Showing posts with label Dave Parsons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dave Parsons. Show all posts

Wednesday, 31 May 2023

Trade unions are also a fat lot of use and are as bad as the bosses and MPs and councillors

31 May 2023 

WHO WILL RESPOND? WHO WILL SORT ME OUT?!

I am challenging trade union members in this group to explain themselves:

  1. It is ten years since I retired (at 65.5 yrs) and have been working more intensively to expose the scandal of Black Country and Brum railway lines destroyed by buildings and roads and immorally expensive trams. In that time, one member of ASLEF has helped me.
  2. That man is a quite magnificent train driver from Rowley Regis, Dave Parsons who eventually resigned from ASLEF in disgust at their support for railway destruction - sometimes to get trams.
  3. Simon Weller of national ASLEF, whom I heard interviewed on Radio 4, sent my lengthy, detailed evidence of wrongdoing, collusion and acquiescence - quite apart from plain negligence - to the library at his national London HQ, as if that would make a fat lot of difference!
  4. The Midlands TUC and Rob Johnston, Regional policy & campaigns officer and his boss, Lee Barron, have both failed to answer one email or to see me to arrange an appointment when I called, in person, at their Summer Lane HQ (now 24 Livery Street).
  5. When I tried to doorstep Rob as he hurriedly disappeared down the steps after a WMCA Board meeting of which he is a member, even then he refused to speak or listen to me, the rude man.
  6. This was in stark contrast to Tory Mayor Andy Street who has seen me in his office for 30 min.  In addition, as with other members of the public who approach him, he always gives his time and attention to everyone at the end of his public meetings.
  7. This is also in stark contrast to the top people at TfWM/WMCA HQ down the road at 16 Summer Lane who have engaged with me and, even replied to emails.
  8. Because every trade union member and union has sided with the transport bosses, we have this sorry story of idiocy and incompetence, of negligence and folly:-
  • I have listed 7 Dudley railway lines, all destroyed, as part of about 100 Kms in total that have gone forever in the West Midlands. Yet, in their guilty silence, not a whisper is heard from a single trade union, let alone a railway union, because they all collude with the bosses, over the wipe out of their own workplace!!
  • After the completion of Dudley Tram Phase One, there are still 100 Kms awaiting passenger trains and stations in the region.
  • Phase One was put on the UK's very last, completed but never used, over 56 Kms out of 120 Kms, principal mainline railway!
  • But never a dicky bird is heard from any trade unionist, apart from magnificent Dave Parsons who resigned from ASLEF in protest at his union's collusion and complicity in stupidity and financial scandal!

WHAT A DISGRACE!

Thursday, 23 March 2023

to Ian Ward re WBHE Phase 2

Thanks, Ian for the email.

I wrote to train driver of 44 years, Dave Parsons who wrote back this evening:

"I agree that the tram should stop at the new bus/ tram interchange in Dudley & the £60M should be spent on better things like the reinstatement of platform 4 at Snow hill station.

"Ongoing work along the proposed route of this line from Dudley to Brierley Hill should also cease immediately.
Just laying the groundwork for this route, ie, the road works in Brierley Hill is causing unnecessary chaos and delays, and causing frustration to people who are aware that it’s the proposed metro extension that’s costing a fortune, that nobody wants on their doorstep."

By Express and Star - Peter Madeley   Published: Jul 21, 2022:
"It means the Wednesbury to Dudley stretch will proceed as planned – at a projected cost of £385m – while the rest of the route to Brierley Hill is put on hold. ... It said splitting its construction into two phases would result in costs increasing further, with phase one from Wednesbury to Dudley now budgeted at £385m."

£385m divided by 5.3 Kms on an existing railway line "of national strategic significance" = £72.6m/Km.  Compare this with the mostly rebuilding of the Southern Uplands, Borders Railway when it opened in Sept 2015, at £7m/Km!!

Edinburgh Conservative Group opposed their two tram projects on grounds of cost, as I would have expected from traditional, wise spending Tories.
Best wishes