Railways neglected in favour of trams reintroduced

Many thanks for this, Donald.  As you wrote, Wolverhampton to NE England via Walsall railway hub instead of Brum is one way of raising the importance of the full 120 Kms Black Country Bypass Brum Railway between Worcester and Derby.

Since the correctness of Beeching sensibly closing loss making railway lines but, the utter stupidity of everyone in the railway industry and every train enthusiast then selling every single one of them for homes, offices and shops, we have been turning our railways into other purposes - turning them into anything but the kitchen sink.  A terrible tragedy that only we brilliant Brexit Brits could possibly contemplate and then achieve.

Manchester led the way by neglecting (as W Mids did) their northern railway network and, instead, from the 1980s, used their many hundreds of millions of pounds for turning roads into railway tracks for trams and many of their vital railways into tram lines.  Others, for freight only when our descendants used them for passenger and freight trains.  After decades of this weird and wonderful priority, they now want to modernise their much left behind railways in northern England with HS(too fast to stop)2.  Another climate escalating calamity to worsen our already bleak prospects.  Hopeless!

Best wishes

Tim

On Tue, 28 Dec 2021 at 15:21, Don Payne <donpayne@btinternet.com> wrote:

Hello Tim,

            Thanks for this. I won't add a lot as what you write is essentially correct. Network Rail identified this route many years ago as a potential freight corridor and I have had assurances from them the the bridge replacement work is being carried out to heavy rail standards in order to future-proof the line for these developments. The view that the route is only a "potential light rail corridor" is parochial and does not look at the bigger picture. Birmingham New Street station is running at capacity and cannot cope with any more NE/SW traffic. The Camp Hill line is being developed for passnger use so this route will also be severely constrained for future freight use.

    This route has also been identified by Railfuture for future development as a freight route.

    I would also add the with the imminent re-opening of rail services between Wolverhampton and Walsall that there is now an improved potential for direct links between Wolverhampton and NE England, by-passing Birmingham and giving considerable time savings.

    I would say as a general rule that trams should run on strets and be complimentary torail services on the exisiting heavy rail routes. This has been continental practice for many years but, of course, we never look to see what other countries are doing. We could learn so much - HS2 included!

    Best wishes,

    Donald