Hi Jules and Bob - and copied to our Black Country Director of Transport, Stuart Everton for him to correct or amend. And to Black Country LEP VIPs.
Thanks for the feedback! All very helpful. And, I am so impressed by your ability to engage, to actually read my stuff and reply, too. THANK YOU! Very, very few people are at all bothered.
You wrote:
"I'm assuming most of them would disagree with you, but have no "right of reply" in this context, so I don't think the document is either fair or impartial."
I have no reason to exaggerate, Jules. This is the scandal. It is completely but astonishingly true! I'm in my third decade of observing the transport scene in the W Mids and taking on board what I have read and seen with my own eyes.
I only write and speak what I believe to be the correct facts and figures and I always want the individuals and organisations to please correct me, so that next time I do not misrepresent their views. I try not to be derogatory. Just stating the true facts of the case after working on all this since the mid 90s. I have always been polite and, I hope, good humoured. But, as a retired old codger who no longer works for Brum City Council, I feel I can be more outspoken and courageous. I am aging fast, so I have nothing to lose and I'm running out of time!
I do have a track record of winning some and losing others. I was leading the campaign against two enormous road schemes in the 1980s and 90s and won! I was using the argument, then, of putting the trains back on the tracks FIRST. This is now happening with 20 Kms out of the wasted 106 Kms that are now getting their trains and stations back - instead of trams in the case of Camp Hill. I lost the campaign to stop the spoiling of the second Brum to Wolverhampton main line railway by turning it into a tram line. It has led to Snow Hill platform 4 without trains; the Wolverhampton station turned into a conference and events centre; 3 or 4 Kms of track lost in Wolverhampton; and, ever since, an inferior railway service to Shrewsbury and North Wales. That was Metro One that opened in 1999, after work started in 1981. Metro One on the railway is now to be extended onto the next railway line - the half used 120 Kms. It means the impossibility of ever being able to finish the full 120 Kms with regional and commuter trains. Never again, Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill; or, Derby to Devon via Dudley by fast intercity trains.
All I am asking for is that we use our urban railway lines for freight and passenger trains instead of trams that take platforms out of use, stations closed for ever and railway lines built on. And, at a fraction of the price too! Secondly, we must put commuter and regional trains (and Railfuture's nine desperately needed stations) back on ALL 106 Kms of double track railway lines in the Black Country, Brum and south Staffordshire (to Derby). Still 86 Kms out of the 106 Kms to go! Thirdly, Metro trams and Sprint buses are vanity projects, status symbols, immorally expensive; done mainly to keep up with the Jones's of this world and to impress the world in time for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. We need TRAINS back on the tracks, first before anymore greenhouse gases pumped out by unnecessary and enormous expenditure on trams and Sprint diesel buses. Stop yet more waste of 49.3 Kms of main line railway alongside slow vehicles on jam packed M5, M6 and main roads. And, in the process, slowing planet earth turning in to planet venus (see Wikipedia).
Trams and Sprint diesel buses can never be the silver bullet to solve all our congestion and pollution problems. My golden bullet is:- "for a more sensible, cost effective and easier ways to reduce congestion and pollution go for fareless, electric buses for ALL; not for the few, like me! This, to free up road space for essential users. Paid for by abandoning Metro, diesel Sprint and CAZ."
Does this, now, seem fair enough and reasonable to you, Jules?
I am fully supporting the excellent, 2003 Railfuture document and superb map, here:
Incredibly, W Mids RailFuture has withdrawn the document and no longer wish me to publicise it. I still do. Virtually everything in this sensible document, it seems, still needs to be urgently implemented. In recent years, this top, UK railway lobbying group actually wants the 6.7 Kms of "bus on rails" trams on the UK's last, easily reinstated, almost everything is there, 120 Kms mainline railway "of national strategic significance"! On their map, it is the one I have written, "Passenger line still wasted". Railfuture does not want trains, it seems. They are not going to tolerate their big name speakers upset by campaigning/lobbying and, therefore, put off from attending future conferences to be their VIP speakers. They also adore light rail (and very light rail) "bus on rails" trams and tram trains (still trams but able to run on heavy rail lines). Cost effectiveness is immaterial. See:
Over the decades I have lived here, umpteen glossy brochures have been produced by urban planners in the West Midlands. Only 6 Kms of railway line has been opened in the urban area, ie Smethwick Galton Bridge to Moor Street. Yet, congestion and air pollution has worsened and railway lines lost - actually destroyed, obliterated. The only feasible site for Dudley Castle Hill railway station is the latest that is being lost forever. Yet, I am told they do want the trains and stations back, exactly where the trams are to go; and, the £30 m innovation centre exactly on the Dudley station site! I am being lied to. Or, they don't know what they are doing.
For years, I have been told that it is too late to stop the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill tram extension (WBHE) going on the Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance".
Preparatory work has started, even though the Black Country Director of Transport, Stuart Everton, told me on Monday that he does not, yet, have all the money. He has always maintained that if he/his bosses change their mind to put back regional and commuter trains and stations, instead of trams and tram stops, he will lose the money he has got. I don't think this is true. HMG has given WMCA £250 million in a second devolution deal, last year. With regional devolution, TfWM/WMCA can change their mind over how the money is spent. The problem is that they will lose face. One of my text messages to many of them ended with,
'Lose face for a day or have egg on your face forever.'
Unlike your good selves, not one person responded. They all keep their heads well below the barricades and dare not speak out against the stupid, conventional transport wisdom of trams and yet more trams, as bus use slowly declines and congestion worsens on road and railways. Their WBHE "bus on rails" tram means many more years of the 6 Kms wasted, unused for commuter trains, between Stourbridge and Brierley Hill. Yet, in 2017, passenger trains were to be introduced, once more between Stourbridge and Brierley Hill for people to change onto the tram after 6 Kms on the train. If, then, the trains were to go some of the way, why not all of the way to Wednesbury, Walsall and Derby? But that train, change to tram idea, instead of trains all the way, into Brum has been squashed. More packed trains and crowded roads for more decades. The tram means more decades of nothing being done to finish the section from Wednesbury to Burton on Trent. So, more years of nothing being done to relieve congestion and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that our railway "of national strategic significance" could help with. It runs alongside or near to slow moving traffic on M5 and M6. Yet, these VIPs all want the 89 Kms, 8 to 10 lane, Western Orbital Motorway asap!
Stuart Everton told me that I am the only one who wants trains on my wasted 56 Kms of the 120 Kms Black Country Railway. I told him that 183 people voted for me in June last year after reading my manifesto flyer for trains not trams on our local line. Many people support me but, not one organisation or group will come out, bravely, to say that I may have a point. Flash, smart, glitzy, glamorous "bus on rails" trams are so irresistible. I love them, too. But they take the money away from much more urgent priorities - like getting the trains back on existing unused railways before they get built on.
Stuart says that what I want is £400 million. This is untrue when out of the unused 56 Kms for passenger trains, 26 Kms has freight. Therefore, only 30 Kms needs the rusting tracks replaced and modern signalling and stations built. He cannot have read my
30 Kms x £6 m per Km (as for the rebuilt Borders Railway in 2015) = £180 million. Therefore, £200 m at today's price to finish the mainline that is needed to take the pressure off 'Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Station Tagged Along As An Afterthought in the Basement of the John Lewis Store'. WOW! What a mouthful of a name they have turned it into.
Sorry this is so long. I will send the paragraphs that quote Stuart to him for him to read, check and correct. It would be as nice to hear from him as it is always so nice to hear from you both!
Best wishes
