Letter: "HS2 is good news for freight" January 'Railnews'

Could John Hampson explain to a dunderhead layman like me how, exactly, HS2 will mean that the WCML will be able to take more freight as former intercitiy passengers pile onto HS2.  His argument goes that intercity trains will be fewer, or no more and so leave room for more freight and local trains.

That may be his explanation but, how can it be when HS2 trains are planned to stop at only two airports between London and Manchester and even Brum and Crewe only get some trains.  Therefore, you still need the same service of intercity trains to actually stop at all the intercity stations that HS2 is far too fast to stop at.

Or, am I missing something?

BAD NEWS STORY AT BROAD ST, BRUM

BAD NEWS STORY!

In big bad Brum, £15 BILLION of greenhouse gases are being spent, since 2020, to replace some bus routes and railway services with tramways.  This will worsen the climate crisis and make us even more dependent on Russian oil and gas.

Buses that remain are banned from the direct route into Brum city centre and are pushed out into narrow side roads with parked cars on either side, in some places.  This slow journey by bus can be avoided by taking the tram but, then it means waiting for the tram to arrive.  It is a change in mode that was never required before the "bus on rails" trams were given priority on the direct route into the city centre.  It puts car commuters/shoppers off from switching to public transport.

In addition, the UK's last mainline railway between Derby, Dudley and Devon is broken up to use some of the £15 billion of finite fossil fuels, to convert that railway "of national strategic significance" into three different kinds of tramways!  All this to get a multi-modal mix up of more changes and delays and to worsen shortages of oil and gas.

Five Ways underpass is no longer used by buses or bikes but only trams.  Two massive concrete crash barriers in the tunnel are meant to stop the trams from crashing into each other.  SEE PHOTO,  below.  This also makes public transport and the climate, ecological, resource, energy, cost of living crises worse.

BRUM IS THE IMPORTANT ONE NOT THE BLACK COUNTRY that does not deserve a railway only a piddling little shuttle tramline!

YOU ASK:  "However do you think passenger numbers would be low with this big 'central place' missed out. So would the gain be more for freight?"

BRUM IS THE IMPORTANT ONE NOT THE BLACK COUNTRY that does not deserve a railway, only a piddling little shuttle tramline! 

MY ANSWER:

1. Our Black Country is not so small and insignificant that it is not allowed to have half a billion pounds of Metro trams!
2. Brum is very big but so is the Black Country.  Each has about 1 mill population.
3. Our Black Country is as congested and polluted as Brum
4. Dudley has already destroyed SIX of its railway lines!  The 120 Kms Black Country (Bypass Brum) Railway is the seventh and last!
5. OUR railway is already built and runs underneath congested M6 at Jct 9 Wednesbury.
6. Every bridge, tunnel, underpass and flyover is already built.
7. 'Grand Central Diesel Perfumed Underground Station Tucked Away In The Basement Of The Closed John Lewis Store' is so congested with train services that they need some train services to go through the four Black Country boroughs instead!
8. This had been known about for decades when railway passengers numbers were doubling over 25 years to 2020!
9. There are plenty of train services to the east of Brum but only one between the W coast of the UK and Brum!  That one is Crewe, Shrewsbury, Hereford line.
10. They want freight and passenger trains back but think trams must be put on first!
11. OUR railway is "of national strategic significance".