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

Dudley Castle Hill Tunnel

The tunnel had two tracks, as a mainline railway, on the three occasions I walked through it!  The first was in the 1990s, in a small FoE protest, to raise awareness of the neglect and to highlight its importance.  Railtrack (or its equivalence - BR?) saw the newspaper report of what we were planning to do and insisted that we must have a delegation of two of their men from Railtrack/BR!  We all trooped through the 800 metres and back again.  It did not make the slightest difference, of course!

The 90s was the decade that the Round Oak signal box was left unlocked and my young son and I went up the outside steps into the room with all the great levers.  Shortly afterwards, I returned and saw that it had been razed to the ground in a fire!  I complained/commented to a man from the railways at Centro House at the close of a meeting.  He knew and shrugged his shoulders, as if he didn't care.  No one does!

LISTEN to this train driver who knows what must be done

 So yes, there is on going investment in heavy rail in the West Midlands, however in the Black Country things are different as we know.

In general it’s fair to say there is no infrastructure investment other than maintaining the present day routes, no scheme for a park and ride service at Brierley Hill for heavy rail as this is up for grabs by another parry people mover scheme.

When are we ever going to learn that when we are gifted with a part used rail route like the Dudley line, we should put trains on it and reinstate the line as it was before it was mothballed by Railtrack.

It would be a through route with no changing trains other than at Walsall maybe, far better than what’s proposed, which would take discerning travellers far longer in this day and age, hardly anyone will use it, opting to go by bus as it is direct, cheaper & will probably be quicker.

It will become a costly white elephant,and I hope that the people who have approved and endorsed this scheme of image pay dearly for it.

Why it must always be trams and never trains

Why Centro has always wanted a network of tram lines rather than the more obvious, simpler, cheaper, easier to achieve Beeching reversals!

1. Originally, only a network of tram lines throughout the W Midlands was thought to be able to reduce road congestion in Birmingham.
2. Now SPRINT buses - the tram that thinks its a bus - is thought to entice car commuters out of their cars.
3. Hence, we are still going to get Metro trams along Broad Street and part of Hagley Road, along with limited stop, super-smart SPRINT buses also to run the full length of Hagley Road as far as Quinton, only.  These two along with the usual buses and vehicles of all kinds.  Yet more congestion!
4. The ITA/Centro have always considered the 200 Km of 15 Metro lines by 2000 was always their pet project from 1981.  For 34 years our local councillors have been trying to empire build with trams but are now in their fourth decade of failure.
5. First Railtrack, then its predecessor Network Fail (whoops, I mean Negligent Rail), have been uninterested in making more work for themselves by reversing the Beeching urban closures (only rural Beeching closures, as in southern Scotland this year).  They can't even do electrification without having to be stopped (suspended) by the Sec of State, from June to September, as happened this year.
6. Once you get the Establishment moving in the tram rut of road and rail running trams as the answer for congestion, instead of trains being returned, it is quite impossible to get them out of that rut.  It needs a strong minded, free thinking political Master in power, as we have and have had in London.
7. The people have not been sufficiently interested to question this conventional transport wisdom.  Everyone expects the transport planners and councillors to get on with it - but, they don't get on with it.  Hence, wrong decisions are made and never reversed or even achieved - apart from Metro One, only and, on a rail line too!