70 years of obliterating railway lines; HS2 buries nature

Another transport/financial scandal is the destruction of the 56 Kms Black Country Railway section of the Derby to Devon via Dudley principal mainline railway. 9 Kms is being given over to the Light Rail, West Midlands Metro (over half a billion pounds) and to a Very Light Rail test track (over £30 m)! 47 Kms will remain unused for passenger trains and a short section used for freight. Another short section might get the Ultra Light Rail shuttle tram. This is on top of six railway lines already destroyed in Dudley borough, alone over the last fifty years! MORE INFO: timweller1@gmail.com test track (over £30 m)!

Twitter to David Shukman, Roger Harrabin, Sandra Green

HMG is institutionally complacent & incompetent, like my own W Mids Combined/Climate Worsening Authority that celebrates its five years in power by destroying the UK's very last principal, mainline railway from Derby to Devon via Dudley - 1 of only 2 between Brum and Welsh coast!

Sandra, Please support Fare-Free Public Transport for ALL, not just old crocks like me. I've had it for 13 years. It only needs extending to your age group with the money being wasted on "bus on rails" trams on roads and railways when electric buses directly on roads is needed.

£227 m for 1.7 Kms = £133 m/Km. Is that really right? Therefore, nineteen times more expensive per Km than the REBUILT Borders Railway in Sept 2015! This is a shocking waste of finite resources that nicely accelerates the runaway greenhouse effect to make earth like venus.

WMCA formed on 17 June 2016 - 5th anniversary

Thanks so much, Mark for phoning.

Please be bold in asking these pertinent questions and use my name whenever you like.  Blame me!  You could take the approach of being sceptical, even unbelieving over what I have told you and, all the time, being on their side.  Really, you need to be neutral, of course!   Tim

THE UK's LAST MAINLINE RAILWAY - Derby to Devon via Dudley - wasted, unused between Stourbridge Jct and Burton on Trent

1. How is it that you still maintain that "light rail investment provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time"?  (letter to Tim Weller, dated 18 September 2000, from Tom Magrath, Passenger Services Director, Centro)
2. More recently, how is it that your Laura Shoaf, MD, TfWM, told BBC reporter Peter Plisner on 'Midlands Today' that "passive provision" would still enable freight and passenger trains to return to the double tracks being given to trams on two nibble sized sections, totalling 7 Kms, to spoil a 120 Kms mainline railway?
3. What, exactly, is the "passive provision" that is being built in to the Metro line at the very time we speak?
4. How can "passive provision" be built-in when the only feasible site for a rebuilt Dudley Castle Hill Railway Station has been given to the National Very Light Rail Innovation Centre?
5. Tim Weller says that it is hardly surprising that you are spending £15 billion of public money to 2040 for mainly underground and overground Metro trams, over 150 miles and 8 lines, when you share the same building with the national tram promotion group.  Is he right?  Is there improper influence?  Are you finding it difficult to maintain a professional distance between yourselves and a lobby group?​

 Railfuture's full map.pdf

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 WBHE map

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 Metro map with my notes.pdf

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ACTIVE TRAVEL aka fossil-fuel-free travel or human-powered travel

1. When the Ordnance Survey has it down on their Explorer map as a "traffic-free cycle route" on two disused railway lines over 22 Kms, why is it that the Dudley section is particularly unacceptable and very slow going because of the mud and waterlogging in wet weather?
2. When will the WMCA be giving this major business, commuter and leisure route for mainly cyclists to use, a National Cycle Route number?
3. When will it be upgraded for responsible shared use between walkers, cyclists and horse riders?
4. Why has it never had any recognition and is even missed off on the Starley map, as a significant, even important, off-road route for those taking the climate emergency seriously?
   
    Disgraceful Dudley section of BC Cycle-Walkway ...
   
   
    Disgraceful Dudley section of BC Cycle-Walkway ...
   
   

SOURCES:

Report from self, dated 22 September 2015

"In a letter dated 18.9.2000, from Tom Magrath, Passenger Services Director:

"light rail investment provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time."

To tell me that light rail Metro was needed to be put on the Black Country Line in order to be able to restore heavy rail services at a later date on that line is complete nonsense.  That idiocy is now repeated with the insistence that Very Light Rail must go on that inter-city line but that it will not stop express and local trains returning at a later date (conversation with David Golding, Principal Strategic Planner, Network Rail at ITA meeting on 16.7.2015)  No wonder, I am thinking that there is something very corrupt, very wrong at the heart of the West Midlands Combined Authority, Network Rail, ITA, Centro - and, for decades, too.  They all want express and local trains returning but want Light Rail and/or Very Light Rail, first to help get the everyday trains back!

GONE FOR A BURTON!

 Always remind the politicians & their servants that they have completely destroyed Dudley railway station at Castle Hill and the Dudley Railway between Derby and Devon, as they build another railway on the other side of Brum! Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill gone for a burton!

Railway lines, roads given for tram extensions as HS2 is built!

Another mode of transport to make for more changes between bus, train and tram, more delays. Far worse, on a principal mainline railway from Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill and from Derby to Devon via Dudley. 4 Dudley railway lines now destroyed. Plenty on the E side of Brum!

To Stuart Everton:- After all these years, the major business and commuter cycle route, the 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway is still not finished, Stuart. When are we going to be able to use it on its entire length without wellies, boots or mountain bikes? Is this part of your job brief?

The UK's last 120 Kms mainline railway can now only be a train-tram-train mainline from Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill and Derby to Devon via Dudley. Missed something? You certainly don't miss out on changes, delays, a slower journey compared with 150 yrs ago for 100 yrs.

Four scandals that our leaders are responsible for and complacent about

 The West Midlands four scandals - all mayoral candidates and seven leaders must act:

• After 46 yrs, there is still no justice for the 21 killed in the Brum pub bombings in 1974.  And, this after W Mids Police within hours, got the first six Irishmen they could find and pinned the blame on them.  There must be a public inquiry as Julie Hambleton is so insistent and the Home Secretary is prevaricating over - now, for five months.

• After 40 years of efforts to destroy the UK’s last principal mainline railway for a “bus on rails” on roads and railways, tram extension, main works are now starting.  So, on one side of Brum they destroy another mainline railway for a tramline, a test track and a proposed cycle-walkway and, on the other side, they build HS2.  It is still much cheaper to pay the cancellation fees and finish the Derby, Dudley, Devon railway with the trains they have forgotten up to now.  NOT DESTROY IT, AS THE COUNCIL LEADERS WANT!

• Our Mayor and the seven leaders have allowed one of their own number to be suspended as Leader of Sandwell Council for mild criticism of the Israeli government in 2017/18.  This is Cllr Yvonne Davies.  Mayor candidate, Liam Byrne said there is no place for antisemitism and racism in the Labour Party and supported the suspension.  I call on the Mayor and the council leaders to demand the immediate reinstatement of Cllr Davies as Leader - in a public statement.

• Last decade, £62 m was given to Brum for only Brum cycling infrastructure.  The similar size population in the four Black Country boroughs got nothing.  This, even when the Black Country has the region’s longest, continuous, 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway from Brierley Hill to NW Wolverhampton, via Wombourne.  This is totally unacceptable.  I call on Brum and the seven leaders to finally finish this major business and commuter route, for cyclists so we can use it - WITHOUT THE MUD.

Tim Weller 20 March 2021

A pertinent question re tram shuttle to finish mainline railway

Shuttling passengers by tram between two separate sections of a mainline railway - is not sensible

Should Metro trams and buses be used to link the two sections of a mainline railway?

Should Metro trams be used to shuttle passengers between the two ends of a railway "of national strategic significance" between Worcester and Derby?  Especially when all crossings for canals, roads and motorways are built.

RESOLUTION for Left Unity, Labour Party and Green Party to adopt

 "As compensation/reward for doing the right thing in using the bus, train and tram, the concessionary Fare Free Public Transport (FFPT) that many have had since they were 60 years old, must be extended to everyone.

Paid for by abandoning the £15 BILLION of mainly underground and overground tram extensions in the W Midlands to 2040.

Use the £15 billion to improve disabled access for all ages and, to finish the 120 Kms Worcester to Derby mainline railway through Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall (less than £200 m).

Finished with commuter and regional trains, freight and, the nine stations where new settlements have been built since the line was closed in the 1960s."

Jon Weller's comment on article in Guardian on 20 May 202

"Lockdown has been a unique opportunity to show what can and cannot be achieved through behaviour change alone in the fight for the planet and millions of lives; an estimated 17% global emissions drop (31% for the UK) in April alone this year. That's a big drop, but still leaves 83% of global emissions as normal, showing the scale of the shift in economic and industrial structures that still needs to occur within a decade. Annual reductions are likely to be just a 4-7% drop, but still the biggest since WW2.

"Coronavirus has shown how important acting quickly and decisively is when a crisis occurs. Change needs to happen fast. We need to be ready for it and demand it."

Thanks for this. We must learn from this crisis over the complacency leading to an absence of planning and preparedness. Yet we knew in December and knew of widespread global travel that the virus would spread. The Really Big Crisis is climate that we have known about since the 1980s. Actually, about fossil fuel burning enhancing the natural greenhouse effect for the last 150 years. YET NOTHING IS CHANGING APART FROM THE CLIMATE!!

Prepare for The Really Big Crisis by:

Household carbon allowance to cut travel, like the '73/'74 energy crisis coupons.

NO flying, except for freight.

Use video conferencing, Zoom and the phone.

Basic Income for All to cut economic activity, expenditure, purchasing.

Minimum commuting by fossil fuels.

Max commuting by pushbike.

STOP the cycle of demolition, rebuilding, demolition in Brum city centre.

SCRAP all very high fossil fuel infrastructure projects, like HS2, Metro and Sprint.

PUT the trains and stations back before the planners and councillors destroy our remaining railway lines.
120 Kms Worcester, Black Country, Derby Railway finished.
Upgrade our cycle-walkways to make them usable.
8 Kms Dowery Dell Trail completed between Halesowen and Longbridge.

Will this be the slowest and most challenging principal mainline railway in the world?

We could end up getting a commuter/regional train from Worcester; change to VLR tram at Stourbridge Jct; change to LR Metro tram at Canal Street tram stop in Brierley Hill; change to human powered pushbike from Walsall to Lichfield on the new extended cycle-walkway; and, then a proper train once more to complete the journey to Burton on Trent and Derby; but, only by first going by train, in the wrong direction, to Nuneaton!!

Plenty of good ideas for Dudley Hippo!

Dear Cllr Qadar - and copied to my powerful MP and influential councillors who are meant to decide on TfWM transport policy - I thought!

Dudley Hippodrome turned into "a driverless car testing site" - Express and Star 30 November 2018

Wrong priorities; a diversion from more important matters; and an irrelevance.  Who at TfWM came up with this idea?

Rather than demolishing the 1938 Hippodrome, can it not be used to house the homeless if the front facade, at least, can be saved?  Apartments for low income families and singles to help revive Castle Hill? A refit rather than demolition? A conversion job for housing units?

If it must be demolished, why not use it for something more worthwhile than a driverless vehicle centre?  A driverless car must still have one person in it. He or she might just as well drive the thing, in that case!  I suggest:

1. A research centre into making batteries better at holding renewable electricity from PV solar put on every roof in the borough.
2. Some deep thought into how your very own 120 Kms Black Country Railway can be finished with the final stages to rebuild the stations and to put the regional and commuter trains back through the new Dudley town centre at the foot of Castle Hill.
3. Some innovative thinking into how you can reverse the decline in bus use; bus fares have risen by 13% above inflation since 2010; and bus routes cut.
4. A electric bus and innovation centre for yet more electric bus developments, perhaps?  There is not one electric bus in the TfWM area, is there?
5. A research centre into how we can capture and store CO2 and how to reduce all our greenhouse gas emissions.
6. Or, a new Dudley Central Mosque to replace the shabby and unsuitable present, converted, Victorian primary school building on the same road.  Soon, supposedly, to have the glitzy, glamorous tram running past this blot on the landscape and that of shameful Cavendish House.
7. Again on the same road, use the only feasible site of Dudley railway station, to rebuild it for the desperately needed commuter and regional trains into Brum and on to Derby.  No need for trams first to get the trains later (actually, tram trains that are still trams) where you end up paying twice and still don't get the fast trains back from Derby to Devon via Dudley and Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill.

Could I please be granted an appointment, urgently, to see you to discuss these more sensible ideas, Cllr Qadar?

Thanks and best wishes

Tim

A Bigger Fiasco than Brexit!

HONESTLY, our leaders have more money than sense!

Further to my e-mail of yesterday, my standing as an Independent candidate is to expose a transport and financial scandal.  I think, the biggest in UK transport history.  But I need your help, Bev - PLEASE!  Are you able to do anything with this?

1. Scandal One: In yesterday's email, it was £1.38 BILLION to 2026 to replace buses and trains.  This further e-mail is to tell you of corporate corruption and idiocy and, of corporate incompetence and negligence.  I think these are the only words one can appropriately be used to describe this never ending scandal, viz:
2. Scandal Two: building roads, housing and trading estates and retail units on over 100 Kms of urban railway lines - all since the 1960s closure programme.
3. Scandal Three: decades of 106 Kms of under-used and completely unused, urban, double track railway lines in the Black Country, Brum and south Staffordshire, as we've all crawled along bumper to bumper in car or bus on choked roads and motorways.
4. Scandal Four: While, at the same time, many tens of millions of pounds were used to build tunnels and bridges for the Black Country Railway for new road and motorway schemes to pass over or under but, then, never to take the next step to put the trains and stations back!
5. Scandal Five because, since 1981, yet more tens of millions were being used to promote - not getting the trains back on 106 Kms - but, Midland Metro trams with a team at Centro House and glossy brochures produced to show what was going to be done.  But, the 15 lines covering 200 Kms never was done!  Only one line was ever done, in 1999 on a railway line, of all things.  Instead of simply putting the commuter trains back!  Now, being extended to Edgbaston to replace and push out buses that have to and will always have to take a much longer route to avoid the trams in narrow Broad Street.
6. Scandal Six: Metro One extended in the other direction, on an even more important railway line, to wreck any possibility of finishing a 120 Kms, principal, mainline railway between Worcester and Derby!

This is all a bigger fiasco than Brexit!

In a Mayoral campaign leading up to May 2020, I hope you can understand I can have much fun pointing all this out.  But, I must have, please the help of the press at various points along the way.  Can you help me, Bev - please?

My blog, 'Trains Back on the Tracks' have my postings with further details that you can mention, Bev.  Publicly available:-

http://timweller1.blogspot.com/

Best wishes

Tim

On Sat, 17 Nov 2018 at 09:31, Tim Weller wrote:

Dear Bev

Please could you do a write up for the public meeting I am calling to announce my standing as an Independent candidate for the 2020 West Midlands Mayoral election?  Standing, simply because I am so concerned about what is going so wrong in regional politics and to get across my ideas for the West Midlands to Mayor Andy Street, now and, to whoever is the new Mayor.

Public Meeting on Wed eve 28 Nov 2018

3 point summary: free up congested roads and railways with:

Trains on our existing but unused railway lines; instead of £1.38 BILLION tram network to replace some buses and trains.  This to pay for.

Free buses for all and not the few. Go electric instead of diesel Sprint.

Free electricity from promoting, urgently, PV solar panels on east, west and south roofs.

My key action points in my campaign for the Mayor to consider:

• No more good railway infrastructure wrecked for ever by buildings, roads and trams.
• Instead, commuter trains from the Black Country into Brum on the 150 year old railway line that has STILL not been lost and can STILL be used.  No more railway commuters packed in like sardines from Stourbridge!
• I'm the true friend of the motorist with an idea from Eastern Europe to free up road space for them by free buses for all and not the few (like me - for over 10 years, now!).
• Free electricity from campaigning for solar panels fitted to all east, west, south roofs.
• I'm the guy with another idea for the countryside to get people out and about using it more.
• I'm on the side of the poor and the poor planet.  Get low income people housed more quickly in modest sized, highly insulated and energy efficient homes.  Extra support and bias to the homeless, rough sleepers and for those coming out of prison to reduce crime.
• No more prestigious but grossly extravagant and immorally expensive vanity projects.
• The above gives top priority in helping to control greenhouse gases to reverse poor planet to become rich planet.
• Retrenchment rather than boosting the wrong type of spending to drive economic growth and yet more greenhouse gases.

My Andy Street newsheet for him to copy!

Both sides argue it out here

Managing Editor, 'Railnews', Sim Harris in the black corner; Tim Weller in the blue corner

Tim – you have missed the point.  From other railway passengers I have spoken to, I seem to have raised a most pertinent point.  Millions of pounds spent on a half completed, 120 Kms mainline railway that is about to be further broken up into a 2 Kms test track, a 6.7 Kms tram line in two halves, a trail of trees, Himalayan Balsam and undergrowth and, a cycle-walkway!  Thus, many millions wasted that was spent on the bridges and tunnels to cross two motorways and three dual carriageways but , even so, STILL NO TRAINS, NOT EVEN FREIGHT TRAINS on 30 Kms, anywhere near these major congested roads!  Your side, Sim has forgotten to put the regional and national trains back.  How foolish and irresponsible is this as we all sit in bumper to bumper traffic and, on overcrowded trains?  Regrettably, it must be called incompetence and financial illiteracy to describe such absurdity.

If I think we risk endorsing your views, then that’s the ruling. Not your call.  I was simply wanting the opinion/feedback of readers, since they were most welcome from your good self.  I also need others to influence my thinking - and, to put me right.

Actually, could you please cease your campaign now?

It must be plain to you that no one else is interested, and I am including all the hapless recipients of your recent message in this reply, because I am sure they would appreciate an end to this too.  In fact, 183 people are most interested, Sim!  183 supporters, sympathisers and activists:​

M6 Toll banner 01.jpg​​

I "would appreciate an end to this."  I would appreciate an end to the railway industry standing meekly by as their infrastructure gets wasted and even destroyed for homes, roads, trading estates and, for rather a lot of retail therapy!  £0.75 billion, in fact, for our lengthy named but quite magnificent 'Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Station Tagged Along as an Afterthought in the Basement of the John Lewis Store'!

£0.75 billion "to enhance the passenger experience" for shopping, as I was told by David Golding of Network Rail in 2015!

Homebase built on Kings Heath railway station, too, with occasional trains to and from Bristol sweeping by but, mainly freight!  The line is parallel to, and alongside, bumper to bumper traffic on the main radial road into Brum city centre from the M42.

I am now going to try – for one last time – to point out why this campaign is going nowhere.  The campaign has had the full support of Mayor Andy Street who is now to put the passenger trains back on the 39 Kms of freight only railway lines in Brum.  This is certainly his intention.  I hope he succeeds.  I have spoken to him, he has listened and he sees the sense of railway trains on perfectly good, existing railway lines.  We are both on the same side.  Please come on board, too, Sim.

There are two potential reasons for restoring a direct rail route between Derby and Worcester via Dudley.

There are two main reasons, as I and my supporters see it.  A former Railfuture committee member put it to me like this.  "Derby to DEVON via Dudley and Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill."  Rising demand for railway trains as our roads and motorways get clogged up.  More than a doubling of passenger numbers since privatisation.  Yet, a principal mainline railway between London and Scotland remains broken, wasted but available for commuter and fast trains over 56 Kms in a heavily congested and populated urban conurbation with clogged motorways as bad as the M25.

The second main reason is to take the pressure off train congested 'Grand Central Shopping Centre ... '  BBC Midlands Today transport and business correspondent has called Brum's mainline station  "one of the worst rail congestion bottlenecks in the UK".  Birmingham is such a greedy honeypot, they want all trains to go via their building site of a city.  Why not spread out the largesse and help the Black Country grow economically so that our four boroughs are less of a backwater?

As regards population, the Black Country is larger than Brum, according to Wikipedia.  One newspaper reporter wrote that Dudley is the largest town in the UK without a railway station.  The site is about to be lost for ever for an innovation and engineering centre to built there!  How stupid is that, Sim?

A third reason is that even the Ordnance Survey think our mainline railway is in use between Stourbridge and Walsall.  See their current maps here:​

Latest OS map 01.pdf​​

Latest OS map 02.pdf

​

One is demand for through or regional journeys – Dudley to Derby, say. Derby to Dudley to Devon, please. The other is demand for local journeys.  Exactly, because this forgotten, this unique, this unused, this wasted railway can fit that requirement, too.

As for the first, there seems precious little likelihood that there is much demand in Derby for a through train to Dudley, or anywhere else in the Black Country. Through rail passengers between Derby and Worcester can complete the journey in 1h40 with a single change at New Street. Why will you not let them, Sim have their journey in less than 1 hr 30 mins by going direct via the Black Country, without needing to change?  And, in the process, reducing a little of the train congestion at Grand Central.  Why does every passenger have to travel via Birmingham and never the direct route through the Black Country?  There are other connections available which route passengers via Snow Hill and New Street, and these journeys take just over two hours. Together, these trains offer a 30min frequency, which seems adequate.  Certainly NOT adequate with economic growth, population growth, road growth and the growth in railway travel in the Black Country and Brum.

As for local journeys, the closed line skirts the West Midlands conurbation, and would not offer any new links towards Birmingham city centre – unlike the trams.  The wasted, the forgotten Black Country Railway does NOT skirt the W Midlands conurbation, Sim.  It goes through the middle of three Black Country boroughs, exactly where our infamously M25 like, congested, M5/M6 runs.  The Borders Railway goes through the middle of nowhere, the beautiful Southern Uplands but, is still popular and successful.  The Black Country Railway would be even more so if the middle section was finished with the trains (NOT trams) and with stations (NOT tram stops) and NOT a test track or linear woodland - please!!

The Black Country Railway offers a local commuter service via Stourbridge and the Black Country through Bescot into Snow Hill station with its still wasted, unused platform 4.  It is 50% longer than the present Jewellery Line but, with four station stops, should take the same length of time but with Birmingham city workers getting a seat instead of too many, now being treated like sardines.

A wasted platform 4 because the tram used it until the tram bypassed the station to go to Grand Central Shopping Centre, instead.  This was the tram that left 3 Kms of double track railway line wasted in Wolverhampton (now destroyed) and led to the demolition of Wolverhampton's second mainline station.  There is now NO tram stop at Snow Hill station.  The business case must have lied, for the main reason the money was given was to connect Snow Hill with Grand Central Shopping Centre.  The nearest tram stop is Bull Street, a walk of 300 metres to the station platforms.

I am sure that Mayor ANDY STREET understands the value of a second, quick TRAIN commuter route with the double tracks already there in the Enterprise Zone that is DY5, in Brierley Hill.  It goes through Dudley and Sandwell to Snow Hill.  Under the latest plan, with the grossly extravagant tram (£30 m/Km + £2.5 m for each tram), people from Stourbridge Jct would have to change at Harts Hill for the tram that stops on average every 650 metres on the UK's only unused, easily reinstated mainline railway that we are then promised (actually lied to) will also have fast trains and freight trains.  Some, perhaps all, tram passengers would also have to change at Wednesbury to get by tram to Brum.  Finishing the 120 Km railway line by putting TRAINS on it would give a faster, direct, train commuter route into Birmingham.  Obviously, more sensible, Sim, don't you think?

There is undoubtedly peripheral commuter traffic within the Black Country, between Dudley Port and Wednesbury, say, and some commuters might be willing to transfer to rail-based public transport. They are going to have the opportunity when the new Midland Metro line opens. Incidentally, the trams will serve Dudley town centre, unlike the heavy rail line, which implies that trains would be less likely to attract commuters travelling to and from Dudley.  It is most inappropriate for a flash, glitz and glam, £2.5 million tram at £30 m/Km, should be seen running through a rundown Dudley town centre with its two huge, empty office blocks, one with every window smashed and a town centre without a department store.  There is no reason for us Dudley folk to visit our town centre.  We all go to Merry Hill for excellent shops, stores and leisure attractions.  There are more attractions where the former mainline station stood, at the foot of Castle Hill (four major tourist/leisure attractions) and at Dudley Castle Gate that is on the other side of the railway station from the tourist/leisure attractions.  But the mainline station site is to get a suite of buildings for the innovation centre that would be more sensibly placed by the 3 Kms branch line at Brierley Hill that can be used for the test track.  Thus, our 4th (the other 3 were not mainline) Dudley railway line gets obliterated by this one foolish decision and the whole 120 Kms is nicely severed at Dudley Castle Hill!

You have told me (many times) that we are discussing 56km of route. At present costs, restoring it as non-electrified heavy rail seems unlikely to come in at much under £500m.  But, Sim it was your own excellent 'Railnews' that told me, in 2015, that the REBUILT Borders Railway was £294 m for 49 Kms of diesel locos and mainly single track.  That works out at £6 m/Km.  Ours is double track but many millions of pounds have been spent on every single structure except for Parkhead Viaduct that simply needs strengthening for £10 million (as I was told by West Midlands Rail expert, Toby Rackcliffe in November 2014).  Out of the 56 Kms, 26 Kms already has freight trains.  That leaves 30 Kms at £6 m/Km = £180 million.  Your £500 m is wrong, Sim.

Chris Grayling is going to give them £207 m, as his contribution, for only 11 Kms of trams.  That is more than enough to finish the 120 Km principal, mainline railway.  Your wish for "bus on rails" trams will prevent FOR EVER the completion of the mainline railway to bypass congestion bottleneck Brum and to bring some economic growth to the Black Country.  Yet, the authorities are telling us that "light rail investment provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time." (letter to me dated 18 September 2000)  Such stupidity must be unheard of anywhere else in the world!

The rebuilt section of the Borders Railway was almost as long – 50km – and the final construction cost was around £300m. But that was at 2012 prices, and part of the route is single track (unfortunately). One of your 2015 issues, when the line was soon to be opened, said it cost £294 million for 49 Kms.  Even so, the Borders line has done very well, and has demolished the ‘white elephant’ argument which was used by its opponents.  For £300 million, three major structures had to be built.  ALL have already been built for the Black Country Railway - the most recent over the M6 Toll in 2003.  Yet, still, only phantom trains.

But the BR has been built through a largely rural area where there had been no rail-based public transport available for many years, and provides a direct link to the centre of Edinburgh, which has proved attractive to commuters as well as tourists and other leisure travellers.  I have driven on the parallel A7.  The only bumper to bumper traffic I have ever seen was at traffic lights on red.

So the core question is this. Reopen your 56km of railway between Stourbridge and Burton, and restore a through route between Derby and Worcester in the process. Where is the longer-distance regional traffic to come from? What is the more localised demand that trams cannot satisfy? In particular, as you rightly say, the line bypasses Birmingham, which I suspect planners would see as another weakness.  The fact that it bypasses Brum is its greatest strength and help to that city, Sim!

I also suspect any attempt to establish a business case (vital – not a luxury) would founder very quickly on points such as this, which is perhaps why no one seems willing to fund one.

We have had vital business cases written to justify that this principal railway line should be given bridges and tunnels to soar over or under the M6, M6 Toll, A452, A5 and the Black Country New Road.  These robust, verifiable and clear business cases were written and cost huge sums of money.  Yet, such was the worthlessness of the business cases, that the huge expense argued for never included a single train or station.  Yet, the structures were still built.  This is utter madness!!

​​​​

Strong as steel business cases written to justify the part building of railway lines without a single train.  What a joke!  

Robust business cases to justify any expense that  the extravagant authorities want at a time of austerity for the rest of us.

Irrefutable business cases to justify £75,000 per metre for the new tram to Edgbaston from Grand Central when an electric bus could do the job just as well for a tiny fraction of the price.  Diesel buses already do, from only slightly further away!

The ever so competent (I don't think) business case for Metro One in the 1990s justified the closure of three Kms of double track railway line in Wolverhampton, the demolition of Low Level station and the failure to even bring the tram to the bus station, let alone the railway station.  The business case never conceded that restoring the train service would have avoided all of that idiocy and, at a fraction of the price, too.

The latest business case for the Black Country tramway on the Black Country Railway is no better.  It justifies 6.7 Kms for "bus on rails" trams, leaving 49.3 Kms of railway infrastructure, costing millions of pounds, for trees and Himalayan Balsam, a test track and a cycle-walkway.  This is absurd.

An expert business case that argues for the return of main line services of freight, commuter and intercity trains on the one set of double tracks to complete the 120 Kms Black Country Railway BUT, FIRST, a middle 6.7 Kms section has to be given over to trams stopping, on average, every 650 metres and with a frequency of 6 mins at peak times.  This is totally unacceptable.

Unlike in my September 2000 letter from Centro, I think they must have only meant tram trains in recent years.

And, tram trains that must stop almost as frequently as buses are inappropriate for a 120 Kms railway between London and Scotland.  In Germany, tram trains I believe, don’t cover any greater distance than 20 Kms.  We are to get 12 Kms and 14 tram stops between Sheffield Cathedral and Rotherham Parkgate for the still being developed tram train, when they have already been developed in Germany.  And, so far, it is five times over budget and is way behind schedule!

I am embarrassed and ashamed to be British and for my country to be a laughing stock, like this.

You point to congested roads in the area, but restoring trains would only ease that problem if the diverted motorists are making journeys which a reopened Burton-Stourbridge railway would offer.  Of course, they are making car journeys from the many new settlements that have sprung up next to or near the forgotten main line.  What about all the car journeys going to the greatly expanded National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas, Sim?  Why must there never be a station there?

I suspect that a great many of the road journeys are local (the school run, as well as short-distance commuters and shoppers) and the people making them would not be attracted to trains – at least, not along that corridor. Trams, however, are set to relieve some of the pressure because the alignment of the route from Brierley Hill towards central Birmingham and also Wolverhampton really could get some people out of their cars (as has happened in Manchester and other places with restored trams).  The railway line goes to central Brum, Sim.  And, without changing - anywhere.  Build the Benson chord in exactly the way Birmingham FoE suggested in their document last decade.  It really is shocking that complete amateurs have to tell the authorities their job.

I am not going so far as to argue that no-one would use the reopened line, but a decision to spend £500m+ would have to rest on very much firmer ground than any argument you have been able to offer.  Less than £200 million, at the 2015 price for Borders Railway, when so much work has already been done for the Black Country Railway.  £200 m would include the nine stations built over the 30 Kms, as Railfuture wants.

One final point. This is cannot be the springboard to a new discussion and, indeed, I fear I cannot undertake to respond to further correspondence, because I do have a paper to get out.  I quite understand.  But, please stand up for your industry, Sim.

I really hope you find something more rewarding to occupy you soon.  This sad saga reflects so badly on the railway industry and the transport bosses.  My 183 supporters/sympathisers and I should not have to remind them of their duties!  I exclude, ANDY STREET, who is relatively new to the game and is saying all the right things about getting the trains back and the stations built.  Chris Grayling is also saying many of the right things.  See:​

9 quotes: Bring the ghost of Queen Victoria bac...

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Best wishes    Tim

Yours, etc.

Sim Harris

Managing Editor

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