Corrupt transport practices

This is a scandal, a disgrace and has gone on for decades.

• 78 Km of unused or goods only, double track rail lines alongside/near congested roads in the Black Country and Birmingham.
• Further 58 Km from Walsall to Derby via Lichfield is still not available for passenger trains.
• 2 important rail curves still not built - after 50 years.
• £750 m (all rail money?) for Grand Central Shopping Centre with the main line station tagged along as an afterthought and stuck in the basement.
• Now, plan for transport money going for subsidising M6 Toll to further reduce the amount of money for urban Beeching rail reversals in the Black Country and Brum.
• The W Midlands Combined Authority remains corruptly biased towards road schemes; secondly, towards super expensive tram extensions in Birmingham city centre; thirdly, £12 m for a second rapid transit mode to duplicate the first, trams. What little money is left over may then go to Brum rail schemes 
• Beeching rail reversals continue to be sidelined in the Midlands.

YOU ONLY GET WHAT YOU ASK FOR!

THANKS to all those who saw the forgotten railway on Sunday, 21 Feb.  We are forbidden, even after 50 years, to have our trains back.  Don't stand for it!

If you think that every mile should be available for us to travel on by diesel train (in the first instance) and from Stourbridge to Walsall (later to Lichfield and Derby) please say so to:

Patrick McLoughlin, Secretary of State for Transport                     patrick.mcloughlin@dft.gsi.gov.uk

​Claire Perry​,  Rail Minister claire.perry@dft.gsi.gov.uk  

Cllr Bob Sleigh, Chair of the W Mids Combined Authority      rsleigh@solihull.gov.uk

Cllr Darren Cooper, Vice Chair                                        darren_cooper@sandwell.gov.uk

James Aspinall, Managing Director, Centro                   jamesaspinall@centro.org.uk

Laura Shoaf, W Mids Integrated Transport Authority                     laurashoaf@wmita.org.uk

Stuart Everton, Black Country Director of Transport             stuart.everton@wolverhampton.gov.uk

Don't forget to remind them that they do have to write an unbeatable business case first!!

Don't forget to ask them to all go down to London and pay a visit to our Patrick and Claire for them to agree the transfer of funds from the two short sections for electric trams to be used instead for the full 21 Km for diesel trains.  They have enough money in the bank already (£207 m when they only need £72 m).

THANKS V MUCH!  They must be very fed up hearing from me.  One person can easily be ignored, as I am.  Put all 7 in the one e-mail, if you like.  Think up your own cheeky or attention grabbing subject field.

THE PLANNED BREAK UP OF THIS MAIN LINE RAILWAY IS PERMANENT AND A DISGRACE:

The UK’s only unused, major, North-South main line railway is to be sectioned up into:

from south to north, we have planned,​ in order,

  6 Km: daily, 25 waggon goods trains from Port Talbot to Round Oak, via Stourbridge Jct

  4 Km: Light Rail Metro trams (£310 m for 12 Km, inclu 4 Km of road running)

  2 Km: Very Light Rail shuttle trams, through Dudley Tunnel to Cinder Bank road

  4 Km: Light Rail Metro trams (£310 m for 12 Km, inclu 4 Km of road running)

  3 Km: Empty, private space of linear wilderness of shrubs, trees, Himalayan Balsam (an illegal plant)

  2 Km: of passenger trains - Bescot to Walsall

TOTAL: 21 Km   (approx distances)

This is 21 Km of a 74 Km main line railway between Stourbridge Jct and Derby through the increasingly densely populated and road/rail congested Black Country - the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall, with a population of a million.  Diesels and four rebuilt stations is £72 million (based on last year’s rural Beeching reinstatement in Scotland at £6 m per Km).

My reasons​ for wanting the trains back on every kilometre (​at a quarter of the price​ of trams on 8 Km, plus road running on 4 Km)​ instead of trams on 8 Km of the main line railway​:

1. It is the UK's last remaining, easily reinstated north-south main line railway between Stourbridge and Derby.  Therefore, the most important unused rail line.
2. The only one between train congested Grand Central Shopping Centre/basement station and the Hereford to Shrewsbury Line
3. 74 Km between the two towns of Stourbridge and Derby.
4. 21 Km between Stourbridge and Walsall that urgently needs to be reinstated first.
5. This would be only the 3rd Beeching reversal in 50 years in the Black Country and Brum.
6. Only 12 Km needs to have the track relaid and four stations rebuilt to give everyone 21 Km of passenger line, once more.
7. COST: 12 Km x £6 m per Km = £72 million, including the stations (based on Beeching rural rail reversal in Scotland last year).
8. It reduces chronic and worsening road and rail congestion in the Black Country and Brum.
9. Quicker, simpler, cheaper and easier to achieve than 12 Km of road and rail running trams that the councillors and Centro officers have failed to achieve in 35 years of trying.
10. If they were ever to succeed, it would destroy for an eternity and beyond, the possibility of passenger trains from London Paddington and the North being seen again in the Black Country!

The Very Necessary War

For me, a very necessary war because:

1. We were the superpower of the day and, therefore, had to intervene as the policeman, judge and jury of the world.
2. In 1914, UK had seen centuries of warfare on the mainland of Europe, anyway.  More war there would not seem unusual.
3. Britain had a culture and tradition of war and, war first and foremost.  Churchill's magnanimity in victory and jaw, jaw came much later.
4. Patriotism, militarism and nationalism were also the norm.
5. Every citizen knew Britain was right and on the side of upholding civilised values throughout the world.
6. It had always been unheard of not to do your patriotic duty to King and Country.
7. Throughout every country in Europe and Russia, every subject of these monarchs believed their kaisers, czars and kings were God's representatives on earth and, therefore, knew best.  When they wanted war, war it had to be.
8. It was widely believed in the readership of the penny dreadfuls and the ever so popular 'Daily Mail' that the Germans were less than human - Gerhuns not Germans.  They were evil and had to be fought when they invaded our fellow industrialised and colonial power of Belgium.
9. We had to honour our alliance with France and Russia.  We always honoured our treaty obligations and we were always men and women of our word.  "Perfidious Albion" was a disgraceful slur on our nation.
10. Better to die gloriously as a hero with your name engraved in stone for ever, than risk being ruled by Germany.
11. Violence was the done thing; non-violence was non-existent in European thinking and absent from the English vocabulary (still to this day)

FOOTNOTE:

Ten million combatants and a further ten million non-combatants were killed in the industrial slaughter that was the 1 WW of four and a quarter years.  This was the price that Max Hastings (in the one hour long documentary on BBC2, 'The Necessary War') and everyone of his interviewees agreed was worth paying and that made this war necessary to stop German hegemony in Europe and to maintain the British Empire.  In addition, each side believed God was on their side.   The poor, deluded Empire soldiers were killing and being killed for the noble and glorious cause of God, King and Country - and to avoid any chance of coming under Berlin's control.  Why God should ever want to have anything to do with such a stupid creation does make me doubt the wisdom of such an all powerful and all knowing God of justice.

Dear Mr Weller,

Thank you for this. 

I agree with some but by no means all of your views. Ultimately, Britain fought the First World War because Germany posed a threat to its security.

Best wishes

Gary Sheffield

Sent from my iPhone

Dear Prof Gary

Thanks so much for reading my piece, that was partly tongue in cheek - and for having the decency to reply.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, I know but, could Britain not have waited until it was obvious that Germany was moving to invade our shores and then launched a pre-emptive attack of self defence?  Our island location should have given us a tremendous advantage in being the last to be invaded (if we ever were) by the Germany of 100 years ago.  Was not Kaiser Bill pre-occupied with conquering certain countries on the European mainland?

Thankfully, that bloodbath and this century's attacks on weak Iraq and Afghanistan have given us such a bloody nose that we have not gone in, with all guns blazing, in Syria or Crimea.

I think, as has the SNP, the UK as a whole would be wise to learn from Norway as regards both energy (North Sea oil and gas) policy and peacemaking.

Best wishes