Someone, believes mainline railways must be turned into tram lines, test track and fresh air"

from Specialized:

"I think this is the guy who used to turn up to Railfuture meetings and make a massive song and dance about this. The problem with campaigning to cancel projects like this which are agreed, funded and supported by politicians, is that you might end up with nothing and the money being spirited away on road schemes instead. Weller knows he hasn't got a cat in hell's chance of actually becoming Mayor, so is abusing the democratic process to get some publicity for his hobby horse."

MY REPLY:

This dear troll, 'Specialized', who doesn't have the guts to give his name, is so ashamed of his eccentric/peculiar/odd support to convert the UK's last half-finished, mainline railway "of national strategic significance" into a tramline and test track that he has to remain anonymous!  

Our friend believes in shuttling passengers across the 56 Kms gap without the trains, by using trams on 6.7 Kms, Very Light Rail test vehicles and fresh air.  Quite a novelty!

• The 56 Kms refers to the missing trains and Railfuture's nine stations, slap bang in the middle of the important 120 Kms mainline railway between Worcester, through the 1 m population of the Black Country's four boroughs and, onto Derby. The Great British Transport Competition, organised by the Taxpayers' Alliance, says it would cost only £120 m to finish all 56 Kms. This is because every bridge, viaduct, tunnel, flyover and underpass is already built for every motorway, road and canal. They forgot the trains after all that work!

  SEE:

  https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/taxpayersalliance/pages/16562/attachments/original/1558213640/GBTC_REPORT_FINAL_REVIEWED_18MAY2019.pdf?1558213640

  £120 m for 56 Kms completed on the 120 Kms, compared with £449.5 m for 6.7 Kms on railway and 4 Kms for road running Metro trams to spoil the whole 120 Kms!

  Darlaston station (with Willenhall) is being built on the Walsall to Wolverhampton railway that gets priority over the much more important one - finishing the 120 Kms railway "of national strategic significance" (Network Rail and DfT in a letter to me in March 2018. Yet, they've still signed it away, this year, for a tram line!)

  Dudley Castle Hill railway station is now being used for the VLR Innovation Centre and test track. Spoiling, for ever, a desperately needed railway to take pressure off 'Grand Central and Diesel Perfumed Underground Station in the Basement of the (closed) John Lewis Store'. And one of only two mainline, north-south, railways between Brum and the Irish Sea. They're all on the east side!