Decision makers can be influenced!

Many thanks, Pam.  Much appreciated.  You are quite right, of course.

This WOM business seems to have been resurrected by Maria who was on TV last week, I think!

Her address is  mcadmin@midlandsconnect.uk

She is another of the transport bosses who are all stuck fast in the grossly extravagant and irresponsible tram rut of putting this "bus on rails" on a half finished mainline "railway of national strategic significance", instead of doing the bleeding obvious!

Other addresses are here:​

 May 2018 A5 flyer - double sided

​

Please flood them with e-mails just saying, perhaps, those five words: 'WESTERN BYPASS RAILWAY BEFORE tramway or motorway'.  Or, whatever you want to say but, say 'Yes' to something better, so as not to appear negative.  Thanks!

Pam's "decision makers" can be moved/changed.  We can change what seems inevitable eg:

1. In the 1990s, we stopped both the 16 Kms KBH and the 87 Kms WOM in their tracks!  That was a huge victory.
2. 2015 decision to put trains not trams, after all, on the 9 Kms Camp Hill railway in Brum.
3. 2016 decision for train operating companies to bid for the new franchise by putting forward a proposed passenger service on the half used 120 Kms Black Country Railway.
4. 2017 decision to put trains on our main line railway from Stourbridge Junction to Canal Street tram stop at Hart's Hill.  This was a step in the right direction but needs to go all the way to Burton on Trent, of course.
5. A paper decision in a letter to me on 8 September 2000 to get the freight and passenger trains back but, the very costly "bus on rails" trams must be done first - you pay twice to get what you say you really want all along - a proper railway passenger service!
6. The decision to put the Very Light Rail test track on the railway from Dudley Castle Hill to Dudley Port was reversed in 2015 or 2016.  It now goes in the opposite direction.  However, still, on a nationally important railway!!
7. 8 March 2018 letter, Network Fail and the DfT finally conceded that our railway is "of national strategic significance".
8. More recorded here:​
   
    10 quotes: Bring the ghost of Queen Victoria ba...
   ​

MANY THANKS TO YOU ALL.  PEOPLE POWER; PEOPLE PRESSURE; PEOPLE PREVAIL!

Tim

We have a winning, knock out argument!

Thanks, Andi for this.

With the 87 Kms WOM in the 90s, I was campaigning up and down the line of the route at public meetings I organised and, in two General Elections for the Green Pary - '92 and '97.  Always being positive by saying the Black Country Railway that runs parallel to the line of the proposed KBH and M5/M6 needed the passenger trains back over its entire length before building the WOM.  At that time, I was saying only as far as Walsall.  Only in this decade did the railway lobby groups tell me that it does, in fact, go all the way to Burton on Trent with double track lines but no passenger trains - 56 Kms unused, wasted, with every engineering structure in place, like the bridge over the M6 Toll!  Look at my photos:​

 M6 Toll banner 01.jpg

​​

 M6 Toll 03.jpg

​

You write, Andi that "we aren't ignoring the issue at all".  By that you mean the WOM.  That is brilliant.  What I am asking is that all greens and Greens to please campaign, from now on, for completing the 120 Kms Western Bypass Railway, aka Black Country Main Line Railway, FIRST AND FOREMOST, before anymore work on the WOM.  Our railway line that goes through Netherton is "of national strategic significance".  It must have regional and commuter trains and not "bus on rails" trams.  "Bus on rails" trams are immorally expensive and prevent the return of regional and even inter-city trains coming to the Black Country.  The authorities are deceiving us when they say we must have trams first in order to get the trains back.  It is a lie.  And, is further evidence of the longest running and biggest scandal in UK finance/transport history.  I have written reams about it over the years.

The threat of the WOM makes it even more urgent that all Greens and greens read my stuff over recent years about trains back on our existing railway lines instead of trams.  It is the most important argument to deploy to delay the WOM further.  How can anyone disagree with the parallel and nearby, unused main line railway being given top priority over the WOM?  We have a winning, knock out argument!

With Dudley GP on board we can stop the trams stopping the trains AND stop or, at least delay, the WOM in the process.  Do you all now get the importance of what I have been writing about for years?

Please don't ignore what I am saying and please help me!!  This campaign to delay the WOM and get the trains back FIRST should never have been a one person campaign, as it certainly feels like to me.

​

 FAKE NEWS, MISLEADING STATEMENTS AND LIES

​​

 Revealing financial comparisons

​​

 Cost comparisons

​​

 28 transport tragedies for 37 years - so far!

​

Tim

We can change what seems inevitable

This WOM business seems to have been resurrected by Maria who was on TV last week, I think!

Her address is  mcadmin@midlandsconnect.uk

She is another of the transport bosses who are all stuck fast in the grossly extravagant and irresponsible tram rut of putting this "bus on rails" on a half finished mainline "railway of national strategic significance", instead of doing the bleeding obvious!

Other addresses are here:​

 May 2018 A5 flyer - double sided

​

Please flood them with e-mails just saying, perhaps, those five words: 'WESTERN BYPASS RAILWAY BEFORE tramway or motorway'.  Or, whatever you want to say but, say 'Yes' to something better, so as not to appear negative.  Thanks!

Pam's "decision makers" can be moved/changed.  We can change what seems inevitable eg:

1. In the 1990s, we stopped both the 16 Kms KBH and the 87 Kms WOM in their tracks!  That was a huge victory.
2. 2015 decision to put trains not trams, after all, on the 9 Kms Camp Hill railway in Brum.
3. 2016 decision for train operating companies to bid for the new franchise by putting forward a proposed passenger service on the half used 120 Kms Black Country Railway.
4. 2017 decision to put trains on our main line railway from Stourbridge Junction to Canal Street tram stop at Hart's Hill.
5. The decision was made to get the freight and passenger trains back but, the very costly "bus on rails" trams must be done first - you pay twice to get what you really want all along - a proper railway passenger service!
6. The decision to put the Very Light Rail test track on the railway from Dudley Castle Hill to Dudley Port was reversed in 2015 or 2016.  It now goes in the opposite direction.  And, still, on a nationally important railway!!
7. 8 March 2018 letter, Network Fail and the DfT finally conceded that our railway is "of national strategic significance".
8. More recorded here:​
   
    10 quotes: Bring the ghost of Queen Victoria ba...
   ​

MANY THANKS TO YOU ALL.  PEOPLE POWER; PEOPLE PRESSURE; PEOPLE PREVAIL!

Tim

28 transport tragedies for 37 years - so far!

WHY TRANSPORT LEAD, CLLR ROGER LAWRENCE SHOULD EITHER TURN OVER A NEW LEAF OR, RETIRE

1. In 1981, our transport chiefs began their fascination with Midland Metro trams on railway lines and roads, instead of protecting our closed railways for future use and then re-opening them for passenger and freight trains.
   
   
2. Cllrs Richard Worrall, Angus Adams and, now Roger Lawrence are the transport chiefs over decades who have let us down, misspent our taxes and had the most weird and wonderful set of priorities.
   
   
3. These men put everything but trains down Dudley to Wolverhampton, Dudley to Birmingham, Dudley to Netherton, Old Hill, Halesowen to Longbridge and, Birmingham to Wolverhampton railway lines.
   
   
4. One e-mailer to me wrote, “ … people who could be regarded as complicit in questionable decisions.”  He meant our fully trained professionals in Network Rail (NR), Transport for W Mids (TfWM) and Midland Metro Alliance (MMA) who need to be questioned, challenged and watched like hawks because of their disastrous decisions over many years.
   
   
5. I think Beeching was right to close the lines he did as we deserted trains and went out and bought cars.  It was the railway industry, our transport chiefs, the unions and the many groups of railway enthusiasts who failed to ensure that they were mothballed in case they were ever needed in the future.  They are certainly needed now but the railway industry, the unions and the railway enthusiasts all allowed them to be lost for every kind of built development imaginable, to roads and, to slow, frequent stopping, extremely expensive “bus on rails” trams!
   
   
6. Wikipedia has: Ian Hislop comments that history has been somewhat unkind to "Britain's most hated civil servant", by forgetting that he proposed a much better bus service that ministers never delivered.
   
   
7. The politicians and transport experts got diverted from increasing the popularity of buses to building seven tram networks in the UK.
   
   
8. All the experts were happily building steam locomotives up to the 1960s as part of our supposedly modern railway.  This was the second decade of railway closures and the sale of our railways to any old Tom, Dick or Harriet instead of their protection for future use by trains.
   
   
9. My e-mailer wrote, “Routes such as Dudley to Wolverhampton were not just closed to traffic but the tracks were removed.”  Yes. Dudley, Sandwell and Wolverhampton councillors were all happily giving planning permission for houses, roads and a trading estate to obliterate this important railway line!  How foolish is that? “The same was the case for Birmingham to Wolverhampton via West Bromwich”, my e-mailer wrote. This was the valuable Snow Hill to Wolverhampton Low Level line that could be giving additional trains into Shropshire and North Wales, one former railway worker has told me (see 8).  Instead, Metro line One took it over. This meant that platform four at Snow Hill is still not used, to this day for trains, Low Level station is now a conference and events venue and 2 Kms of the line in Wolverhampton was destroyed. This was because the tram line went on the road for 2 Kms to St George’s Square and the useful direct link to Low Level railway station was lost forever!
   
   
10. The former railway worker texted to me about the 1999 Metro One, “What a waste opening the wolves - bham line to a tram.  This has prevented through services from snow hill to Wales or the north from ever returning.”
    
    
11. If the trains had been allowed back, we would still have commuter and regional trains using the line that the tram now uses and, grand Low Level station would still be in use as a much needed station rather than a conference and events centre.
    
    
12. It would still be a  station if only our darling politicians had thought of that great wheeze of railway trains on railway lines! This summer, main work starts on the even more important 120 Km Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance" being transformed into a ‘bring your own cushion for the tram’ tramline over all of 6.7 Kms, a test track, a trail of trees, Himalayan Balsam and undergrowth
    
    
13. Trams will, one day connect St George’s Sq to the bus station and the last remaining railway station but at a cost of £33m.  All it needed were the trains back between Snow Hill and Wolverhampton Low Level and it would have been at a fraction of the cost of the trams.  This was another blunder by PTA/Centro and by Roger Lawrence, plus predecessors.
    
    
14. Four businesses closed on Bilston Road in 2017 when Metro One tracks were renewed after only 18 years.  This would never have happened if the trains and stations had been allowed back.
    
    
15. More businesses are likely to close in Dudley high town with the tram being an extra attraction for Dudley townsfolk to take the tram to Merry Hill to do their shopping.
    
    
16. The former successful for 100 years mainline station at Dudley Castle Gate (low town) that is thriving is being destroyed forever by a suite of buildings for the VLR innovation centre and test track.
    
    
17. I would like the whole 120 Kms railway “of national strategic significance” (Network Rail and DfT letter to me dated, 8 March 2018) from Worcester, the Black Country and on to Derby, to be called the Black Country Railway.
    
    
18. My e-mailer wrote, “Some opinion is that in an 'unhelpful' environment and with limited funding, various campaigners and the efforts of individuals within organisations and organisations such as Centro, British Rail, some local authorities, some enhancements and reopenings were achieved.”  From what I have seen, the heritage railway groups have achieved much more than the professional railway ‘experts’ and councillors. From my research, only 6 Kms out of 112 Kms of double track railway line in freight or officially mothballed have been re-opened. In addition, there was the Walsall to Rugeley re-opening.
    
    
19. Our trio of former, including the incumbent Roger, transport chiefs are wholly responsible.  They need to work with the professionals but also to stop obvious blunders like the many we have seen and are still seeing.
    
    
20. The only official, ‘Out of Use’, Black Country Railway, “of national strategic significance”, is now precluded from returning to railway use for ever by Dudley Castle Hill mainline station that is about to be built on, by the Metro tram line and, a test track through Castle Hill tunnel between the two short sections of tramway.  Thus my feeling that we, ever so clever, Brexit Brits are incompetent and negligent!
    
    
21. I attended a Community Forum in Dudley borough last month.  Before, I spoke and without one councillor knowing who I was or why I came, he told the meeting that when on the Centro Passenger Transport Authority years ago, he was told that “heavy rail trains would still be able to return” once the Black Country Railway, “of national strategic significance”, had been turned into a tram line.  I told him that this was a lie. Freight trains might be able to use it at night but certainly not the former passenger service between Worcester and Derby via the Black Country that we saw for 100 years until fifty years ago.
    
    
22. This light rail scheme is a throwback to the 1980s when the Black Country Railway was unwanted, out of use, disused, dismantled, unloved and it was thought that it would never be needed, ever again.  Hence, put the tram on it that was all the rage at the time. Kind of anachronistic, now that we are four decades on.​ We are seeing a renaissance in railway travel.
    
    
23. Never again, fast passenger train services from Derby to Devon via Dudley or Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill.
    
    
24. One professional railway ‘expert’ explained to me that Network Rail does not like running passenger trains on freight lines.  Yet, the Victorian and Edwardian railway men did so for decades. Why not the so smart, tech savvy, Elizabethans?
    
    
25. Is Cllr Roger standing up to Network Rail and insisting on passenger trains and stations for our urban lines not yet obliterated?  I don’t think so. He gave planning permission for homes, roads and trading estates on the railway lines, after all.
    
    
26. My e-mailer wrote, “The passenger train operator for the West Midlands is supposed to be introducing a train service from Birmingham to Stourbridge and then to Brierley Hill. This will require a new station at Brierley Hill.”  Thus, we all pile out of the train to get on the tram into Brum when the train could take us the whole way without changing.  And, when extended to Walsall, it will require from Worcester, a change from train to tram at Canal St tram stop, near Brierley Hill and back to the train at Walsall station for progress to Derby!
    
    
27. Wikipedia has: “Passenger services were terminated between Walsall and Wolverhampton in 2008 on cost and efficiency grounds.”  Shortly after they were introduced! Yet, now, trains are to be re-introduced with two new stations when there is a good Platinum bus service between the two places.  The trains need to go all the way to Brum via the Sutton freight only line. But, finishing the Black Country Railway is much more desperately needed to reduce road and railway congestion.
    
    
28. On the unused, wasted, 56 Kms, tens of millions of pounds have been spent on two motorway crossings and three tunnels to cross three dual carriageways - for the 120 Kms Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance".  But this is the same unused, wasted, middle section that is to be turned into a 6.7 Kms tramline, a test track, rusting lines and a jungle of undergrowth. What a waste of tens of millions of pounds!
    
    

All of this is such complete nonsense that Cllr Roger needs to step down, with Keith Harrison using the ‘Express and Star’ as a way to help him to give way.  PLEASE!

timweller1@gmail.com     16 May 2018

x

Are our taxes being wasted on the Hippodrome and Metro?

Dear Sarah, Helen and FoI team.  Could Sean, at 16 Summer Lane, also help with the answers to the financial questions, please?

"Curtain up on many more years of misery"  Halesowen Chronicle dated 29 March 2018

Could you please give me the answers to these questions?

1. For how much money did Dudley MBC buy the Hippodrome Theatre?
2. When did the council buy it?
3. What company or organisation or individual did you buy it from?
4. Why did you buy it?  What was the original intention and plan?
5. What were Cllr Patrick's "exciting plans" for the Hippo that would end "years of misery"?
6. Was it to create a leisure and tourism hub to rival that of the four at the foot of Castle Hill?
7. How many years or months after the purchase was the decision made to demolish it?
8. Why was it not sold to the private company who wanted to buy it for £8 m?
9. Please name the private company.

Metro trams will revive Dudley town centre with investors pouring in to make their wealth

1. For how long has Cavendish every window smashed House been empty?
2. What are the plans?
3. When will the plans for the site start to come to fruition?
4. For how long has the other huge office block in Flood Street been empty?
5. Are there any plans for it?
6. Am I right in thinking that the flash, glitzy, "all that glisters is not gold", Metro tram will run down both Flood Street and past Cavendish House?
7. When did the last investor move in to Dudley town centre on hearing the good news that trams were finally going to arrive, after 37 years of trying?
8. Is it true that, from a newspaper report in 2016, Dudley was the fifth worst town centre of its size for empty shops - more than 20%?
9. What is the most recent figure?
10. Is there evidence to suggest that it is very largely only local people who shop in Dudley town?
11. What research has been done to find out what proportion of Dudley town's people shop at Merry Hill Shopping Centre?
12. Has there been any market research done to find out how many Dudley folk will jump on the tram for shopping at Merry Hill?
13. When did Beatties department store move out?
14. When does a town centre officially become a ghost town?
15. Do the two huge, largely empty car parks that the trams will run past indicate that Dudley top town is, in fact, now a ghost town?
16. What is the latest figure for the cost of building "bus on rails" trams to pour into Dudley town centre at the rate of six to ten trams an hour?
17. In 2016, it jumped from £310 m to £343 million, plus cost overruns from unforeseen difficulties.
18. Of the new figure, how much are council taxpayers in the West Midlands paying?
19. How much of the second devolution deal will be going to pay for Dudley's extravagant and inappropriate 11 Kms WBHE?
20. Can over £31 m/Km to block, for ever, any hope of finally finishing the 120 Kms Black Country Railway be regarded as prudent, sensible expenditure?
21. Does Helen Martin now regard Dudley low town at Castle Gate as being regenerated and high town as a 'rundown centre'?

Dudley Central Mosque

1. To promote good community relations, does your council give any time or, even any thought, to the Muslim's community long standing wish for a purpose built mosque in or next to Dudley town centre?
2. Has it occurred to you that the smart, flashy tram will run straight past the present unfortunate building that is the mosque?
3. What are the present plans for the Hall Street site that was denied to the Muslims?

With thanks for your help in these matters.  Like two years ago, I will refer the matter to the Local Government Ombudsman if there is no complete and full response by the end of this month.

Best wishes

Tim Weller