15 Feb 2022
My answers in blue below your questions:
Thanks Tim. The information is very helpful. Some further questions:
1) Has the metro section between Wednesbury and Brierley Hill (some 12 miles) already been built? It is being built to be opened in the autumn of 2024. The 56 Kms safeguarded trackbed between Burton on Trent and Stourbridge is double track and is built for all crossings of motorways, roads, canals, railways. Metro goes on two short sections, totalling 6.7 Kms, with 4 Kms road running through Dudley town. The tram is on a principal mainline railway. What a waste!
2) If so, could railway lines be put alongside the Metro lines, or is that technically impossible? It would cost too much to demolish and rebuild bridges, tunnels and buildings for a double-track tram and, alongside it, a double-track commuter and regional/national train service between the unused 56 Kms between Derby, Dudley and Devon.
3) could you link me to evidence about the relative cost of railway lines and metro?
4) Are you aware of many people wanting to travel on a line between Burton and Kidderminster? They already do via Brum but Grand Central Diesel Perfumed Underground Station is congested with queueing trains pre-Covid. The 120 Kms Black Country Railway goes through a heavily congested, densely populated, urban conurbation where we are meant to be using walking, cycling, buses, trains and trams - NOT cars! The Dudley tram to Merry Hill still leaves 49.3 Kms wasted with nothing but fresh air. The best it can be is a train-tram-train railway. But that is better than more congested roads and rising greenhouse gases and making both worse. Certainly better than High Scam 2 Fast To Stop!
Am I right, John? Or, is it me who is totally out of my mind?
Tim
17 February 2022
Thanks Tim. This is very illuminating.
Unfortunately we are where we are and I daresay it would be very costly to undo what of the tram service has already been done.
What do you think is the best way forward in the present situation?
I ask this out of genuine interest but I must also be honest and say that I am tied up with so many causes at the moment that I think it unlikely that I can do much campaigning in this one.
All the best,
18 Feb 2022
Many thanks, John.
I quite understand your busy schedule.
Such is the phenomenal cost of Metro - well over half a billion pounds for only 10.7 Kms to destroy any hope of a fast, no changing, train service from Derby, to Dudley and onto Worcester - that it is still much cheaper and more sensible to cancel WBHE and pay the cancellation fees. There would definitely still be money left over to reintroduce the commuter, regional trains and nine stations over the full 120 Kms!
Can you get me to explain to Footsteps? I would like to be an active member with my Christian allegiance. Or, could you mention the scandal, yourself, please? This is the biggest and longest-running (from 1950s) scandal in UK finance/transport history!
All this, at a time of climate emergency, too when cutting GHG emissions is basic, fundamental, urgent. NOT boosting them!
from John N
24 Feb 2022
Dear Tim,
Thanks for this detailed email and for your passion and concern.
I have been thinking about your email and discussed some of its contents yesterday with a friend who used to work in the Department for Transport and had responsibilities in relation to Crossrail in the early stages of its development.
I am unclear as to which bodies have responsibility for decision-making in this case. Granted that WMCA has a responsibility, but are there not national bodies which have to consent, fund or even initiate such projects? It seems to me that getting a change (if desirable) is a complicated business which requires a skilled group to deal with systemically. Is there a Green Transport Group in the Green party which could help?
The data you produce would need to be put together into a dossier and maybe supplemented with other studies eg on the cost of the electrification of the reopened line (or would it run on diesel?) and evidence for the demand potential for the new line. Could universities help with this? I'd have gone for this if I were 60 years younger but now have not got the time in the light of other priorities.
Footsteps is chary about advocating particular solutions. We concentrate on values and the education of our member bodies. General principles yes, and policies such as using forms of transport with lower emissions but that's about it.
I would certainly support pressing WMCA and its constituent councils to go for lower carbon transport and to investigate the merits of different schemes, yours included, but that's as far as I want to go.
Best wishes,
John
25 February 2022
Very many thanks, John. Lovely to hear from you and I quite understand.
This destruction of our trams and 19th-century urban railway lines has gone on for 70 years and is continuing apace! The councillors are ultimately responsible and I have tried to get them interested for many years - actually for decades - but they don't care (I'm a very successful failure!). They rubber-stamp what the top officers in TfWM/WMCA want.
Best wishes
25 February 2022 from John N
Thanks Tim for your gracious reply and illuminating article. Certainly the history you describe reveals bad individual decisions and little sense of an overall policy.
For me the question remains. What body are bodies are responsible for policy and implementation? This involves the process of research, outlining policy options, deciding between them, obtaining finance and implementing them. I'm still unclear. Obviously WMCA up to a point, but surely not alone not least because of the financial angle.
Since the 1980s I have had intermittent experience of transport in London. I used to commute by train from Milton Keynes during the week, take my Bickerton folding bike on the train and cycle from Euston to Church House Westminster. My work also involved me in quite a lot of trips around the capital.
Between then and now my experience of travelling in London has greatly improved. Buses are quicker; there are fewer traffic jams. Cycling has become a pleasure. Train connections across the river have multiplied. Hurrah! How and why has this happened while in the West Midlands, with a few exceptions, things have stagnated?
No doubt money is a factor. Central govt I guess has spent more money per head in London than here.
But there seems to have been a greater ability to analyse options and take decisions in and for London. I imagine that having a Mayor, a Transport for London Authority and ready access to the Dept for Transport have all been all factors.
If I may be scriptural, I see you as a voice crying in the wilderness! That has the merit of disturbing complacency and indicating other options. But we need some sort of transport authority with popular participation to take us forward. And as the researches of "Climate Outreach" (qv) indicate it is vital that the segment of the population that are environmental enthusiasts (in which I include myself) have got to find arguments that carry weight with other segments lest we alienate them and paint ourselves into a corner.
Andy Street is no fool and, if only for reasons of self-interest, may be open to improvements. I would be interested to be a participant in a small way, time permitting, in any future discussions.
All the best,
John
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