Dear James
Thank you for you typed letter of the 13 September 2019.
Everyone of our dear, so well meaning MPs and councillors are destroying 20th century high speed railways to then build brand new high speed railway lines - just as the runaway greenhouse effect takes off so very nicely to warm us up a little. Let me explain.
You are all quite happy to spend an official £449 m, plus cost overruns, for "bus on rails" trams to further wipe capacity out of our West Midlands railway network while wanting £56 BILLION, plus colossal cost overruns, to increase capacity with HS2 and, yet more billions of pounds and greenhouse gases for HS3 and Crossrail 2.
The Minister of State for Transport is clueless and cannot get his head round that "conversion of the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill line (part of the 120 Kms Worcester to Derby mainline railway) by TfWM to light rail operation" may well prevent the reopening of the Camp Hill line and its three rebuilt stations to be the success we want it to be. The full 120 Kms Black Country Railway for REGIONAL AND FREIGHT TRAINS, not TRAMS is the key to the success of the Camp Hill reopening. I am quoting from Chris Heaton-Harris's letter to James Morris, dated 30 August 2019, coming up here:
PLEASE READ WHAT NETWORK RAIL AND DfT SAID IN MARCH 2018:
Some VIPs say, in effect, it is folly for another of the W Midlands’ last mainline railway lines to also be destroyed. They want heavy rail on it, NOT light rail “bus on rails” trams or, a test track for very light rail.
Network Rail and DfT say, “safeguarding a heavy rail corridor ... is of value” for the unfinished section of the 120 Kms mainline railway “of national strategic significance”. Safeguarding does not mean turning a total of 6.7 Kms out of the wasted 56 Kms into a piddling little shuttle tram line that prevents the return of daytime freight, intercity, regional and commuter trains between Worcester and Derby when “the other SW-NE route (via Bromsgrove) is already at full daytime capacity.”
A 120 Kms mainline railway is also far too long for tram trains and train trams to be operating in future years. The now destroyed Snow Hill to Wolverhampton Low Level railway might have been suitable for such experiments. That railway is now a tramway for time and eternity.
from letter dated 8 March 2018 from:
Lisa O'Dea
Correspondence Manager
Department for Transport
The crucial paragraph I have quoted from:
“I have sought clarification on the situation from Network Rail, who inform me that this is a section of railway of national strategic significance. Investment in the corridor would allow for continued freight growth given that the other SW-NE route (via Bromsgrove) is already at full daytime capacity. From a
passenger perspective, safeguarding a heavy rail corridor across the Round Oak-Bescot route is of value as this is the only corridor which could accept freight traffic displaced by further passenger flows into central Birmingham (SELF: from the reopening of the Camp Hill line). I understand from Network Rail that recent discussion on the project has therefore focused around how best to balance the interests of freight and passenger rail traffic.”
The TfWM and WMCA are out of order, out of control and out of their minds. I think, the lot of them need a good kick up the backside to wake them out of their slumbers and to snap them out of their obsession with light rail trams since 1981. They are careless about contributing further to the nightmare we are all sleepwalking into.
Not one transport expert at TfWM/WMCA has been able to explain what this actually means:
"We are working with the WMCA and Network Rail to ensure that passive provision for freight trains is retained in case this line is required for that use at some point in the future." (the Heaton-Harris letter of 30 August 2019). I fear this is disingenuous, indeed dishonest gobbledygook, that means nothing. Once converted to tram operation, only night operation of freight trains on the Black Country Railway, taken off the Camp Hill line, may be possible to allow for the new commuter, half hour shuttle service on the Camp Hill line.
PLEASE PUT ME RIGHT WHERE I AM WRONG
Tim Weller
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