to WMCC to ask for train and bus spending and climate justice

Dear all

The biggest single item of WMCA spending is, I believe, on transport.

The biggest single transport development spending must be Metro LR extensions, together with VLR, ULR, and Sprint roll out.  This highly expensive spending is totally unnecessary, accelerates depletion of oil and gas reserves, accelerates GHG emissions and hence the climate crisis to threaten all life on earth.  It diverts attention away from climate justice when top attention must be given to buses.

It has also ruined two mainline railways now given over to trams and, the surviving urban railway lines are still having to play second fiddle to LR, VLR, ULR and Sprint.  THIS IS MADNESS!!

My standing as an Independent candidate for Mayor, in May, is simply to use it as a platform to get the abandonment of these very wrong priorities, to show the more sensible and life affirming measures to spend money in the short term to get justice for the poor and much less spending on finite fossil fuels in the medium to long term.

Once again, my £5,000 goes not to this wayward, clueless, floundering government but to three international humanitarian charities.

Does anyone disagree with what I have written here, please?

Am I totally out of my mind with these priorities?:-

 7 priorities/pledges for you lot to rival Rishi

Can there PLEASE be a discussion on Tuesday about what I have written here?  No more polite silence, apathy, acquiescence!!

"VLR is much cheaper."

"VLR is much cheaper."

Yes, indeed.  Very much cheaper but we are now having the break up of public transport into:

• Very Heavy Rail (VHR), High Speed train on its dedicated tracks to connect only four cities and two airports - for your 1st class VIP passenger;
• regular Heavy Rail (HR) train for your 2nd class riff-raff passenger (me) on intercity, regional and commuter trains;
• Light Rail (LR) Metro tram;
• Very Light Rail (VLR) tram test track (on the Derby, Dudley, Devon mainline);
• Ultra-Light Rail (ULR) tram (Stourbridge Shuttle.  Proposed extension to connect with VLR at Brierley Hill on the Derby, Dudley, Devon railway.).
• 1st class Sprint buses.
• 2nd class Platinum buses.
• Hydrogen fossil fuel buses (so what's the point?  Only cleaner air, of course.  But, why not stick to electric buses from more and more renewables as they roll out?)

I feel this is all unnecessary expenditure of the Earth's scarce resources and of yet more totally unnecessary deadly greenhouse gas emissions.

Everything with rail in the name means more steel, more cement, more finite minerals/resources exhausted, more deadly greenhouse gases to change the chemical composition of the atmosphere.  This is all good for economic growth but not good for life support systems or for the bleak prospects in store for us humans!

TRANSPORT BRIEFING

I have been told that there is no coherent transport strategy. No joined up thinking. Little systematic aprisal of what is there, what is needed and how to get from a to b. Even when there is changes of staff and politicians wanting to put their own stamp on things mean that such policies are seldom carried out. Howard Becket the person standing to be the Unite leader referred to such a lack of joined up thinking when talking about energy production.

Many people say they want an integrated (now 'coherent', perhaps!) transport policy.  This means the train departure time linking with the bus arriving and the same at the other end of the train journey.  However, this is getting more difficult to achieve as new transport modes come on stream like LR, VLR and ULR that all take up room on our roads and railway lines!

LR = Metro "bus on rails" trams, called light rail (LR) rapid transit that Manchester has.

VLR = Very Light Rail as they are doing for a VLR test track on 2 Kms of mainline railway between Dudley Castle Hill and the Cinder Bank roundabout.

ULR = Ultra Light Rail like the Stourbridge Shuttle on the short branch line from Stourbridge Town to Stourbridge Jct stations.

Different experts and people want different things!

Suzanne Webb MP for Stourbridge wants the ULR, Stourbridge Shuttle extended on our wasted, half-used mainline railway to meet up with the Metro LR tram at Brierley Hill.

A councillor I know wants the Metro LR tram extended, instead, on the mainline railway to Stourbridge Jct.

I want the commuter and regional trains, that we saw for 100 years until 50 years ago, to finish what they have built to return to the 120 Kms (74 miles) between Worcester and Derby.  This can still be done, at least, on the two sections not getting LR "bus on rails" trams!

Andy Street wants multi-modal (I call it multi-mixed up) transport with HS2, HR (heavy rail trains), LR, VLR and ULR on both railways and roads.

No-one can agree or, certainly not enough people, that it is better to keep trains on train lines and roads for cars, vans, lorries, buses.  Since the 1950s, the authorities have been very busy destroying our tram network and the railways that continues to this day, with the top priority being given to the tram network being rebuilt on the railway and road networks!

How far do you think this is correct for transport? If so could the Metro Mayor with his oversight role create some cohesion from apparent confusion?  As I have just written, dear Andy (whom I voted for in 2017 and 2021) wants everything going, everywhere as all-new, fancy, flash, modern forms of public transport.  No one has thought of putting electric buses directly on roads without using railway tracks on roads for "bus on rails" trams.

I hope this summary helps, Carol to explain what is going on.  Basically, billions of pounds of greenhouse gases being emitted to hasten climate disaster!  We can never be satisfied with simple, plain, boring trains and buses working together.  And certainly, we never dream of being content with using existing transport infrastructure to the full or, giving the youngsters the regional Fare-Free Public Transport that old people like me have had for most of this century!

MULTI-MODAL, MULTI-MIXED UP RAILWAYS!

Thanks, Paul for this and your other email, I've read.  VERY RARELY do I get a reply from anyone else - hint, hint to the apathetic, acquiescing, indifferent VIPs!  Almost no one is at all bothered - all are in self-destruct mode!

My work now is to educate the BCIMO over their destruction of the ready-built, but only half used, Derby to Devon via Dudley railway - and, of course, our darling politicians and the other 'experts' and 'VIPs' who have let us all down so badly in destroying every single railway line in the Black Country, apart from the West Coast Main Line and the Jewellery line!

In addition, LR, VLR, ULR all add to our multi-modal, mixed-up transport that bring more changes, delays and a worse public transport journey (Ultra Light Rail/Stourbridge Shuttle does not).  All three unnecessarily contribute to greenhouse gas emissions from the construction of steel for the tracks and yet more deadly greenhouse gases from cement manufacturing.

We are now wrecking life support systems further by mining the ocean floor for the rare metals to go into battery manufacturing.  This is another reason for the urgent need to minimise travel and to use our finite resources simply to live more simply and, out of regard for our descendants!

Best wishes

70 years of transport destruction - twitter to Ashvir

For the last 70 years, Ashvir we have been given all the money we needed from HMG but it has been squandered on destroying our Light Rail (LR) tram network, then the train network, yet more of the train network gone when the tram network was rebuilt on the train network! Absurd!

Cost of full FFPT is easily covered by LR mass rapid transit construction for converting some buses to trams

Hi Bob and David - and copied to four key players who are the decision-makers (to save time in writing to them individually.  But, it is as much for Trevor, Andy, Deborah and Ian as it is for Bob and David.  Even more important for those four than you two!).

£58.5 m/yr x 20 years to 2040 = £1,170 million for the existing concessionaires (freeloaders!) like us.

But £15 billion for tram extensions to replace mainly buses is £15,000 million

(one billion is a £1,000 million)

Therefore, £15,000 m divided by £1,170 m = 12.8

Therefore, the existing, partial FFPT is as little as 1/13 the cost of replacing only part of the existing mass rapid transit system of bus and train with the tram based (or light rail) mass rapid transit system.  This would very comfortably cover the cost of Regional (W Mids) FFPT for everyone - fully implemented.

It simply needs the political will to transfer the £15 billion (or £750 m/year) from capital to revenue to pay for a full, free public transport for all regional users.  This cuts greenhouse gases by a massive amount and is the most cost-effective way to avoid the charge of hypocrisy from declaring a climate emergency in 2019 and resolutely remaining on the Road, not to zero carbon, but to 'Nothing Ever Changes' - except worsening climates around the world.

Best wishes

To 36 Dudley Labour councillors

Dear friends

Do NOT be in a hurry to be shot of hero Corbyn

I think the red wall of Midlands and North Labour strongholds voted Tory because of their strong Brexit, pro military/patriot, anti immigrant, anti foreigner, pro Brits first, sentiments.  And, concerns over Britain being 'Full'.

We Brits have always won every war, from the Boer War onwards.  'The Guardian' in February 2014 proved, in a four page spread, how in every single year since at least 1914, the Brits have been engaged in warfare on other people's land.  1968 was the only year that a member of our armed forces has not been killed somewhere around the globe since 1914.  The number of Brits slaughtered in warfare since 1945 has now reached over 16,000, I believe.  Corbyn must have known that and, I hope, was disturbed.

For me, Corbyn fearlessly, over decades, took the moral high ground with his UN first, pro justice with peace in the Falklands, N Ireland and in Palestine/Israel.  He took the moral high ground with his 'war as a last resort, diplomacy first, upholding international law at the International Court of Justice at the Hague', principles.  A man of conscience and compassion, too.

It seems, Corbyn has been the traditional, stereotypical Englishman standing up for the underdog in his pro Palestinian stance.  Hence, he incurs the ire of the State of Israel, a member of Team America, as BBC's Jeremy Bowen put in last week.  Israel is our great friend and ally in protecting the West's strategic interests in the Middle East.  Perhaps, Corbyn is seen as disloyal to the West's supremacy in the Middle East.  Israel's displeasure with Corbyn has been shown with their relentless campaign of labeling him as antisemitic soon after he became Labour leader and ever since.  The media, too has locked onto it with glee, too.  Any irony, humour over traditional views of Jewish businessmen and women has been slapped down as examples of antisemitism.

Both Corbyn and SNP First Minister Sturgeon fearlessly stated that if the UK was attacked with nuclear weapons, neither would retaliate with firing off Trident missiles.  Both are rightly, nuclear/WMD pacifists.  NOT conventional weapons pacifists, however.  But their renunciation of the use of WMD is unacceptable to America, Israel and the UK establishment.  Certainly, unacceptable to most English and Welsh voters and the unionist voters in N Ireland.

Labour must inspire and lead towards humanity and all life on earth FIRST urgent policies.  That means postponing extinction for all life on earth.

Labour must stop the conversion of the 120 Kms (74 miles) Black Country principal mainline railway being turned into:

• VLR tram line with the proposed extension of the Stourbridge Shuttle onto a mainline railway!!
• LR Metro tram line to destroy the integrity/unity of the 120 Kms.
• VLR and innovation centre on the only feasible site of Dudley Castle Gate railway station
• new extended 16 Kms cycle-walkway from Walsall to Lichfield on this forgotten, still unfinished mainline railway

Use the £2 BILLION to 2026 to bring in fareless buses for ALL at all times; and, electric buses.  Fareless buses are found in about 100 towns and cities around the world - 30 in the USA and about 20 in France, according to national FoE.

Happy Christmas

Tim Weller

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!!

Survey - do you want VLR shuttle trams, LR trams, heavy rail passenger trains on Stourbridge, Dudley, Walsall, Lichfield line?

Charles Loft is author of 'Last Trains: Dr Beeching and the Death of Rural England'.  He said on the BBC World Service on 28 March 2015, "The future of rail investment is in high speed inter urban lines and light rail commuter services and trams."

1. Do you know if, in the 19th and/or 20th centuries, we have ever had express trains on the existing but, part, still unused Oxford, Worcester, Wolverhampton Railway Co line (part is now the empty Black Country Line)?
2. If so, did we also have a local train service on this same line?
3. In the 21st century, is it feasible to put both express and local trains back on the Black Country Line from Stourbridge Jct, through Dudley, Walsall and on to Lichfield?  Is it possible to have regional and national passenger trains in the daytime and freight trains at night?
4. Or, should we be putting Very Light Rail, instead of Light Rail Metro on that line because "light rail investment provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time" - letter to Tim Weller from Tom Magrath, Passenger Services Director of Centro, dated 18.9.2000.
5. As we are now seeing Beeching rural rail lines being reopened (48Km in depopulated southern Scotland at £10 million per mile), do you agree that it is even more essential that we have the Beeching urban rail lines reinstated with trains and stations?  There remain nearly 80 Km still not concreted, bricked or tarmaced over in Birmingham and the Black Country and still no stations have been rebuilt at Winson Green and Handsworth (areas of chronic deprivation, including being deprived of their stations) after 50 years.
6. Do you want the Beeching urban rail lines reopened for trains or, do you want them, instead, for Metro LR trams at about, on average, £100 million per mile in Brum city centre - at about ten times the cost of reinstating what we had for about 100 years?
7. Why is Birmingham City Council jumping the queue and getting further Metro extensions ahead of all the policies, plans and strategies that certainly, at one time, stated that Metro Line 3 (on the Black Country Line) was to be next after the tram line to Hagley Road, Edgbaston?
8. In an age of a continuing huge deficit, supposed austerity and, severer public spending cuts now due, how do you justify the spending that is so extravagant but still misses out on making full use of our rail assets or even misses out on building the much needed rail tunnels at Grand Central?  And the Black Country still misses out completely -  apart from getting the £25 million for one mile of VLR and, the short extension of £54 million to, finally, bring Metro One to the one remaining rail station in Wolverhampton!
9. How come the electric trams of old ran on roads (instead of buses) but most of the new ones in Brum and the Black Country run on many more miles of rail lines than roads (replacing more trains than buses)?
10. What is your individual list of rail spending, in order of priority, please?  If increasing rail capacity and reducing rail/road congestion is the number one priority for you, how does this work out in your spending wish list, in order of priority?
11. Or, do you feel, we can only ever have everything that is on offer from the rail authorities, regardless of any order of priority, their competence or, of more decades of the Black Country missing out?
12. A second rail service used to run from Stourbridge Jct.  It CAN be re-opened.  What do you want on it - VLR, LR, heavy rail freight, heavy rail passenger services?  If you agree with Charles Loft, at the head, what should go on our Black Country Line?  He said, "The future of rail investment is in high speed inter urban lines and light rail commuter services and trams."  For 100 years, the BCL was inter-urban, it seems, running between Oxford and Wolverhampton.  Dudley to Wolverhampton and Dudley to Birmingham are both now built on - yet another example of failure/idiocy by our leaders and chief officers who should have advised the members better.

Position statement on rail re-openings

The VLR project to go at the former Brierley Hill Steel terminal site on Moor Street, with the extra 1 Km of line, instead of preventing, for ever, the return of inter-city and local trains to our last remaining, UK north-south, high speed line.

There is no need for Dudley Council and ITA/Centro to shuttle passengers to the high speed line in the neighbouring borough (Dudley Port in Sandwell) when, in so doing, they destroy their own high speed line they are using to shuttle the passengers the one mile.

They should use their own high speed line (Stourbridge, Dudley, Walsall, Lichfield) to increase rail capacity and to reduce road and rail congestion.

Please get down to, urgently re-opening all our 72 Km of former passenger lines in Birmingham and the Black Country, instead of keeping them for freight only and for LR and, now, VLR tram projects that never, ever materialise.

Where is the morality in your policy of keeping unused, double track rail lines, devoid of trains and stations, alongside bumper to bumper commuter traffic?  This is literally the case in Dudley and Birmingham.  This is your long term strategy and has been for decades.  Will you change it, please?

For me, it is a scandal that we are spending £100 million per mile for Midland Metro extensions in Brum city centre and £54 million per mile for Wolverhampton but, only £10 million per mile for the return of passenger trains, rail structures and stations (the 29 miles costing £294 million for a rural rail line reopening, this September) in southern Scotland!!  What on earth is going on in this supposed age of austerity, of prudent use of depleting resources and of frightening, human caused climate change?

Am I right in thinking that all UK rail groups support your policies, plans and priorities?  Please give me their names.

Why was there no public consultation over VLR (while still keeping LR) for the Black Country inter-city Line?

Rural, depopulated Scotland gets prioritised over our congested, urban conurbation!

Things have gone seriously wrong with transport in Birmingham and the Black Country!

Since the December 2014 announcement we have all four transport authorities (DfT, Network Rail, West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority and, Centro) backing not only light rail Metro but, the still to be developed by a university group, Very Light Rail (VLR) on the most important UK north-south rail line that can be but has not been reopened since the Beeching cuts of fifty years ago. Up until then, it was well used by passengers for 100 years! It was owned and run by the Oxford, Worcester, Wolverhampton Railway Company. I am referring to the section that is 21 Km of double track line from Stourbridge Junction, through Dudley Castle Hill, Sandwell and on to Walsall. I am calling it the Black Country inter-city Line (BCL).

Having failed with light rail Metro, over the last 34 years, the transport authorities are now trying their hand at VLR and, on 2 Km (out of 21 Km) of the only, unopened, north-south, inter city line between the Hereford-Shrewsbury line in the west and, congested New Street Station in the east.  This was the line that they failed to get Midland Metro light rail (LR) on.  Not to be put off, they are now seeing if they have better luck with VLR.  If they succeed, it will prevent for ever, inter-city trains from London to Glasgow or Bristol to Edinburgh, returning to this nationally important but forgotten heavy rail line via Dudley and its tourist attractions of Castle, Zoo, Black Country Museum and Canal Trust.

This is truly bizarre behaviour when all they have to do is to return existing inter-city and commuter, diesel trains on a line that literally runs alongside or near to commuter congested roads through the heart of three Black Country boroughs.  VLR and LR are great to replace the buses feeding into and out of the rail network. There is a longer and much better branch line for the Warwick University group to develop their VLR tram - and, it is still in Dudley borough.  But re-opening our closed rail network to passenger trains must have top priority. 72 Km, too of freight only lines!

£300 million is now being spent to re-open the Scottish Borders Railway of 48 Km in rural southern Scotland this coming September but, nothing for the £200 million, 21 Km Black Country inter-city Line that should then be extended to Lichfield, in my opinion - a further 17 Km of re-opened double track.  But, for 38 Km it will still be less than the £300 million for the 48 Km that is being spent on depopulated, southern Scotland - a weird and wonderful set of priorities by Network Rail.  In fact, scandalous.

My map of Birmingham and the Black Country has one Metro line out of the dozen or so Metro lines that ITA/Centro wanted after these last 34 years.  The map also shows the 45 miles (72 Km) of double track freight lines that have no passenger trains and stations.  Yet, for about 100 years these empty, unused lines did have passenger trains and stations.  For the last 50 years - nothing.  In fact, for about 100 years, there were over 100 miles of passenger trains and stations in our growing but far less populated and congested, urban conurbation than it is now.  For the last 50 years, nothing, as we all have to rely on the roads and a much diminished rail network.  This, at a time when rail passenger numbers have been rising for many years!  Is lack of capacity also, partly, due to so many heavy rail lines having been built on and given over to trams (LR and, now, VLR) and guided busways?

Truly terrific transport - I don't think!

Rail in the UK
First with trains but will the UK be the last to complete electrification?  If it ever happens, of course.
Switzerland was late with their railways, according to TV film presenter Michael Portillo but, did all their electrification in the 1920s and 30s.

Rail in Birmingham and the Black Country

In our conurbation, the rocking and swinging sixties saw over 100 miles (161 Km) of passenger lines closed by our transport people and the rail workers tolling the bell for their own demise!

Is this unheard of in the EU?

Over 50 miles (80 Km) lost for ever.  Unique in Western Europe for one conurbation?

Those superb rail engineers, the Swiss, built and installed the monorail at Merry Hill Shopping Centre in the 1980s.  Just a pity that our transport professionals forgot to connect it to the heavy rail line next to the Waterfront.  And, its still there.  It is called the Black Country inter-city Line and should have been re-opened, then - 30 years ago - but they have, still done nothing to get it back in use.  Truly extraordinary!
Our transport experts not only left the monorail 400 metre short of the heavy rail line but then allowed the monorail to be closed and carted off for use, elsewhere soon after it opened!

Our transport experts are experts at experimenting with novel ways of using rail lines by sending hotels, homes and trading estates down them, eg Dudley to Wolverhampton line on the well used by passengers for 100 years, the old Oxford, Worcester, Wolverhampton Railway Company line (part of that line is the Black Country Line of 21 Km).

Surprising news - our experts are experts at squirreling away 45 miles (72 Km) some, literally alongside or, near to commuter congested roads over these last fifty years as road and rail congestion has grown.
Shock news - goods trains can use the 72 Km but not us passengers!

Bad news - of the 72 Km, 21 Km is the only unopened, mothballed, nationally important, inter-city rail line that has remained closed for fifty years!
The 21 Km Black Country inter-city Line is the only north-south railway between Hereford and Shrewsbury in the west and congested New Street Station in the east.

But, don't despair - this line will, one day, have a Very Light Rail (VLR) tram from a university group and, for all of 2 Km out of the 21 Km!
The only problem: we have to wait until it is developed, tried and tested and, passed fit for Health and Safety to allow fare paying passengers.

Hurrah!  Then, it will get extended in bite sized chunks.
Never mind, that the bite sized chunks strategy never delivered the dozen Metro Light Rail trams in 34 years.
This time, it will work with VLR, for sure, however.  Even if it does take another 34 years!
In 34 years, one Metro line (and even then not connected to Wolverhampton rail station until later this decade!)

After all, our transport professionals think it would be scandalous to allow the university students and graduates to work on their VLR on the 3 Km Pensnett branch line, that I think would be ideal.  They think the Black Country inter-city Line will be ideal for freight trains, and for Light Rail Metro and for the university Very Light Rail tram idea but never for ordinary, diesel, passenger trains instead of light rail!
Good God!  We can't have Virgin and Chiltern trains on the line to connect the Black Country directly with London, Bristol and Scotland.  After all, Dudley people are only allowed to use trains to those cities via Birmingham stations and Wolverhampton.

Great news - rural, southern Scotland has their 48 Km rail line re-opening in September to connect Edinburgh with small communities slap bang in the middle of nowhere (cost £294 million).
Bad news -Never again will Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall be connected to London, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Glasgow by the Black Country inter-city Line (cost less than £200 million).  Unless, there is a rapid change of heart.

But, good news, all of £15 billion for London's rail tunnels to open in 2019.

and nothing for additional tunnels at New Street Station to ease rail congestion there.

But, fantastic news - we got £600 million for a new shopping centre - this year, even - to brighten the rail passengers' day at a tarted up and gleaming, sun reflecting, glorious Grand Central Shopping Centre and, as an afterthought, the underground station is tagged along,  too - in the basement!
ALL IS FORGIVEN!