Just put the trains and stations back!

Business cases that tell you what you want to justify the worst value for money rail projects but never trains and stations reinstated alongside congested roads!

LET THE FIGURES SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES:

£500 million per Km (estimate) for HS2 that has to have a spur to bring it to Birmingham city centre edge.

£62 million per Km (actual cost) for Birmingham road running tram extension - very late opening in 2016

£27 million per Km (today's price) for Dudley rail and road running trams - Wednesbury to Brierley Hill.  Never delivered since Midland Metro project began in 1981.  Network of 15 lines and 200 Km by 2000 never delivered.

£6 million per Km (actual cost) for first (professional) Beeching rail reversal but in rural, depopulated, southern Scotland - opened on time in 2015.  49 Km for £294 million for single and double track to the middle of nowhere.

Therefore, £6 to £8 million per Km for my proposed 74 Km Western Bypass Rail Line to help deal with train congestion at Grand Central Shopping Centre (the station is in the basement of John Lewis!) and rising passenger demand for trains.  This is an existing, double track rail alignment (part freight) that is fully safeguarded for the last fifty years.  It goes through the heart of the industrial West Midlands, through the Black Country, from Stourbridge Junction to Derby.

£500 million for 74 Km Western Bypass Rail Line (estimate based on this year's first Beeching reversal opened).

£390 million (official ITA figure) for 15 Km trams from Sandwell Wednesbury to Dudley Brierley Hill.  Geoff Inskip, at the 18 Nov ITA mtg, was confident that the money was in the bag, after the previous week's signatures for the new Combined Authority.

BEST VALUE FOR MONEY IS OBVIOUS

SOURCES: Figures from Patrick McLoughlin Sec of State for Transport

                            from Geoff Inskip, CEO at Centro

                            from Laura Shoaf, Chief Officer, W Midlands Integrated Transport Authority

Letter to Toby Rackliff of 26 Oct 2015

Dear Toby - please make time to read and re-read this and then reply

Many thanks, as in 2014, also in 2015 giving me some of your time on the 15 October.  My delay in writing is due to my shooting off to enjoy my retirement with more walking and cycling the big hills in Scotland on the day after we met with Cllr John.

I rather rashly said, "I'll give you a break for five years" - that I now withdraw!  It was some wishful thinking on my part, at the time, when I wanted to move on to other matters and to forget about this whole ghastly business!  However, I still have many questions and so much I just do not understand.  Hence:

1. When the Borders Railway can get diesel trains back on 49 Km without first putting either freight trains back or electric trams, why must goods trains or Metro go on the 38 Km Black Country Line, first?  Please could you explain in laymen's terms.
2. Laura wrote, on the 15 Sept: The main obstacle to reopening the Stourbridge – Walsall railway would be the need to completely replace the derelict 15km double track alignment between Round Oak and Bescot with new track and signalling built to modern standards and also repair the underlying infrastructure (including Parkhead Viaduct) to enable it to safely carry heavy rail trains once again.
3. Could you please explain to me how replacing derelict 49 Km "track alignment, with new track and signalling to modern standards ... " was no obstacle of any kind for Network Rail and Transport Scotland at £10 million per mile.  And, this was the very first Beeching closure reversed by the professionals.  Done, too in beautiful countryside and not in our heavily congested Black Country, where the need is far greater.
4. Laura wrote, "Similarly the Lichfield-Brownhills section of railway would also need to be completely rebuilt to accommodate future passenger trains whilst the Brownhills - Walsall section of railway was been removed completely many years ago and now is partially used as a cyclepath."  All of this applies, exactly to Edinburgh Waverley to Tweedbank - the Borders Railway.  Yet, the money was found and the work done.  Even on all the new rail structures!
5. There is a huge "potential role of Walsall – Stourbridge for rail" PASSENGER not "freight for the next 30 years" as Laura wrote.  Please have some consideration for commuters and rising demand for passenger trains in the Black Country.  With human climate change and resource depletion, it is urgent that we stop wasting transport infrastructure like the 38 Km Black Country Line.
6. Could I please have the business case study for electric trams on the roads and railways of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall instead of diesel passenger trains on the nationally important 21 Km and wasted double track rail line through an increasingly congested and populated urban conurbation.  This, when according to Patrick McLoughlin, the city centre extension is costing £75.4 million for three quarters of a mile of Metro.  This works out at £100m per mile for road running Metro.  It is also likely to be a similar enormous figure for Metro in Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall when road running.
7. See letter from McLoughlin to Louise Ellman MP, dated 30 Sept 2015 that gives this and the £750 m Grand Central Shopping Centre as the sole railway money for the seven district authorities in the West Midlands.  Nothing else for us in how many years?  A complete page, in McLoughlin's letter, of rail investment and projects being delivered to the North of England and its Northern Powerhouse.  Nothing more for us.  We are being bypassed and ignored!
8. I agree with Laura's e-mail as regards the costs, 

"The newly opened 30 mile rail line cost around £300m for largely single track railway (albeit with some long double track passing loops).  In some ways the reopening of this line was actually simpler than, for example re-opening Walsall – Round Oak would be, as rebuilding the track-bed didn’t require the removal of the existing, derelict tracks first."

This, therefore, is £10 million per mile for diesel trains on new rail lines and new structures.  This is ten times cheaper for diesel on new rail lines on the existing formation, than light rail electric trams on roads.

Laura cannot be right with her second sentence, above.  According to the website, Borders Railway did have to lay new track bed and rails.  In addition,

"There are a number of structures along the route: 137 bridges, 42 newly constructed and 95 in need of refurbishment. A variety of work is required to existing bridges in order to help them comply with safety standards and make them suitable for the railway to run over or under." (How to Build a Railway, from Borders Railway website)  Yet, still, £10 million per mile.  Ten times cheaper than road running Metro.  How does the business case resolve this?  Please may I have sight of it?

9.   Could you please give me the amount of the bid that you and the team have put together (during public consultation, too) for road and rail running Metro in Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall?

10.   I cannot understand why you did not make it clear, in the draft plan out for consultation, that you and the team had no intention of putting VLR or heavy rail on the old line.  It seems, that your intention has always been Midland Metro and nothing else for road and rail running through the Black Country boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall.

11.   Why were the public and I told that the ITA and Cento were keeping an open mind over the 21 Km from Stourbridge to Walsall when, all the time, you were working on a new bid and business case to get the money for Metro?

12.   Could you please tell me.  Are you (ITA/Centro) in talks with Intu over Metro coming to Merry Hill and the Waterfront?

13.  Could you please explain why you are no longer pursuing Metro on the Camp Hill Line and nearby roads.  Peter Plisner did a report, some years ago, that I saw on 'Midlands Today'.  Why did the business case, at that time, not tell you that it was far better value for money to rebuild the stations and to return the passenger trains?

14.  For me, the PTA/Centro reopening of Walsall to Wolverhampton years ago was not nearly as important as the Black Country Line to bypass road and rail congested Grand Central but, to still allow trains from Dudley Waterfront and Dudley Port (on the WCML) to bring passengers into Grand Central, as you said, Toby that Metro trams would be able to do.  Diesel trains can do it, too but much more economically!

15.  There is much in common between your profession, Toby and mine!  I was a Brum and Sandwell social worker for 35 years.  We all know about the media highlighting of social work blunders, neglect and failures.  I can remember how my colleagues and I all got into a rut of the one and only (foolish) decision that had to be made and no-one challenged it in case conferences (out of respect for, or fear of, the managers)​.  As a retired, old man I am asking you to think of the alternatives, of a different way of doing things, of brainstorming all the options.  For 34 years, since 1981, the councillors and Centro said that the 200 Km Midland Metro network would be the answer to our road traffic congestion problems.  However, it was never delivered over these last three and a half decades.  Yet, you are still endeavouring to get it - to this day!

I am really sorry to be such a pain, Toby.  However, I hope you can understand why I am so critical and dissatisfied with ever worsening road and rail congestion.  It has gone on for the nearly fifty years of my being a student, a failed teacher, a social worker and, now, a one foot in the grave OAP in the Black Country and Brum.  In addition, there remains worsening train and traffic congestion in and around Grand Central and its basement station.  Now, the grandest of many road/rail congestion bottlenecks in England.

All of this - and much more I have recorded, previously and elsewhere - is not nearly good enough.

But, my genuine good wishes to you, Toby.  Thanks again for seeing me.

Tim

Questions for Radio Scotland Big Debate

Is the panel horrified or relieved that Jeremy Corbyn has said that he would never press the nuclear button if he was PM?

Are those responsible for the car emission test also at fault for not picking up that there must have been a much higher proportion of VW Group diesel cars passing the emission test when compared with other manufacturers?

If VW Group engineers felt it was necessary to put in defeat devices to meet emission standards, does that indicate that the emission test was far too rigorous for even the world's top car engineers to meet?  Even they could not possibly reach the target that was required!

Should not the expenditure and effort go towards minimising harmful emissions as quickly as possible?  VW already make some of the cleanest cars.

What is the point of Real Driving Emissions testing, that is so vital for Patrick McLoughlin, if vehicle manufacturers cannot meet the standard?  Does it not already happen?  In fact, more of it should be taking place on the road to clean up or remove the most polluting vehicles.

"I am pushing hard for a joined up re-testing programme across Europe."  Patrick McLoughlin, letter to Louise Ellman MP, 9 October 2015  But not pushing hard to reduce the cocktail of poisonous gases that all petrol and diesel vehicles spew out.

Should our 0.7% of GDP overseas aid budget be used to build a prison in Jamaica to facilitate British born Jamaican prisoners repatriated to Jamaica?

QUESTION for BBC Radio Scotland's The Big Debate on Friday 2 October, at Wigtown Book Festival (that I am attending in the ten days)

and, copied to my heavily war reliant MP, James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

When we are told this week that it is going to be years before Islamic State is defeated (if ever), is it not immoral, illegal and pointless to drone kill Syrians and Iraqis that we think, we hope, are members of Islamic State?

It continues our 101 year foreign policy of every single year ('Guardian' 4 page spread of evidence on 12 Feb 2014) attacking other countries to protect our vital strategic interests in so many countries around the world, who have not declared war on us.

14 examples of public money misappropriated in Brum and the Black Country

TO RAIL MINISTER, CLAIRE PERRY and other eminences for their action - please

Dear Claire - and copied to four members of the Lords and my own MP, James Morris

I know you are not my MP.  I am trying to get my own MP, James Morris (see below) to arrange an appointment with you and Patrick McLoughlin.  Please will you see us?  I believe you are from Bromsgrove, Claire - not far from my home of Halesowen where I am writing this.  Therefore, you must know what I have written here is correct.  My concerns:

1. Millions of pounds squandered in destroying our Birmingham and Black Country tram network in the 1950s.
2. Millions of pounds squandered in destroying, in B'ham and Black Country, about 100 miles of our urban rail network in the 1960s.
3. Millions spent in demolishing stations and building fast roads, homes, hotels and trading estates on about 50 miles of the 100 miles.
4. 12 miles of an urban train line turned into a tram line costing tens of millions of pounds.
5. Nearly 50 miles of former passenger and freight lines, still used only for freight in the last 50 years.
6. In that same decade, millions of pounds wasted in demolishing New Street Station and rebuilding it to make for an underground mainline station perfumed with coal and diesel smoke on the enclosed platforms.
7. In this decade £700 million misappropriated to address passenger congestion at New Street and nothing about train congestion.  £700 million to turn it into Grand Central Shopping Centre with the station demoted to the basement; tagged along as an afterthought.
8. Millions misspent with demolishing Snow Hill Station in the 1970s, only for it to be rebuilt to half its former size.  Now, new plans for a new station!
9. Many tens of millions misallocated since 1981 for building a 200 Km, £500 million tram network by 2000.  Yet, only one tramline of 22 Km, finally, may get completed by Christmas with the extension to Grand Central Shopping Centre and station but, still no connection to Wolverhampton Rail Station, as we did have in the days of trains using that line.
10. Electrification started in the 1950s but, still, nowhere near being completed.
11. Nationally, £1 billion spent in the 1990s in privatising our UK rail network instead of modernising it.
12. Network Rail refuses to co-operate with returning local passenger and ICE trains to the Black Country Rail Line, with its extension to Lichfield.
13. Millions squandered in building and then removing a monorail at Merry Hill Shopping Centre in the 1980s but then failing to connect it to the Black Country Line at the Waterfront in Brierley Hill.  The monorail fell short by only 400 metres.  No connection, no passenger trains were allowed on the Black Country Line; therefore, too few shoppers and office workers were using the monorail, so it was quickly closed!  Sheer incompetence by the transport authorities.
14. The West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority, Network Rail and Centro have spent millions over the years writing studies and strategies, plans and policies.  Umpteen glossy brochures have been produced with their expensive intents for the future.  Yet, very little is actually delivered.  It has all resulted in the above scandal stretching over six decades and with no sign of any reform or even small improvement.

Please will you see James and me?

28 January 2015 ITA mtg flyer

End 34 years of apathy, drift, indecision, fudging and failure over Midland Metro trams.

You wanted a dozen tram lines throughout the West Midlands.

They have NOT been built - anywhere!

One tram line, on almost all of a passenger rail line that you should never have closed, is very poor performance.

GET A GRIP AND RAISE YOUR GAME, LEADERS.

Reject today's report for a review of Metro - more time wasting.

STOP wasting our taxes.

Instruct your officers to scrap Metro and to work on URGENTLY re-opening our urban passenger rail lines and rebuilding the stations.

STAND UP to Network Rail and order them to co-operate with you.

Send a delegation to see George Osborne and Patrick McLoughlin to get them to make the funds available for something worthwhile, at long last:

45 MILES OF UNUSED OR UNDERUSED DOUBLE TRACK RAIL LINES IN BIRMINGHAM AND THE BLACK COUNTRY MUST BE FULLY USED - for commuters and inter-city passengers.