40 years of trying to build the Dudley Tram on the 120 Kms Black Country Railway - promised by Dudley Council leader, Cllr Fred Hunt, by the year 2000, fully opened and operating!!
The whole frightful business, if dear Andy denies it was suspended in the early summer of 2022, was certainly curtailed in the light of rising costs. It then became Phase 1 as far as Flood Street, costing £385 m by then when, to complete the full 10.7 Kms route, the thing was supposed to cost £449 m in 2019 when serious work on the ground was finally started. Phase 1 is expected to open by the end of 2024. That makes five years to build 6.8 Kms when 5.5 Kms of the 6.8 Kms is on a former, supposedly fully safeguarded, principal mainline railway "of national strategic significance". This is blatant idiocy and incompetence!
According to reporter, Peter Madeley in the 'Express and Star', the June 2023 figure to complete the full 10.7 Kms will be £650 m - a 45% increase in four years.
Phase 1 is 6.8 Kms from Gt Western St, Wednesbury to Flood St, Dudley. £56 m/Km if £385 m.
Phase 2 is 3.9 Kms from Flood Street to Cottage St, Brierley Hill, except it is now decided that the tram line will end at Merry Hill SC - somewhere or other.
So where exactly? And the length? Assume 3.5 Kms. For at least £200 m, as Ian Ward told me, at today's prices, means £57 m/Km.
What is the cost of WBHE Phase 2?
Where is it now terminating?
How much is Dudley MBC contributing?
You must know because Andy said, on the 25 July on Radio WM, it is "full steam ahead", even for Phase 2.
When Network Rail says that the mainline railway is not needed by them until 2040s, at the earliest, has Network Rail contributed even one pound to the cost of strengthening Parkhead Viaduct?
Has Network Rail coughed up ANYTHING for improvement work on THEIR railway?
Or, have they given the full length to WMCA?
Tim Weller
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