40 years of trying to build the Dudley Tram on the 120 Kms Black Country Railway

40 years of trying to build the Dudley Tram on the 120 Kms Black Country Railway - promised by Dudley Council leader, Cllr Fred Hunt, by the year 2000, fully opened and operating!!

The whole frightful business, if dear Andy denies it was suspended in the early summer of 2022, was certainly curtailed in the light of rising costs.  It then became Phase 1 as far as Flood Street, costing £385 m by then when, to complete the full 10.7 Kms route, the thing was supposed to cost £449 m in 2019 when serious work on the ground was finally started.  Phase 1 is expected to open by the end of 2024.  That makes five years to build 6.8 Kms when 5.5 Kms of the 6.8 Kms is on a former, supposedly fully safeguarded, principal mainline railway "of national strategic significance".  This is blatant idiocy and incompetence!

According to reporter, Peter Madeley in the 'Express and Star', the June 2023 figure to complete the full 10.7 Kms will be £650 m - a 45% increase in four years.

Phase 1 is 6.8 Kms from Gt Western St, Wednesbury to Flood St, Dudley.  £56 m/Km if £385 m.

Phase 2 is 3.9 Kms from Flood Street to Cottage St, Brierley Hill, except it is now decided that the tram line will end at Merry Hill SC - somewhere or other.

So where exactly?  And the length?  Assume 3.5 Kms.  For at least £200 m, as Ian Ward told me, at today's prices, means £57 m/Km.

What is the cost of WBHE Phase 2?

Where is it now terminating?

​How much is Dudley MBC contributing?

You must know because Andy said, on the 25 July on Radio WM, it is "full steam ahead", even for Phase 2.

When Network Rail says that the mainline railway is not needed by them until 2040s, at the earliest, has Network Rail contributed even one pound to the cost of strengthening Parkhead Viaduct?

Has Network Rail coughed up ANYTHING for improvement work on THEIR  railway?

Or, have they given the full length to WMCA?

Tim Weller

Crucial para from "of national strategic significance"

8 March 2018 from DfT

I have sought clarification on the situation from Network Rail, who inform me

that this is a section of railway of national strategic significance. Investment in

the corridor would allow for continued freight growth given that the other SW-

NE route (via Bromsgrove) is already at full daytime capacity. From a

passenger perspective, safeguarding a heavy rail corridor across the Round

Oak-Bescot route is of value as this is the only corridor which could accept

freight traffic displaced by further passenger flows into central Birmingham. I

understand from Network Rail that recent discussion on the project has

therefore focused around how best to balance the interests of freight and

passenger rail traffic.

from Dave Parsons

Tim

Having read councillor Harleys poor response to your Email on the above subject, as leader of Dudley council Mr Harley has a duty to be answerable and accountable to constituents on decisions the he and his fellow councillors make.  If he cannot stand the criticisms or questions asked from him then he should not do the job.

I take it that councillor Harley knows very little regarding railway infrastructure especially in this area and is therefore given advice by box tickers and other environmentalists who deemed this Metro route through Dudley ( for the sake of image it will bring to a dilapidated town centre, plus other funds given to demolish cavendish house and to regenerate the town centre which of course would not have been available if the heavy rail route through the Dudley tunnel was reopened) a necessity.

“The industry “which he quotes ( I presume he means  Railtrack) who closed the rail route through Dudley no longer exists, but Network rail who still manages the route from Stourbridge to Round oak  are not dismissive that they would never reopen this route through to Walsall or beyond  in the future.

Mr Harley seems to think that the matter is closed but because Mr Harley promoting this Multi Million pound route Metro route through Dudley, perhaps he could explain why it’s terminating at Brierley Hill & not Stourbridge?

In his own words what commercial or viability is that? Not to mention that every 17 years or so the tram rails in Dudley streets will need replacement, which in not an overnight job,and has caused loss of trade as they did when they renewed the rails along the road out of Wolverhampton.

Mr Harley is wrong to suggest that there’s no support to reopen the heavy rail route, many people I know are disappointed by this route being taken over by a tram system that’s costing a fortune, and with the building of the VLR test centre at the former Freightliner depot site at Dudley this completely ruins any chance of freight sharing with trams.

As Mr Street and Mr Harley promote these projects,then they have to accept that they are accountable for the decimation of the Black county rail route.

Regards

Dave

Shuttling to and fro by tram on the mainline railway, instead of using the TRAIN for the whole 120 Kms length!

 Thank you, Matt for your interest in this line and for the comment.

Unfortunately, out of the unfinished 56 Kms, and half used 64 Kms, the 120 Kms Worcester, Black Country, Derby mainline railway "of national strategic significance" (Network Rail and Dept for Transport in March 2018), 6.7 Kms is being given over to Metro trams and a further 2 Kms for a Very Light Rail test track. This means that the UK's last mothballed mainline will be severed by the trams and test track, instead of all 120 Kms of double track being used for commuter, regional and freight trains, with Railfuture's nine new stations.

The best we can hope for is that one day the shuttle tram, in the middle, will shuttle passengers to a reopened railway line to connect the tram at Brierley Hill to Stourbridge Jct and Worcester and, at the other end, connect the tram stop at Wednesbury to the train taking passengers on to Walsall, Lichfield and Derby.

It would have been easier and more sensible, simply to have put the trains back on the whole length of 120 Kms in one go!

"We are sorry to announce Britain's worst train" - front page, ST, 8 March 2020

"We are sorry to announce Britain's worst train" - front page, ST, 8 March 2020

​Forget the worst train service.  In the Black Country, on the western side of Birmingham, we have the worst railway service in the middle 56 Kms of the Worcester, Black Country, Derby railway.  Not a single train has turned up in 50 years.  Yet, the railway line is called by Network Rail, "of national strategic significance"​.  Not one train, even though train travel took off in the mid 1990s and, as road and railway congestion has worsened in our densely populated, over two million, West Midlands region.

Even the latest Ordnance Survey map indicates that this principal, mainline railway is in use.  It is not.  Since the 1980s, a Metro tram extension has been promised on only 6 Kms in the middle of the unused 56 Kms that runs alongside or near to the traffic choked M5 and M6.  Main works start next year on the tram to break up the mainline but, still not a single useful commuter or regional train on the remaining 50 Kms to connect with the short, isolated tram line.  The "bus on rails" trams will prevent the return of intercity trains that will always be needed, even with 'the too fast to stop', HS2 on the eastern side of Brum.

Therefore, the one million population of the congested Black Country wins the prize, easily for having "the cold, hard truth of Britain's worst service" (ST 8 March).

Explanatory map, here courtesy of the national railway lobbying group, 'Railfuture'.  The tram line is planned from Wednesbury to Brierley Hill; both towns are marked on the map:​

 Railfuture's full map.pdf

​

Can you find the COMPLIMENT in this piece?!

16 March 2017

Dear Russell - and copied to Railfuture as a question for their Transport Forum on Thursday 6 April in the Banqueting Suite of Birmingham's fetching Council House, please.

Mark Cooper has sent me a copy of your e-mail to him, dated 7 March 2017.

What is pertinent to ask is this.  Why has Network Rail and its predecessors disposed of:

1. Many tens of kilometres of urban, double track railway lines and stations in the West Midlands?  They have been turned into roads, homes, trading estates and, used for retail use.
2. Other urban, double track railway lines that had successful passenger trains for one hundred years are still denied today's commuter and intercity trains, plus stations.  Why is this?
3. Why is the half used (well done for achieving this, by the way) the half used, 120 Km Worcester, Black Country, Derby railway line still without passenger trains between Stourbridge Junction and Bescot and between Walsall in the Black Country and Burton on Trent in Staffordshire?
4. Why is your transport infrastructure, that you own, only partly used and even totally unused except for trees, a proposed 2 Km test track and a planned 7 Km of trams on the 120 Km Black Country Railway?
5. Please explain why trees, a test track and a short tramway must have priority over much more useful commuter, intercity and freight trains.
6. Are you aware that road congestion is now costing the West Midlands economy £2.3 billion every year?  Never mind railway congestion and overcrowding!
7. Are you at all bothered about rising greenhouse gas emissions from wasted and, even many years of destroying perfectly good railway infrastructure - in the four boroughs of the Black Country, in particular?

I would be glad to understand Network Rail's rationale, your logic, or just your very strange thinking for wasting and even destroying your very own assets and infrastructure, please.  Are you all of sound mind? It cannot be a shortage of cash or staff, when your HS2 partners are being given £55.7 billion to add new lines to your national railway network while busily destroying ours in the heavily congested and traffic polluted Black Country!

Please ensure that Mark Carne, Chris Grayling MP and Cllr Roger Lawrence all read this even if, as usual, they have no answer to my rather obvious questions.

Best wishes for a little better success with your railway in future years.  Could you pick up some tips as to how to do it from Europe?

Dear railway industry and ORR.  Declan, please could you take a look and comment on my e-mail at the very foot?

Thanks for your decency in replying, Russell.

However, should you not be so ashamed of your industry's performance that you would want, immediately to pass my e-mail on to the ORR, yourself?  Like your good selves this august body (dormant or dead?) is also quite unabashed and apathetic and acquiescent in the non use, part use, misuse and even total obliteration of railway infrastructure that was in high demand for 100 years.

Best wishes for better - whenever you can all start

27 June 2018  from Alan Lunt  Dep Chief Executive

Dear Tim

 

I respond as promised to the 7 questions posed in your paper that you handed to me last night.

 

While nobody can doubt your commitment to railway it is frankly frustrating and unproductive to continually respond to your repetitive emails and this is the last time that I shall do so.

 

You have been advised by the Leader of the Council that he nor his members will respond again so please, consider this the final response on such matters.

 

1. This is a question for TfWM.

 

2. Network rail have confirmed that freight trains can co-exist with Metro

 

3. Is it right that commuters have to change trains to access urban light rail systems ? Yes.

 

4. I disagree that the journey to work would be slower. Because Metro takes priority over road traffic, it will be quicker. Heavy trains do not run into and around Town Centres in Dudley.

 

5. Metro will greatly improve connectivity in Dudley MBC

 

6. Heavy rail does not run in and around town centres. Network rail have no plans to resurrect passenger services until at least 2040 and doing nothing for 22 years in the forlorn hope that there is a robust business case to do so is not an option.

 

7. Your idea is noted

 

 

Best regards

Many thanks, Alan for yesterday's e-mail.  I wrote this, below on the 18 Jan 2018 when, in the evening, I attended the Amblecote, Cradley, Lye Community Forum.

"For fifty years, we have a railway network and a road network.where we build yet more roads, homes, shops and offices on the railway network!

The huge growth in train travel began in the 1990s and is set to continue.  Yet, the politicians in charge of the professional experts refuse to put passenger trains on freight only railway lines and on the UK’s only wasted, half unused, 120 Kms Black Country Main Line Railway “of national strategic significance”.

Road/railway congestion and city air pollution is as bad as ever.

YET, all the MEPs, MPs, councillors and experts want to do is to shuttle people by immorally expensive Metro tram from rundown, dying Dudley town centre on their own main line railway “of national strategic significance” to the West Coast Main Line in their neighbour’s borough of Sandwell!

In the other direction, the attractive tram will entice local Dudley people to shop at Merry Hill Shopping Centre, instead.  Dudley’s car parks will be even emptier. The main line railway will remain an unused, linear jungle of undergrowth and wasted, double track railway lines alongside or near to us all crawling along motorways and dual carriageways.

How foolish and ecocidal is that?"

Tim

Isn't it funny. Every business case ...

is called robust;

robustly justifies every kind of expenditure from spending £1 billion of public money on 14 Kms of tramline to duplicate a bus route in Edinburgh in 2014;

to spending nearly the same but, this time, private money on the M6 Toll for 43 Kms in 2003;

to splashing out £17.6 billion of public money on 117 Kms Crossrail;

to justify spending £44,000 per metre to extend Edinburgh's £1 billion tram line to Newhaven to replace buses;

to justify spending £44,000 per metre to convert our ready made, but they forgot the trains and stations, 120 Kms mainline "of national strategic significance" into a piddling little shuttle tram line on two short, middle sections, totalling 6.7 Kms.   

"The latest work to refine the scheme and the efficiencies to be developed within the Midland Metro Alliance give a good level of confidence that the project can be delivered within the current funding envelope (SELF: of £44,000 per metre, times 11 Kms.  Eleven times the cost per kilometre of the second attempt at returning trains between Wolverhampton and Walsall.  The first attempt was a failure, last decade!)."  Report to WMCA Investment Board on 11 March 2019

"the scheme has a benefit to cost ratio of 2.03:1."      

Every business case comes up with a great Cost Benefit Ratio that compels massive expenditure, eg to dismantle/destroy the tram network and to rebuild it on the road and railway networks a few decades later.  This is called high Value for Money when it is 2.03:1.  In other words, you double your money.  Therefore, whatever you pay up front, you get more than double that back in destroying yet another urban and intercity railway line, in the case of trams taking over the UK's one and only mothballed mainline.

"As part of the arrangements for the transfer of part of the abandoned South Staffordshire rail corridor (SELF: anachronistic, out of date, inaccurate name DfT now call 'The Black Country Railway') to Metro an agreement with Network Rail is being negotiated to ensure passive provision is made within the Metro works for future rail service use of the route. Implementation of future rail services will be subject to consultation between Network Rail and WMCA and appropriate powers and funding being secured." 

All this, when there is never a business case to cut public spending on the Police, the NHS/social care or education to pay for all this largesse.  "Don't worry your little head over it all, Tim.  You know that you will get back double whatever the final cost is because cost benefit analysis tells us so.  It is another of Mrs May's magic money tree tricks."

The money is always found for the flash, the glamorous, the most prestigious projects to hasten Attenborough's "collapse of civilisations" and "the extinction of much of the natural world" warnings from COP24 in Poland in December 2018.

Report on 6 Feb 'Ask the Dudley Leaders' Question Time'

Four Dudley leaders.  These were the Police - Chief Superintendent Sally Bourner (she used the bus and ran to join the panel - brilliant!); Health - the Director from the Clinical Commissioning Group; Dudley College Principal; and, Cllr Qadar Zada, Leader of Dudley MBC

Cllr Qada's top three issues are rough sleepers, fly tipping and community trouble, said the Chair.

FLY TIPPING

"Assist those who want to do something about fly tipping", said Cllr Qadar.  "I have invested several hundred thousand pounds in a deep clean programme to target every fly tipping zone in the borough and will increase enforcement ... We will clean the borough up ... Clearing 7,500 gullies so we don't have flooding ... Together we can solve some of the problems ... empowering local residents to help them deal with anti-social behaviour and litter ... we are targeting troubled trees.

CAVENDISH HOUSE

Due for demolition ... dilapidated ... £664,000 from the Black Country LEP to demolish it.  £82m will be invested by the company to redevelop the site.  Qadar would like to demolish the building in person if that was possible.

SELF Can the site be used for one and two bedroom apartments to reduce the housing crisis and help rough sleepers?

DUDLEY HIPPODROME

Qadar said, "We have an exciting set of plans from a consortium ... with £9 m of investment" (for that site).

SELF: Keep the facade and convert to apartments, as above.

TRAVELLERS

"Travellers on Flood St for the last 3 weeks with a porta loo", said Qadar.  "This is an isolated case.  We have agreed a departure date for them" but we were not given the date.  "We do not want illegal encampments in our borough.  Our approach to travellers is very robust ... We will have a permanent travellers site with a range of other measures.  We are still committed to that.  W, e will have borough wide injunctions.  We will lock down the parks ... People are not prejudiced in Dudley."

SELF:  Flood Street is to have the swish, glitzy, glamorous "bus on rails" Metro tram gliding down it to Merry Hill.  £343 m to achieve this; yet, Qadar said that the council has been denied £71 m since 2010 in reductions in government grants to run their services.  The lost £71 m has gone to Metro to replace some buses and trains.

POTHOLES

"Talk to Dudley Council Plus website to report a pothole", said Qadar.  "We must make roads safe for people to drive on."

BURGLARY

"One of our top priorities alongside violent crime and organised vehicle crime", said Sally Bourne.  "We will use overt and covert resources to target these gangs.  Four or five burglaries a day.  Targeting car key burglary."

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE CENTRE

"It will make us one of the leaders in advanced technology to make sure we don't get left behind" - Qadar Zada

"With it taking over the Hippodrome site it will become part of Innovation Park which will have the VLR centre, plus autonomous vehicles and the Institute of Technology" - Neil Thomas, Principal, Dudley College.

LOCAL TOWN CENTRES

"The High St is a challenge up and down the country ... with online shopping.  We are taking on board the Preston model by growing the local economy.  It adds social value.  Our contracts will purchase within Dudley.  Free car parking has not had a major impact on footfall.  No overwhelming attendance.  More people want to live in the town centre - Qadar

BRING BACK SPEEDWAY

Qadar: We are committed to bringing it back.  Tell us where it can go.  I have asked officers to look at those sites.

Self: What about bringing back the railway, to finish it, instead of the short tramway to cut it in half to make for a train-tram-train mainline railway - a world first?!

PROPER RECYCLING BINS WANTED

We will introduce in every ward, recycling bins for segregated waste in every town.  It is a massive part of our agenda.

ROUGH SLEEPERS

No mention by the four leaders or the public in Facebook comments.  Only by the Chair, once.

ENVIRONMENT AND TRANSPORT

My question was read out by the Black Country Radio chair.  Who was he?  He never told us!

Cllr Qada - copied into this e-mail - said, "I'm in constant dialogue with Tim".  CORRECTION: He might get constant e-mails from me (like the rest of you!) but it is all one way.  A monotonous monologue and no dialogue, so far!  He will not send a single e-mail or deign to see me - as yet.  He is not interested in hearing the other side of the case.  A one sided leader with a closed mind.

In his answer to my question, he said that "improving cycling routes is being worked on."  Does this include the 20 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway; and, signs and leaflets for the Dudley town centre to Brum city centre traffic free cycling route to tell people about it and to keep them on the route?

Qadar said that he wants to reduce nitrogen oxides, a greener housing agenda and is getting more mobile air sensors.

"The environment is very important to us ... We can't deliver on what Tim would like us to do ... Lots of other people do want Metro trams and they are a modern way of improving public transport ..."

MY RESPONSE: I love riding on trams (apart from the hard plastic seats!) but their enormous cost of installation has been at the expense of commuter/regional trains returning to our existing urban, double track railway lines that have not yet been turned into roads, housing and trading estates by planning committees of Dudley MBC.

LATEST NEWS:

This week, the Birmingham Post reported that the Metro Eastside extension has now gone up to £152.2 m for 1.7 Kms and will not be opened in time for the Commonwealth Games in 2022.  Just think how the £1.41 BILLION to 2026 on trams replacing buses and trains could be used to reverse the decline in bus use and more greenhouse gases!

BBC NEWS SITE:  Roger Harrabin on 5 Feb -  Headline: "TRANSPORT WAS THE LARGEST EMITTING SECTOR OF GREENHOUSE GASES IN 2017  On aviation, planes are getting more efficient - but that’s being overtaken by the growth in the amount people fly – and the government is expanding capacity at airports.

It’s a similar picture on trains. Humble local trains help reduce motoring– but commuter services are starved of cash whilst billions are poured into HS2."

SELF: Yes.  Humble local trains help to reduce motoring but trains are not allowed on the 120 Kms Black Country Railway through Dudley because of the obsession with trams at UK Tram Ltd HQ at Transport HQ.  Vested interests at work, aka collusion, complicity, corruption.  Network Rail has also banned commuter trains until the 2040s at the earliest and, then, only freight trains are allowed - aka incompetence, idiocy, illogicality!!

28 transport tragedies for 37 years - so far!

WHY TRANSPORT LEAD, CLLR ROGER LAWRENCE SHOULD EITHER TURN OVER A NEW LEAF OR, RETIRE

1. In 1981, our transport chiefs began their fascination with Midland Metro trams on railway lines and roads, instead of protecting our closed railways for future use and then re-opening them for passenger and freight trains.
   
   
2. Cllrs Richard Worrall, Angus Adams and, now Roger Lawrence are the transport chiefs over decades who have let us down, misspent our taxes and had the most weird and wonderful set of priorities.
   
   
3. These men put everything but trains down Dudley to Wolverhampton, Dudley to Birmingham, Dudley to Netherton, Old Hill, Halesowen to Longbridge and, Birmingham to Wolverhampton railway lines.
   
   
4. One e-mailer to me wrote, “ … people who could be regarded as complicit in questionable decisions.”  He meant our fully trained professionals in Network Rail (NR), Transport for W Mids (TfWM) and Midland Metro Alliance (MMA) who need to be questioned, challenged and watched like hawks because of their disastrous decisions over many years.
   
   
5. I think Beeching was right to close the lines he did as we deserted trains and went out and bought cars.  It was the railway industry, our transport chiefs, the unions and the many groups of railway enthusiasts who failed to ensure that they were mothballed in case they were ever needed in the future.  They are certainly needed now but the railway industry, the unions and the railway enthusiasts all allowed them to be lost for every kind of built development imaginable, to roads and, to slow, frequent stopping, extremely expensive “bus on rails” trams!
   
   
6. Wikipedia has: Ian Hislop comments that history has been somewhat unkind to "Britain's most hated civil servant", by forgetting that he proposed a much better bus service that ministers never delivered.
   
   
7. The politicians and transport experts got diverted from increasing the popularity of buses to building seven tram networks in the UK.
   
   
8. All the experts were happily building steam locomotives up to the 1960s as part of our supposedly modern railway.  This was the second decade of railway closures and the sale of our railways to any old Tom, Dick or Harriet instead of their protection for future use by trains.
   
   
9. My e-mailer wrote, “Routes such as Dudley to Wolverhampton were not just closed to traffic but the tracks were removed.”  Yes. Dudley, Sandwell and Wolverhampton councillors were all happily giving planning permission for houses, roads and a trading estate to obliterate this important railway line!  How foolish is that? “The same was the case for Birmingham to Wolverhampton via West Bromwich”, my e-mailer wrote. This was the valuable Snow Hill to Wolverhampton Low Level line that could be giving additional trains into Shropshire and North Wales, one former railway worker has told me (see 8).  Instead, Metro line One took it over. This meant that platform four at Snow Hill is still not used, to this day for trains, Low Level station is now a conference and events venue and 2 Kms of the line in Wolverhampton was destroyed. This was because the tram line went on the road for 2 Kms to St George’s Square and the useful direct link to Low Level railway station was lost forever!
   
   
10. The former railway worker texted to me about the 1999 Metro One, “What a waste opening the wolves - bham line to a tram.  This has prevented through services from snow hill to Wales or the north from ever returning.”
    
    
11. If the trains had been allowed back, we would still have commuter and regional trains using the line that the tram now uses and, grand Low Level station would still be in use as a much needed station rather than a conference and events centre.
    
    
12. It would still be a  station if only our darling politicians had thought of that great wheeze of railway trains on railway lines! This summer, main work starts on the even more important 120 Km Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance" being transformed into a ‘bring your own cushion for the tram’ tramline over all of 6.7 Kms, a test track, a trail of trees, Himalayan Balsam and undergrowth
    
    
13. Trams will, one day connect St George’s Sq to the bus station and the last remaining railway station but at a cost of £33m.  All it needed were the trains back between Snow Hill and Wolverhampton Low Level and it would have been at a fraction of the cost of the trams.  This was another blunder by PTA/Centro and by Roger Lawrence, plus predecessors.
    
    
14. Four businesses closed on Bilston Road in 2017 when Metro One tracks were renewed after only 18 years.  This would never have happened if the trains and stations had been allowed back.
    
    
15. More businesses are likely to close in Dudley high town with the tram being an extra attraction for Dudley townsfolk to take the tram to Merry Hill to do their shopping.
    
    
16. The former successful for 100 years mainline station at Dudley Castle Gate (low town) that is thriving is being destroyed forever by a suite of buildings for the VLR innovation centre and test track.
    
    
17. I would like the whole 120 Kms railway “of national strategic significance” (Network Rail and DfT letter to me dated, 8 March 2018) from Worcester, the Black Country and on to Derby, to be called the Black Country Railway.
    
    
18. My e-mailer wrote, “Some opinion is that in an 'unhelpful' environment and with limited funding, various campaigners and the efforts of individuals within organisations and organisations such as Centro, British Rail, some local authorities, some enhancements and reopenings were achieved.”  From what I have seen, the heritage railway groups have achieved much more than the professional railway ‘experts’ and councillors. From my research, only 6 Kms out of 112 Kms of double track railway line in freight or officially mothballed have been re-opened. In addition, there was the Walsall to Rugeley re-opening.
    
    
19. Our trio of former, including the incumbent Roger, transport chiefs are wholly responsible.  They need to work with the professionals but also to stop obvious blunders like the many we have seen and are still seeing.
    
    
20. The only official, ‘Out of Use’, Black Country Railway, “of national strategic significance”, is now precluded from returning to railway use for ever by Dudley Castle Hill mainline station that is about to be built on, by the Metro tram line and, a test track through Castle Hill tunnel between the two short sections of tramway.  Thus my feeling that we, ever so clever, Brexit Brits are incompetent and negligent!
    
    
21. I attended a Community Forum in Dudley borough last month.  Before, I spoke and without one councillor knowing who I was or why I came, he told the meeting that when on the Centro Passenger Transport Authority years ago, he was told that “heavy rail trains would still be able to return” once the Black Country Railway, “of national strategic significance”, had been turned into a tram line.  I told him that this was a lie. Freight trains might be able to use it at night but certainly not the former passenger service between Worcester and Derby via the Black Country that we saw for 100 years until fifty years ago.
    
    
22. This light rail scheme is a throwback to the 1980s when the Black Country Railway was unwanted, out of use, disused, dismantled, unloved and it was thought that it would never be needed, ever again.  Hence, put the tram on it that was all the rage at the time. Kind of anachronistic, now that we are four decades on.​ We are seeing a renaissance in railway travel.
    
    
23. Never again, fast passenger train services from Derby to Devon via Dudley or Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill.
    
    
24. One professional railway ‘expert’ explained to me that Network Rail does not like running passenger trains on freight lines.  Yet, the Victorian and Edwardian railway men did so for decades. Why not the so smart, tech savvy, Elizabethans?
    
    
25. Is Cllr Roger standing up to Network Rail and insisting on passenger trains and stations for our urban lines not yet obliterated?  I don’t think so. He gave planning permission for homes, roads and trading estates on the railway lines, after all.
    
    
26. My e-mailer wrote, “The passenger train operator for the West Midlands is supposed to be introducing a train service from Birmingham to Stourbridge and then to Brierley Hill. This will require a new station at Brierley Hill.”  Thus, we all pile out of the train to get on the tram into Brum when the train could take us the whole way without changing.  And, when extended to Walsall, it will require from Worcester, a change from train to tram at Canal St tram stop, near Brierley Hill and back to the train at Walsall station for progress to Derby!
    
    
27. Wikipedia has: “Passenger services were terminated between Walsall and Wolverhampton in 2008 on cost and efficiency grounds.”  Shortly after they were introduced! Yet, now, trains are to be re-introduced with two new stations when there is a good Platinum bus service between the two places.  The trains need to go all the way to Brum via the Sutton freight only line. But, finishing the Black Country Railway is much more desperately needed to reduce road and railway congestion.
    
    
28. On the unused, wasted, 56 Kms, tens of millions of pounds have been spent on two motorway crossings and three tunnels to cross three dual carriageways - for the 120 Kms Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance".  But this is the same unused, wasted, middle section that is to be turned into a 6.7 Kms tramline, a test track, rusting lines and a jungle of undergrowth. What a waste of tens of millions of pounds!
    
    

All of this is such complete nonsense that Cllr Roger needs to step down, with Keith Harrison using the ‘Express and Star’ as a way to help him to give way.  PLEASE!

timweller1@gmail.com     16 May 2018

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