kms, former single track, from Manor Way, Halesowen to the M5.  This, to link with the existing right of way in the pedestrian subway under the M5.  The Longbridge end is nearly complete, with St Modwen working on the last section to the smart, new Longbridge Shopping Centre.
• 18.5 Kms Black Country Puddle Strewn Mudway to be converted to Black Country Cycle-Walkway by tarmac applied on the full length to make it fit for purpose.  To be used by cycle commuters who have given up on the car and jam packed trains, horse riders, walkers and all others needing non-motorised help to get about.  The OS Explorer map think it is already in use.  It is traffic free but free of almost everyone and everything, except mud!
• 6.7 Kms of the Black Country Tramline and 2 Kms for VLR innovation centre and test track to be converted to its former use as a 120 Kms railway "of national strategic significance" (Network Rail and DfT) - and, for the Alstom hydrogen electric train to provide the regional passenger service between Worcester and Derby.  This, to allow us to compete more effectively with the honey pot that is Brum, to help relieve the very long standing train congestion at Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Basement Station and, to give a new direct commuter railway between our four boroughs and Snow Hill via Bescot.  We then have Derby to Devon via Dudley; Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill and the new DY5 Enterprise Zone.   Both Landranger and Explorer OS maps think it is already in use for trains!

These three projects put the Black Country on the UK map for sensible enterprise, initiative and leadership.  They reduce road and railway congestion, obesity and ill health, human induced climate change and resource depletion.

I look forward to much good news over these helpful, constructive and positive suggestions for progress - in the right direction!

For the success of the Games ...

Dear Andy and team - and copied to other key players and decision makers.

For the success of the Games, we cannot afford to waste the Black Country Railway (BCR) - the 56 Kms out of 120 Kms of almost ready made double track railway line that can bring people directly into Brum via Bescot from Worcester, Dudley and Derby.  Nine stations must be built according to Railfuture.  And the tracks need replacing, of course, with the passage of decades.

​

 Railfuture's full map.pdf

​

Please believe me that I have my facts and figures correct.  I have surveyed the route.  I know all about the Borders Railway, too with all the facts and figures I have furnished you with in past e-mails that have gone completely unacknowledged.

In every public meeting of the 2019/20 Mayoral campaign, I will be outspoken in condemnation of you, Andy if you cannot do what I am advising.  The public can then judge who is right.  I will forgo my expeditions in Scotland and every other break to make sure I do not miss a single opportunity to expose the idiocy of "bus on rails" trams, roads, shops, houses and offices running on double track railway lines.  Plus, the 50 Kms of freight only railway lines that must get their commuter passenger trains back - urgently.

I will in no way be pulling my punches over the whole disgraceful rigmarole I have seen that means that this saga of destruction and waste must be the UK's biggest and longest running financial-transport scandal in our history.

I will always be positive, constructive and helpful but my anger will be obvious, I can assure you.

​With REGIONAL TRAINS NOT TRAMS on the full 120 Kms, you will still have money left over to give fareless buses for everyone for the duration of the Games.​  Electric buses should be linked in with the railway stations that, on the 120 Kms BCR should have Mike Muldoon's and Alstom's hydrogen electric train, as here:​

 Image of hydrogen train 01.pdf

​Please read the letter under the article, here:​

 Image of hydrogen train 02.pdf

​

Fareless buses to get motorists out of their cars are essential to reduce congestion, to clean up polluted city air and to take up the demand for more travel during the Games.

​

 10 quotes: Bring the ghost of Queen Victoria ba...

​

​With best wishes

Tim

Great Brexit Britain steals a march on Germany!

How is it that patriotic, flag waving, Great Brexit Britain is buying foreign built "bus on rails" trams, at ten times the price of a double decker bus, to wreck any possibility of our British built hydrogen electric trains completing the full 120 Kms Black Country Railway?

Slow, frequent stopping trams preventing forever the train that, last year, we sold to Germany - 14 British hydrogen electric trains are now in use in Lower Saxony.

Turning a 120 Kms mainline railway "of national strategic significance" (Network Rail/DfT) into a piddling little tram line of 6.7 Kms is the ultimate stupidity that Black Country councillors, MPs and transport 'experts' have wanted for the last 37 years.  In 1999, the tram on another commuter railway destroyed one Wolverhampton mainline station, 2 Kms of railway line and, platform 4 at Snow Hill station remains unused since the tram bypassed Snow Hill station two years ago. The sole reason for the £60m/Km extension was to link Snow Hill to Grand Central that it does not do!  Such is their incompetence and folly and, dishonesty in getting the money under false pretences.

Central government, on the 8 March, finally recognised the importance of the 120 Kms strategic, nationally important railway between Worcester, the Black Country and Derby.  Because of devolution, it seems they are powerless to stop the idiocy of the W Mids Combined Authority and the incompetence of Mayor Andy Street and his transport lead, Cllr Roger Lawrence.  Incompetence, idiocy and irresponsibility in spending an official £343 million to turn the unused 56 Kms Black Country section, out of 120 Kms, into a 2 Kms test track in the middle of 6.7 Kms of tram line, a cycle-walkway, a trail of trees and Himalayan Balsam and, 6 Kms of freight only railway line.  They have approved a £30 million Very Light Rail innovation centre to go on the only feasible site for Dudley’s mainline station that was so successful for 100 years and would be again if they used this existing railway, “of national strategic significance”, for regional and commuter trains.

Both well-meaning but hopeless politicians should resign - now.

Tim Weller 12 April 2018

Trains NOT Trams

Dear Campaign for Better Transport

I have suggested as the new name, 'Trains NOT Trams'.

This is because many hundreds of millions of pounds have gone (and are still going) into replacing buses and trains with electric trams in seven towns and cities in the UK.

This, after the transport experts had closed and removed every mile of tram line in the 1950s, except for Blackpool.

Yet, the railway network still has many hundreds of miles of freight only and mothballed railway lines that should have their passenger trains returned to meet growing demand, relieve congestion and to clean up city air.

Or, the money from the tram networks could have been diverted into electric buses as well as modernising "our very old Victorian railway" (Sir Peter Hendy when Chief Exec of Network Rail in an interview on the 8 Jan 2013 on the 'Today' programme.  And he gave plenty of examples!)

Future tram money should be diverted into extending free bus rides for the over 65s and the disabled to everyone.  This might entice car commuters who do not need their cars for their jobs to use the bus, instead.  This would have a greater impact on reducing road and railway congestion and cleaning up city air.

Best wishes

The West is Best - or is it the Worst?

SELF:  Not a word of protest or objection or dismay was expressed by the West when, in 2014, 50 civilians were killed in Kiev and an elected, pro Russian government was overthrown and a pro Western government installed.  That worked well for the West because only 50 people were killed and it was quickly over within the week.

Overthrowing the Syrian government, however, has gone horribly wrong for the West over these last seven years.  In addition, Assad was an ophthalmologist in London for a time.  Was he given a state visit to London on one occasion?  Is this man another monster of our own making?  He came from the West, it seems.  Is the West a glowing, good and righteous example to the rest of the world in any respects at all?

​"​Ukraine gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and has since veered between seeking closer integration with Western Europe and being drawn into the orbit of Russia, which sees its interests as threatened by a Western-leaning Ukraine.​"​    BBC News​

Take Crimea for instance.  More than half of its 2 million people are Russian, and Russia still maintains a naval base there. In fact, the region was part of Russia until 1954, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine as a present. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Crimea became part of an independent Ukraine.

Pro Russian Viktor Yanukovych overthrown in 2014; Pro Western Petro Poroshenko installed.

Why Ukraine Is Such A Big Deal For Russia   February 21, 2014 11:52 AM ET

KRISHNADEV CALAMUR

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/02/21/280684831/why-ukraine-is-such-a-big-deal-for-russia

gives:

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to stem his country's decline in global influence: Moscow's leverage in places like Ukraine is one way to preserve that influence. But there are other reasons why Ukraine is of deep interest to Russia — reasons that have more to do with history, faith, economics and culture.

A Special Relationship

Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center, says the two countries "are joined at the hip": They share language; Russian media are popular in Ukraine; there are family ties; many Ukrainians work in Russia; and Russians have billions of dollars invested in Ukraine.

"Their relationship is like the U.S.-U.K. special relationship," Rojansky says.

Historically, those ties date back to before the Soviet Union — and even before the days of the Russian empire that began in the 18th century.

Many consider Ukraine to be the birthplace of the region's Orthodox Christianity. Ukraine then became part of the Russian empire, and later part of the Soviet Union, where Ukrainian men were pivotal in the Soviet defeat of the German army in World War II. (Ukraine was perhaps the most important Soviet republic after Russia).

Linguistic And Economic Ties

Linguistically, as we've told you before, most Ukrainians speak both Ukrainian and Russian. But it's the eastern and southern parts of the country where Russian speakers dominate, and where Russia still holds influence.

Take Crimea, for instance. More than half of its 2 million people are Russian, and Russia still maintains a naval base there. In fact, the region was part of Russia until 1954, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine as a present. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Crimea became part of an independent Ukraine.

Millions of Ukrainians work in Russia, and according to the EU-funded Migration Policy Centre, the Russia-Ukraine border is the second-largest migration corridor in the world. (The U.S.-Mexico border is the largest.) The center says that in 2011, more than one-third of all Ukrainian migration was to Russia.

Russian companies are one of the largest investors in Ukraine, accounting for 7 percent of total foreign investment in 2013, according to official Ukrainian statistics. And when Yanukovych walked away from the deal on closer economic and political ties with the EU, Russia said it would buy $15 billion worth of Ukrainian bonds, giving Kiev an economic lifeline. (But on Friday Moscow said it was taking a wait-and-see approach to the events unfolding across the border.)

Ukraine is also a key component of Russia's plans for a Eurasian customs union with some other former Soviet states. But as Steven Pifer, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told NPR's Robert Siegel, "for many Ukrainians, and I even think for President Yanukovych, that's not where they want to go."

Seeds Of Discord

The crisis in Ukraine is, in many ways, a conflict about the former Soviet republic's future direction: Should it look westward toward the EU or maintain close ties with Russia?

Until recently, this wasn't an either/or question, says Stephen Sestanovich, a professor of international diplomacy at Columbia University.

"For 20-odd years, it has been possible for the Ukrainians to kind of have it both ways," Sestanovich told NPR's Siegel. "What is now the troubling issue on the agenda is the perception of a lot of people that you do have to choose, and that is producing violence across Ukraine."

There are historical reasons for some of the antipathy — especially in the western part of Ukraine that borders Poland, where the protests against Yanukovych have been the loudest. This area was once part of Poland and Austro-Hungary, and became part of Ukraine only when World War II began.

Ukraine was the victim of the 1932-33 famine induced by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Later, it was among the Soviet republics that bore the brunt of the Chernobyl disaster.

Those events undoubtedly resonated in the public memory for years: Ukraine was one of the first Soviet republics to vote for independence from the USSR. It did so overwhelmingly in 1991. The Soviet Union fell apart soon after that.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-05/the-west-backed-the-wrong-man-in-ukraine

gives:

"Poroshenko, who had briefly served as Ukraine's foreign minister, looked worldlier than his predecessor, the deposed Viktor Yanukovych, and spoke passable English. He and his first prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, knew what the U.S. State Department and Vice President Joe Biden, who acted as the Obama administration's point man on Ukraine, wanted to hear. So, as Ukraine emerged from the revolutionary chaos of January and February 2014, the U.S., and with it the EU, backed Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk as Ukraine's next leaders. Armed with this support, not least with promises of major technical aid and International Monetary Fund loans, they won elections, posing as Westernizers who would lead Ukraine into Europe. But their agendas turned out to be more self-serving."