Wholesale destruction for high climate impacting trams!

Hi Dan - do show this to Helen, if you wish.  Perhaps, you have supervision with her.

Your committees and Board meetings are worthwhile in people meeting together and talking, agreeing, disagreeing.  But, please allow Albert and I to engage in polite conversation with officers and members before and after your meetings.  Please trust us to behave as guests and we will not abuse our position as visitors.  But it is so pleasant just to talk about common concerns with only those who wish to talk, obviously.  Please let us up to Rm 116 when we arrive.  I won't be a trouble maker, honestly!  I simply want to chat with committee members who wish to chat with me.  We don't need to be escorted, either.  Just trust us, please.

Dear old Albert Thomas seems to have nothing to contribute but he must be encouraged to speak up.  He must be on the committee of Midlands branch of Railfuture with their brilliant map from 2003, here​

 Railfuture's full map.pdf

​​of what you all should be implementing at 16 Summer Lane instead of the very high climate impacting Metro tram network on mainline railways.  But Albert refuses to speak to me or to give me his email address.  However, you do, which is great.

​Please read the email, below to Cllr Peter Lowe and Richard Parker, Labour candidate for Mayor next year.  Read to simply understand where I am coming from.  I really should not have to spell out the blindingly obvious in this way.  A retired old bloke who has never been a transport professional or expert but who is fed up  with sitting in traffic jams next to or near to the UK's last major but wasted principal mainline railway.  One of only two between Brum and the Irish Sea!!

​Dan, it is the networking that we all do before and after formal meetings that is so important.  Please let Albert and I do it, too!

Do chase up councillors who have a poor attendance record.  Or, simply remove them if they can't be bothered to check, challenge, query or take any interest by turning up.

​Best wishes

​Tim

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Tim Weller <timweller1@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2023 at 08:28
Subject: PETER AND RICHARD ELECTED from May 2024
To: Peter Lowe <cllr.peter.lowe@dudleymbc.org.uk>, Peter Lowe <p.lowe@miphealth.org.uk>

Dear Peter and Richard

You are both likely to be elected next year to your different leadership roles.  In national government, the Tories have messed up good and proper.  However, when it comes to Tram HQ at 16 Summer Lane, you have all messed up badly by giving top priority to attempting (and failing) to reinstate the tram network instead of the surviving railway network.  Failed badly because it has taken you 42 years to reinstate only 25 Kms of tramway, of which 18 Kms are on the first mainline railway spoiled.  It was supposed to have been 200 Kms by the year 2000, 23 years ago!  You both must own up to the idiocy of putting trams on two important mainline railways instead of commuter, regional and intercity trains.  The second, even more important principal mainline

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

 opens for trams, instead of commuter, regional and intercity trains, next year.

It is rather like the calamity of putting London Underground trains on the HS1/Eurostar line through Kent which you have NOT done!  Brilliant!  Well done!

However, you can both make amends by stopping the further waste of public money, finite resources and the deepening of the climate catastrophe by coming out fighting to stop WBHE Phase 2, aka the Dudley Tram Phase 2.  This​, below, is why your present plans are so damaging and plain wrong:

• It destroys my magnificent vertical guerrilla garden;
• an even more important nature reserve;
• ​destroys desperately needed housing land to save farming land from being concreted;
• ​trams will wipe out land needed to finish the Black Country Urban Forest;
• yet more of our railway "of national strategic significance"
  
   "of national strategic significance".pdf
   is lost and 
• you nicely escalate the climate emergency​ (and resource shortages) you voted to do something about.

 Railfuture's full map.pdf

I would like to show you exactly what I mean at Merry Hill Shopping Centre.  I can make any day except Tuesdays when I have​ wonderful family commitments.​  I'll even pay for the coffee, after my tour!

With best wishes

HS1, HS2, Metro, Sprint are wrong priorities, even without climate horrors

Ken Redfern, my fantastic environmentalist brother-in-law (my sister's husband), I think got it right when he perceptively said in the early 80s, "We need a hole under the Channel like we need a hole in the head."  He understood all about ecology, nuclear physics and the essential restraints we should be living under in the light of finite resources but, their burning led to unrestrained whiplash from nature hitting back - as we are now seeing more obviously, I fear, as does my sister, too.  The tunnel then led to HS1 through the Garden of England and, now HS2 ...   Ken died far too young from cancer in December 1993.  He is one of my heroes and his firstborn son, Tom I much admire.  His dad would be proud of him.  I cycled all the way to Ken's home in Somerset on the 10th anniversary of his death for a small do in his memory.  I bivied out in a wood and then was disturbed by the Police in the morning!

HS1, HS2, Metro, Sprint are all highly attractive, glossy and glamorous transport schemes.  But, as a result they are extremely expensive and that means high GHG emitting, too.

They are symptomatic of our human existence and activity being far too dominant, expansive and shows human hubris, I think.  Shows, too our inability to show restraint but wanting ever more greedy, wealth-flaunting, vanity, grossly extravagant projects.  Just because we can afford to do anything we like does not make it right or sensible or in line with the laws of nature.

We realise we cannot go on building motorways to solve our congestion problems, so we have turned to high speed railways instead.  And highly expensive transport schemes to replace boring buses and trains with flash trams in order to entice motorists out of their cars.  But it has not worked to reduce car dominance and the rush hour crawl.

Our activity to give economic growth is concreting, bricking over and tarmacing the countryside.  However, some countryside concreting is essential as the population rises and demand for good housing continues.

But HS1/2, trams and Sprint always divert money away from the more mundane schemes like replacing the joke, slum disgrace of Kiddi bus station and the odd Victorian-like coffin rest-like bus shelter in the town centre, of all things!  Or, giving us more Fare-Free Public Transport, electric buses and bus/business lanes.  Or making Northern Rail as good as the railways in London and the SE, with their new Elizabeth railway at £19 billion and a second on the way, for London north-south travel.

We always want more gung ho, more, bigger, fancier things from our poor planet that is not expanding in line with our ever greedy demands.

Recession or, at least, steady-state economics with social justice for the rich to help out the poor.  The answer?  What good, competent national government is meant to be all about, I thought.

It's official. It's magic. If it sounds too good to be true ...

HS1 was £54 m/Km when it opened in 2007.

HS2 is, so far, £191 m/Km over its full 555 Kms, at £106 billion. 

Quite some difference!  Nearly 4 times more expensive per Km to construct today than HS1, when it opened 14 years ago.

This, below, is from the official HS2 website and my correction/rebuttal is in glorious bold blue!  My research shows that HMG/HS2 and its promoters are exaggerating so seriously with their misleading spin that they are lying.  READ ON as to why I say that and tell me what you think, please.  Am I wrong/mistaken?   Tim

How HS2 creates more rail capacity

As a brand new railway line, HS2 is the best option for taking the pressure off the existing network. It takes the pressure off the existing intercity lines by flying past all the stations travellers on the intercity trains want to stop at.  It adds extra capacity where it is needed most. To benefit London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, ONLY.  Building HS2 frees up a massive amount of space on the existing railway by placing long distance services on their own pair of tracks. But you still have to have the same level of service for those same long distance services.  Nothing is gained!  Once HS2 is operating, services can run much closer together, meaning there can be more rush hour trains, helping to relieve overcrowding.  Only if the existing intercity trains are slowed.  And that gives the intercity stations a worst service.

Once the full network is operational we expect HS2 trains to carry over 300,000 passengers a day. HS1 to Europe has 6,000 passengers a day.  HS2 is future proofed, by making sure the network can grow with increased demand.  High Scandal 2 is a scam, a deception and nicely accelerates the runaway greenhouse effect for our ultimate downfall.

Two fun thoughts! Which is the better joke?

JOKE 1

Over the decades, only a handful if that, of people have said or written to me that they agree with me over finishing the ready-built, 120 Kms (74 mls) Black Country Railway - finishing it with TRAINS!

JOKE 2

For forty years, this year, our elected representatives have been busily keeping trains off urban railway lines and, instead, putting everything but the kitchen sink on them.  In fact, the great joke is that with our railways with trams going on them, it is just like the experts wanting to put London Underground trains on the HS1, London to Paris Eurostar!

Railway and bus conversion to tramlines because ...

A spokesman for the Mayor of the West Midlands said: “The extension of the West Midlands Metro tram line, which is now under construction from Wednesbury to Dudley, Merry Hill and Brierley Hill, was identified as the most cost-effective way of providing this improved connectivity for both local residents and businesses.  The most cost-effective at about ten more expensive per Km to construct the tram on roads and railway than to put the commuter and regional trains back on the full, unused length, to finish the ready-built principal, mainline railway.  Existing buses would meet the trains - called integrated transport. 

“This is largely because the use of light rail enables a high frequency service to operate providing direct access to both the heart of Dudley town centre and the Merry Hill shopping centre.  Buses already provide direct access to both!  Trams to Merry Hill will be an additional attraction and spur to desert Dudley town shops.

“This would not be possible with a traditional train service, which would be unlikely to justify more than a half-hourly frequency service and which would be confined to the former railway alignment rather than providing access to those areas to which people actually want to travel.  The railway alignment from Derby to Devon via Dudley or, Burton on Trent to Bristol via Brierley Hill is exactly where people want to travel.  Have buses taking people to the railway station and meeting the train at the other end!

“The West Midlands Metro Wednesbury – Brierley Hill extension will also be connected onto the existing West Midlands Metro line at Wednesbury, providing direct links to Birmingham, Wolverhampton and West Bromwich and will also provide the opportunity to change at Dudley Port Station for local train services.  Having the trains back on the railway line would do all this just as well.  And did do for 100 years until we fell in love with cars and deserted trains in the 60s.

Now, public transport is made worse with, sometimes, an additional change needed with trams added to the mix.  Multi-mixed up transport!  Eg, public transport passengers on the eleven bus routes using Hagley Road.

“Trains stopped running on this route many decades ago and their reinstatement has not been a priority for the rail industry.  The first priority was to destroy railway lines for roads and buildings.  Secondly, for HS1, HS2 and Cross-Rail to be built, instead. However, as a result of the investment in Metro we are seeing a number of bridges and structures along the route repaired or removed and rebuilt. This could potentially open up options longer term for the development of freight and passenger rail services, in parallel with Metro, along the wider Walsall to Stourbridge route in future.”  The existing or new bridges and tunnels are NOT being widened to take trains and trams in parallel.  Only freight trains may be possible at night when the trams are not running.  The experts are wrong.  The false and misleading magic of "passive provision" was always made up, concocted, to brush off those who had seen through their bad practice.  Indeed, their folly.

John Davison

It is true that you could not run freight trains along the route once the two tracks of the tram are laid. It was a two track railway and the tram is two track.

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• Tim Weller

  Thanks, John. But can the freight run at night?

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• John Davison

  only if the tram tracks are built to 'heavy rail' standards could a standard train run on them. There would be junctions so that freight trains would not run on the street sections that will have sharp curves. Then you get onto signalling. Midland Metro is almost entirely 'line of sight' with almost no signalling.

Never-ending hypocrisy is me but there is no never-ending me!

Thanks so much for saying you won't be signing.  I'm always fascinated to hear both sides of the story if you would like to give me your reasons - please!  I am open to persuasion and always want to be wrong because I feel that would be the more comforting stance for me, personally.

I was even opposed to the Channel Tunnel being built from when it was announced in the 1980s!  That, of course, was HS1.  And such a hypocrite that I am, I have even used Eurostar on two separate occasions.  But never-ending economic growth and never-ending infrastructure building (and never-ending everything else, including hypocrisy) is all part of the human condition, I fear.  St Greta is great!

Scotland's independence might just cut England down to size - but I doubt it!!

Scotland: Stop subsidising England's excesses.  Get your independence, Scotland!

I know that, from the opinion polls, Scotland distancing itself further from England seems a hopeless cause.  However, for what it's worth, these are my:  interesting/alternative/tendentious/horrifying/warped (delete as you wish)
thoughts on why I think Scotland would be sensible to separate from England and be its own sovereign nation within the EU and UN instead of the UK.

The big-hearted Scots* are subsidising London as the hub of the UK with continuing plans for Heathrow expansion, the very expensive Cross Rail and Thames Link project that opens in 2019 and, last year's London Olympics.

After more than one hundred years of an "essentially a Victorian rail network" (Chief Executive of Network Rail, Sir David Higgins on 8 January 2013 on the 'Today' programme), England has decided, rather late in the day, to modernise it, with the Scottish taxpayer helping to foot the bill.  Does Scotland have even one Victorian signal box?  England has 500 dating back to Queen Victoria and 300 are 1960s vintage! (same interview)

The Scots subsidised HS1 and, now, they generously help us out with HS2 that, again, gets nowhere near Scotland, even when fully completed.

Scotland should be most upset at subsidising England's armed conflicts on 23 nations since 1945 (Radio 4's 'Thought for the Day' slot in the 'Today' programme.  Repeated, on another occasion, without disagreement from the other team members, by the Green Party panellist on Radio 4's 'Any Questions').**

No doubt, there are some in the English Defence League calling for pre-emptive, unmanned drone attacks of self defence on the Muslim militant extremists before they kill another of our brave soldier heroes.  Heroes home in barracks, on leave from protecting the people of Afghanistan from the real killers.  Scotland should disassociate itself from this barbarity by no longer funding England's unappreciated occupation of, and drone attacks on, foreign lands (a total of thirteen years, in punishment for 9/11, when we finally leave Afghanistan in 2014).

Scotland provides a most convenient haven for England's submarines carrying its independent nuclear deterrent. The Clyde Trident workers might be redeployed in future proofing your nation from the accelerating, enhanced greenhouse effect and the exhaustion of the planet's oil and gas reserves. The subs and nuclear missiles might be sent off to Barrow to give employment to the English, who will be left with digging a little deeper into their pockets with the Scottish taxpayer no longer bailing them out.

With independence, Scotland would no longer be contributing to the very many billions of pounds for the replacement for the Trident subs. Preliminary work on the replacement began when either Tony Blair or Gordon Brown was PM.

Scotland's power from water, wind and sun could be used just for themselves or sold to the English at great expense! A golden chance for you Scots to become Great Scot - instead of the phrase being used simply as an exclamation! Great Britain, minus Scotland, would be just a little less 'Great' and a little less able to act, in tandem with the US, as the continuing great power and policeman around the world to get its way.

We English, have such an over-inflated view of our importance to the nations of the world, that we cannot possibly do without Scotland to enhance our prestige and weight! Without Scotland, how can we possibly continue to punch above our weight in the world?  Even more crucially, the US might not regard us quite so highly with only little Wales and littler N Ireland in tow.  Our special relationship might be that little less special without Scotland.

For us English, all this independence malarkey is diminishing our size and greatness. Great Scot, it might even threaten our place as a permanent member of the Security Council. We certainly can't have that!

Let Scotland raise its own taxation for its own spending - that is all independence is - like the fifty other countries that have gained their independence from London since 1945 "and not one has expressed an interest in coming back under London's control." Alex Salmond on 21 May 2013 on 'Today'.

I think, Scotland's taxation is essential for England to continue to fund her excesses; it also makes her also responsible for the UK's most unfortunate, aggressive, domineering and provocative foreign policy in Muslim lands.  That certainly is an excess, to put it mildly!

Tim Weller

* "Over the last thirty years, in every single one of these last thirty years, Scotland per head contributed more in taxation than the UK average.  So that does indicate the financial and the potential financial strength goes over a long period of time."  Alex Salmond interview on the 'Today' programme, 21 May 2013.

** "Since 1946, the UK has engaged in more armed conflict than any other country with a total of 23 if you include Libya.  Do we conclude from this that we are a nation of warmongers or, a country that values peace and justice?"  Rhiddian Brook on Thought for the Day on 25 March 2011.