IT COSTS A FRACTION TO FINISH IT THAN TO MAKE IT MULTI-MODAL, MULTI-MIXED UP

Dear West Midlands Combined Authority

Is it true that finishing the mainline railway for mainline trains and freight is cheaper, EVEN TODAY, than converting it to part tram line, part test track, part cycle-walkway?

Is it true that using TRAINS on the full 120 Kms between Worcester, the Black Country and Derby to finish what you have started, would be very much cheaper than spending the £449.5 million, even without the cost overruns, to put Metro trams on only 6.7 Kms out of the wasted and unused 56 Kms?

You are spending about three times more to spoil it than to finish what you have started!  Is that true?

IN SUMMARY:

Would it still, today 7 December 2020, be much cheaper to abandon the tram works and to finish the whole railway with TRAINS and STATIONS between Stourbridge and Burton on Trent?

Tim Weller