Thanks for mentioning to your team members, our Saturday 8 August walk/run/cycle event on the 20 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walkway from Himley Woodland Trust car park. Activity and distance are personal choice! But it is the two old Dudley railway lines, south of the S Staffs/Dudley border which are the object of our desire for us all to use without being decked out in old clothes and wellies in winter. It's an official public right of way from the 70s or 80s, too but is so neglected it is heaven on earth for dirt bikers and quad bikers!
Tim, were you aware that there was a perfectly good, double track, principal mainline railway that was available but, reserved for trams from 1981, from Walsall Railway Sta to Stourbridge Jct Railway Sta and onwards? But, perhaps, the authorities were unaware there was your perfectly good railway line in S Staffordshire that is its continuation!
I hope you won't be offended at my sending this to you, just in case you were unaware of the 45 year history of Metro trams going on railway lines - but only 23 Kms actually achieved when 200 Kms was wanted by 2000, 26 years ago! It is now 150 miles or 241 Kms by 2040. Here it is:
Sunday, 19 July 2026
What is most shocking and reprehensible, dear friend
... about regional transport policy since the 1980s, by both Centro, their political leaders and continuing under the Mayor and the Combined Authority/TfWM, is the constant refrain that Metro trams are the catalyst to get the railway
open again.
"Light rail (trams) provide the basis for restoring heavy rail services (trains) at the appropriate time." Tom Magrath, Centro Passenger Services Director, letter dated Sept 2000 about the 120 Kms Black Country Railway bypassing THE railway congestion bottleneck of Grand Central. Trams are essential to get the trains!
In more recent years, Mayor Andy Street in my talks with him, was only ever concerned that the trams would not stop the reopening of the full Black Country Railway for trains. In the main meeting I had with him and his advisers, they reassured him that the trains would still be able to return at a later date, thanks to their magic "passive provision". Absurd! Therefore, Andy did nothing because he believed his officers rather than me when I pointed out the blindingly obvious that railway lines can be reopened without turning them into tramways and cycle-walkways first!
What is worse is that their policy of trams to get trains is accelerating the Climate Emergency at a time when drought, 40 C temperatures and wildfires are showing we may be seeing the runaway greenhouse effect on our planet similar to the one on our sister or twin planet, Venus. Now uninhabitable.
In addition, there are still existing but wasted railway lines in our region or, freight only lines, alongside or near to congested roads and motorways which could slow congestion and mitigate Climate horrors if brought back into use for TRAINS, rather than grossly expensive trams or, nothing. See this 2003 map
In 23 years, very little has changed for the better. For 35 years to 2016, the policy was for Metro trams on the Bristol to Grand Central railway in Brum!! There must still be about 100 Kms of underused/wasted railways left in the region. However, they are all besotted with trams at the most enormous expense and difficulty to achieve. One tramway is going to the new Birmingham City football stadium to smarten up that deprived area of poverty and poor housing in Bordesley. Such are their priorities! 241Kms of tramway and 380 tram stops by 2040 to give us the perfect ideal of 'Mixed Use Railways' from the Dept for Transport - the current mantra to bring Transport Heaven on Earth to us all.
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