TRAM NETWORK REBUILT ON RAILWAY NETWORK ALONG WITH BUILDINGS AND ROADS

Thanks, Don.  It certainly wasn't very clear but the first-ever conversion of a mothballed mainline railway, already built but only half-used, to tramline, VLR test track and extended cycle-walkway is going full speed ahead into the iceberg!

Here is my complete, essential, slimmed-down history of transport; all you need to know:

TRAM NETWORK REBUILT ON RAILWAY NETWORK ALONG WITH BUILDINGS AND ROADS - and now a test track and possible cycle-walkway!

1950s:  saw the complete obliteration of the W Midlands tram network.

1960s:  saw the closure of about one-third of our urban railway network and the demolition of the high vaulted roofed New Street Station.  It was put underground to bring even worse air pollution.

1970s:  the demolition and rebuilding to half its former size of Snow Hill Station.  Only four platforms left; later only three in use, as is the case now.

1980s: the decision was made not to stop running homes, shops, offices and roads down the closed railway lines but to turn them into a tram network of 200 Kms and 15 lines by the year 2000.

1990s:  the money was found to convert the second Brum to Wolverhampton Railway into part tramline and the remainder obliterated under concrete, brick and tarmac.  Wolverhampton's second mainline station closed for good.

2000s:  That station converted into a conference and events centre with the double-track railway line turned into a garden and roads.

2010s:  Buses pushed out to the edge of Brum shopping centre to make way for the grossly extravagant, prestigious tram as it makes its stately glide past the empty shops to 'Grand Central Shopping Centre And Diesel Perfumed Underground Railway Station Tagged Along As An Afterthought In The Basement Of The Closed John Lewis Store'

2020s:  Solemn declaration, to me by 1990s Dudley Council Leader, Fred Hunt that Dudley's mainline railway converted to tramline would be open by the year 2000, saw work begin - only after 20 years when it should have been opened!! 

2030 or 40s:  Is finally finished as the world's first, unique TRAIN-TRAM-TRAIN MAINLINE RAILWAY between Worcester, Black Country and Derby??

Is 'Restoring Your Railways' too revolutionary and 19th century?!

 I am asking, along with the Green Party, if Left Unity and your good self could strongly support the drive for 'Restoring Your Railways'.  This is an HMG/DfT, UK-wide initiative but is only very half-hearted with a small amount of money allocated for a few feasibility studies and, nothing at all for the completion of the nearly ready-built, 120 Kms (74 miles) Black Country Railway between Worcester and Derby via Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall.  It bypasses Birmingham that is exactly what Brum needs with its congested, over-loaded, 'Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Underground Station In The Basement Of The John Lewis Store'.  A rather over-loaded name, too!

Network Rail and the DfT both agree that it is a railway "of national strategic significance"​

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

​​Metro trams are now being built on 6.7 Kms in the middle of the unused, wasted 56 Kms that is also without the trains and stations.  This leaves 49.3 Kms that is unused on either side of the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Metro tram line, when every underpass and bridge for M5/M6 and M6 Toll and every road and canal is already built for TRAINS!​

F​irst of all, does this have your personal support, Bob for the completion of what may well be the world's first train-tram-train mainline railway with two changes from train to tram at Brierley Hill​ ​and back to train​ ​at Wednesbury?

Does it have your personal support for commuter and regional trains between Stourbridge and Brierley Hill and between Wednesbury and Burton on Trent, instead of more tram extensions, bus rides and even an extended cycle-walkway on an existing double track mainline railway between Walsall and Lichfield?

Would the regional and national Left Unity ever be able to agree to the TRAINS AND STATIONS going back on this existing double-track mainline railway?

Would the regional and national Left Unity ever be able to agree that COMMUTER TRAINS AND STATIONS should return to existing, not yet destroyed, railway lines in heavily congested urban conurbations like the West Midlands?  There are 106 Kms, minus the 6.7 Kms going for trams, that are freight only or mothballed for trams and cycles.

What is your honest opinion of what seems to me the blindingly obvious thing to do to reduce congestion, air pollution and rising, deadly greenhouse gases?

With all my e-mails, phone calls and speaking since the 1990s, I feel I have won a major success that the authorities are now thinking about​ ​(and even a little action) ​over ​"Restoring Your Railways"!

This is also an easy WIN for Left Unity to send us on our way!  It is being positive, constructive and helpful.

Or, is it a far too revolutionary a concept?  And it is me that is eccentric, a loony leftie and completely out of my little mind?

Best wishes

​Tim​

DUDLEY AND SANDWELL TRAMS MAKE THE 120 KMS PRINCIPAL MAINLINE RAILWAY WORTHLESS!

DUDLEY AND SANDWELL TRAMS  MAKE THE 120 KMS PRINCIPAL MAINLINE RAILWAY WORTHLESS!

120 KMS WORCESTER, BLACK COUNTRY, DERBY RAILWAY "of national strategic significance" will lose its national importance.  Slow, frequent stopping trams will block the mainline for faster regional trains and, intercity trains will be impossible.  This is NOT what the train travellers over the first one hundred years enjoyed. This is no way to respond to the climate emergency that must be tackled.  And very foolish to waste the 50 Kms for many more years, perhaps even decades. In addition, Dudley is the largest town in the UK, by population, without a railway station.​

Railfuture's full map.pdf

​It will be the world's first train-tram-train mainline railway and no wonder!  Fast trains, eventually from Worcester to Brierley Hill; change for slow, frequent stopping trams to Wednesbury for the 17 tram stops in 10.7 Kms; change at Wednesbury for quick trains to Walsall, Lichfield and Derby.  This makes for a nightmare journey, forcing through passengers to continue to go via congested Brum's 'Grand Central and Diesel Perfumed Station Tagged Along As An Afterthought In The Basement Of The John Lewis Store', station!!

It really does spoil, for ever, the UK's only supposedly 'safeguarded', mainline railway "of national strategic significance", that is essential to bypass Brum's railway stations and to give something to Brum's neighbours in the equally large population of the Black Country.

MISSION STATEMENT

Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill; Derby to Devon via Dudley - by TRAIN not "bus on rails" trams as they are wanting; nor with new extended cycle-walkway, as volunteers are working on!  Trams good; trains best; very slow 120 Kms train-tram-train railway is barely better than nothing (really, a nightmare journey)!

The climate crisis means reducing expenditure to reduce greenhouse gases.  It's all about treading more lightly on the planet - saving/conserving resources and connecting with nature first and foremost.  NOT travel connectivity!!

Tim Weller

Railfuture is also 'wowed' by the basement station that is the Grand Central Shopping Centre, Birmingham

Dear Lloyd

I have just read Michael Tombs glowing report on the redeveloped Birmingham station that he so approves of.  Here is another point of view.  Please could you forward this to Michael for his comment:-

36 escalators, Michael wrote but, are there any stairs from platforms to concourse?  Surely, there must be!

Bullring Shopping Centre was opened in 2003.  With rising rail passenger numbers throughout the 1990s and continuing to this day, the authorities should have realised that additional tunnels were needed at the eastern approach to Grand Central basement station, then.  The new rail tunnels could have gone in after the demolition of the old Bull Ring and before the shops and stores were built for the new Bullring Shopping Centre.

£750 million of railway money for what is, mainly, yet another brand new shopping centre is a misappropriation of public money.  In other words, corruption.  From the BBC, I heard that Grand Central is likely to be sold to the owners of the Bullring and, Birmingham City Council will profit, as a result.  It will profit from the misappropriation of railway money when, like yourselves, they were also partly responsible for the blunder of failing to build the new rail tunnels in the 1990s.  This, when for years there had been much talk (but never any action, of course) of building an underground railway in Brum!

Both the railway industry, the DfT and Brum City Council are responsible for destroying our original tram network in the 1950s, for destroying about 100 miles of our urban rail network in the 1960s and building roads, offices, houses and trading estates on about 50 miles of former railway line.  There remains 78 Km that the transport authorities refuse to re-open for passenger trains.

78 Km of double track rail lines, some literally alongside roads with bumper to bumper traffic is complete idiocy.  But, this stupid transport policy has gone on for 50 years!

These sincere and well-meaning politicians and officers also demolished not one but two of our magnificent Victorian rail stations.  A third remains standing.  This is Moor Street Station, the closest to Grand Central but it was overlooked for connection to Grand Central in favour of the further away, Snow Hill Station.  Every train that stops at Snow Hill also stops at Moor Street.  Yet, in another blunder, Snow Hill was chosen and Moor Street will never get its £100 million per mile (for construction costs) tram!

After 34 years of wasted endeavour to get Midland Metro, some rail lines remain unused and waiting for electric trams that never arrive, let alone the once popular passenger trains!  The network of 15 tramlines and 200 Km by the year 2000, never arrived.  They were never delivered in that year or, even fifteen years on!

Grand Central Shopping Centre and station - the station tagged along as an afterthought and shoved in the basement of the John Lewis store - remains one of the UK's worst rail and road congestion bottlenecks.  So much for £750 million of railway money that is mostly wasted!

Please correct me, if I am wrong in any detail, above.  If no-one puts me right, I will assume that my information, here remains accurate.