6 scandals on the 40th anniversary of Metro!
SUMMARY:
former mainline railway gets given to trams!
even a former, principal mainline “of national strategic significance” (8 March 2018 letter from DfT) goes the same way!
the cost is exorbitant for Metro trams - even on railway lines.
£4 million for electric “bus on rails” tram; £325,000 for electric bus.
major underpass for buses get excluded so trams can use it.
buses diverted from their former fast, direct route because of trams!
SCANDAL 1 - former mainline railway gets given to trams!
West Midlands Metro tram project started in 1981, according to Wikipedia.
This was only twenty years after they had closed and dismantled the first tram network!
Soon realising that they had closed and destroyed many railway lines, they promptly set about rebuilding the tram network - but, on the closed railway lines not yet built on!
The first tram operation started in 1999 on a mainline railway between Snow Hill, Wolverhampton Low Level and Shrewsbury.
This meant that 25% of Snow Hill station was taken out of use.
Plus Wolverhampton's second, principal mainline station, Low Level.
Plus 3 or 4 Kms of double track railway line between Brum and Shrewsbury in the Wolverhampton area. All gone for ever!
Then, came the next idiocy. The tram was connected to the bus station only. They forgot all about the railway station!
Never fear, next year, the tram arrives at the railway station, too. Only 40 years late!
The Wolverhampton railway station for Snow Hill trains was isolated and remained redundant before becoming a conference and events centre.
It would have been quicker, simpler, more obvious and very much cheaper, even to this failed 11+ dunce, that the train could have taken the strain and, 15 years earlier, too! Fewer stops for the commuter train but, always a bus to take passengers to the station and onwards at the arrival station. Called integrated transport.
SCANDAL 2 - even a former, principal mainline “of national strategic significance” (8 March 2018 letter) goes the same way!
An even more important mainline railway has been blocked for freight and commuter/regional trains for 40 years.
This is the 120 Kms Black Country Mainline between Worcester and Derby.
The middle 56 Kms, between Burton on Trent and Stourbridge, is built with all motorway, road and canal crossings completed for trains but, not a single train has ever run for over 50 years.
Instead, they are using it for the 10 Kms Wednesbury, Brierley Hill Extension (WBHE) for trams, only. Not trains!
Two short sections, totalling 6.7 Kms of the 56 Kms, will get Metro trams.
In the middle of the 6.7 Kms there is a Very Light Rail test track of 2 Kms through the former mainline railway tunnel under Dudley Castle Hill.
The section between Brierley Hill and Stourbridge may get the third kind of tram on the mainline - the Stourbridge Shuttle, extended from the world's shortest branch line between Stourbridge Town and Junction stations.
This makes for three kinds of "bus on rails" trams when, for 100 years, passenger and freight trains used it between Crewe/Derby and Worcester/Oxford/Bristol. Talk about incompetence!
SCANDAL 3 - the cost is exorbitant for Metro trams - even on railway lines.
The cost is half a billion pounds for the light rail Metro "bus on rails" tram over 10 Kms. £47 m/Km for the WBHE.
The cost is £75 m/Km for the Westside extension.
In Sept 2015, the cost of a 50 Kms rebuilt railway from Edinburgh to the Southern Uplands to terminate at Tweedbank was £7 m/Km
Compare this to the Metro Eastside extension at £133 m/Km. How can they spend so much of our money like this? A big difference between £7 m/Km and £133 m/Km!
SCANDAL 4 - £4 million for electric “bus on rails” tram; £325,000 for electric bus
This year, the Corporation tram tracks had to be dug up and relaid after only five years (2016 to 2021).
The 1999 tram had to have its tracks relaid near the Wolverhampton end after 16 or 17 years.
Three or four small businesses in Bilston Road lost custom and closed during the months it took for the tram line to be relaid.
The electric "bus on rails" trams cost £4 m each. Chassis cracks in trams have closed the complete tram network since November 13th for at least four weeks.
The electric bus, minus the supposedly ever so important and essential rails, costs £325,000 each (source: email from Ember buses, Scotland).
SCANDAL 5 - major underpass for buses get excluded so trams can use it.
Eleven different bus routes used Five Ways underpass for many decades.
Tram not bus is top dog and every bus is now excluded from this quick passage into Broad St, to allow only the tram.
Two colossal concrete crash barriers allow only trams to pass each other in the tunnel.
Yet, TfWM insist that some buses will still use it - and Broad Street, too.
After they have smashed to smithereens the two concrete barriers they built this year?
Meanwhile, every bus is delayed by queues at the traffic lights above the tram-only underpass.
SCANDAL 6 - buses diverted from their former fast, direct route - it’s given to trams.
Everyone from Dudley town centre and Dudley borough has a slower and longer bus route into Brum centre.
And, our Dudley tram is now further delayed, to autumn 2024, before a much poorer rail service is finally reinstated.
This will be the mighty Dudley and Sandwell Metro taking Dudley borough residents into Brum via Sandwell, instead of the former commuter and regional train service direct from Dudley Castle Hill station into our Big Brother Brum!
timweller1@gmail.com 29 November 2021
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