METRO BLUNDERS GALORE!

THIS IS WANT THE TOP OFFICERS HAVE TOLD ME:

You've got to have Metro through Dudley first, as the catalyst for reopening the Worcester to Burton on Trent railway.

The construction for Metro has passive provision for commuter and regional trains to be added later.  Yet, only some railway bridges are being strengthened to carry heavy railway trains at a later date!

THEIR INCOMPETENCE:

Building the Derby to Devon via  Dudley railway line and then forgetting to finish it between Stourbridge and Burton on Trent with passenger and freight trains - and the stations, too!

Dudley/Sandwell to Brum buses get pushed out of Five Ways underpass and Broad Street to have a longer and slower diversion on narrow roads with parked cars.  The "bus on rails" trams get the underpass and Broad Street, instead!

No money to correct the discrimination against "hard-working families" who don't get the regional Fare-Free Public Transport (FFPT) that old crocks like me have had for 13 years!

But, more money than sense for converting buses and trains to Metro "bus on rails" trams.  At 10 x per Km more expensive to construct, than rebuilding the 50 Kms Borders Railway through the hills of southern Scotland.

Sandwell MBC emails re climate action

Dear Rajbir

Can you tell me what you make of this idea, please?

 

SUMMARY:

DEMOCRACY IN ACTION with councillors deciding, voting on Andy Street's £15 billion of greenhouse gas emissions to replace some buses and some trains with Metro "bus on rails" trams on railway tracks on roads.

 

MORE DETAIL:

I think all you councillors at Sandwell Council should take back control of transport from TfWM at 16 Summer Lane, in Birmingham.  Do you agree that you councillors should be telling the transport planners what you want done, after hearing what the 'experts' advise?

 

Would you consider and, discuss with Rajbir Singh, that all 72 members, after debate, should be given a free vote over Andy Street's plan for a £15 billion (of greenhouse gases) to 2040 plan for underground and overground Metro trams for 8 lines, 380 tram stops over 150 miles (press release in January 2020 for Metro Mayor election)?  Discussion, debate and vote are essential to get democratic authority for whatever the majority decides.

Dear Jane and Peter

I am very happy to have a Zoom/Teams meeting with Peter.  However, in the past and on every occasion, he has declined to accept a paper version of my concerns and also refused to speak to me when I politely attempted to elicit a response.  Again, now, no response from Peter.  Perhaps, I could meet with both Peter and Rajbir via Teams - and your new Chief Executive?

Here is something I have just written that is extremely important:

"We are screwed, snookered but we must continue the fight and be frugal finite fossil fuel users.

"Andy N, at last night's COP 26 mtg wrote, over the success of the Montreal Protocol, "fossil fuels is a massive chunk of the world economy. much harder to get movement."

"He's right but it's worse than that!  Every time we turn the COLD tap on we are dependant on finite fossil fuels (fff) that in their use, every time, is yet another tiny screw in rising global av surface temps to bring the climate catastrophe we're seeing.  Fff pump water to our homes.

"Although we are very slowly expanding renewable sources of energy that are much less dependant on fff, every £ we spend uses fff a lot along the line. That is why we have to spend ONLY on projects that will cut fff and their attendant greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) urgently.  Not HS2, Metro, Sprint, armaments, WMD, new yacht Britannia, investments in fff exploitation, Nature turned into concrete, brick and tarmac ... "

Best wishes

Tim 

Dear Mr Weller

 

Your email to the Leader, Cllr Rajbir Singh, has been passed to me to respond to you.

 

I would explain that I hold the role of Cabinet Advisor with the portfolio of ‘Clean & Green’/Climate Change, and in that role, I can formulate and suggest new Policies but am not in a position to agree new Policy, which is the role of the Leader and Cabinet Members.

 

I would make the following observations on your email:

 

1. Although loosely included under the heading ‘Andy Street's £15 billion Plan for greenhouse gas emissions’, the text of your email almost all relates to Transport Policy, which is why I have copied in the Cabinet Member responsible for this portfolio, Cllr Jackie Taylor, who will no doubt have greater awareness of the Transport Infrastructure in Sandwell, and its’ links within the WMCA area. She may wish to comment further on your suggestions. I have also copied in the Officer responsible for Planning Policy, Mr Andy Miller, who may also wish to provide you with his perspective on the ideas that you are proposing.

 

2. In your email, you are suggesting to Cllr Singh that all Councillors have the opportunity to debate  the motion that you are putting forward, presumably at Full Council. However, before this is done, the Motion needs to be considered, discussed and agreed/refused by the Labour Group for inclusion on the Full Council Agenda. I have therefore forwarded your email to the Labour Group Secretary, and asked her to include it on the agenda for the next Labour Group Meeting on 11^th October 2021.

 

I trust that this information is of assistance to you.

 

Yours sincerely

Peter Hughes

Cllr Peter Hughes BA [Hons], MBA, ACIH

Cabinet Advisor – ‘Clean & Green’/Climate Change

Wednesbury North Ward

Dear Peter

Thank you so much for this encouraging email.  Especially, if you talk with your Combined Authority colleagues - members and officers - for united action.

I want to underline the urgency of action over reducing expenditure on the wrong things and increasing it on what will reduce greenhouse gases in the medium to long term.  We are totally addicted, indeed locked into coal, gas and oil expenditure - and even more exploration and investment that must stop.  This is why greenhouse gas emissions are inevitable, even with minimum expenditure.  Renewables and, being satisfied with less consumption, are our only salvation.

The top matter is to stop the foolish, irrational and inexplicable decision by TfWM to replace the forgotten Derby to Devon via Dudley principal, mainline railway with Metro trams on a total of 6.7 Kms over two nibble sized sections that will be a further incentive for Dudley and Sandwell residents to shop at Merry Hill instead of their own towns.  This decision can still be reversed.  Cancellation fees and the return of commuter, regional and freight trains, with stations, will still  be much cheaper than you all spending over half a billion pounds to reduce the capacity of the railway network in destroying the 120 Kms railway between Derby and Worcester via Walsall, Sandwell and Dudley.

The second matter is to regenerate your borough with a massive external and internal insulation programme for every building, followed by PV solar panels on every east, west and south-facing roofs.

The third matter is to stop demolishing, wasting buildings and all other assets.  Instead, to restore/refurbish if at all possible and, to future-proof them, as above.

With best wishes for urgent action.

Tim

This is either a scandal or, an April Fool that never ends and never will!

Dear friends

After your conversion of our mainline railway to tram line, with steel rails coming to our roads and pavements to add to road congestion; with now trams on our roads, too and a slower public transport journey in our multi-mixed up public transport scene of more changes, we now have PLASTIC GRASS to replace perfectly good paving slabs and tarmac!  Just paint them green!

What is going on?  Don't bother, please!  JUST BOTHER TO READ THIS MERRY TALE, BELOW!  Tim

Our politicians and transport planners completely destroyed our tram network in the 1950s.

This was followed by them destroying about 100 Kms of our regional railway lines and keeping passenger trains off 50 Kms of lines only allowed to have freight! 

Their next trick was not to stop the destruction of further railway lines and to restore the trains but, this time, to convert part of the train network to the tram network.

This, at much greater expense than putting the commuter trains back!

That first line opened in 1999 on an important commuter and regional railway line from Snow Hill to Wolverhampton.

But, they forgot to connect the new trams to Wolverhampton bus station or, the very last Wolverhampton railway station (out of four, originally).  It fell well short!

That first rebuilt tramline meant that 25% of Snow Hill station was taken out of railway use, together with 3 or 4 Kms of double-track railway line lost, either side of Wolverhampton Low-Level mainline station.

And the station was turned into a conference and events centre!

Now, that first tramline, to replace the perfectly good railway line, is being extended to destroy an even more important railway line.

This is the half-used but fully available (until recently), the 120 Kms railway, supposedly, "of national strategic significance" between Worcester and Derby via the Black Country!

That 120 Kms is now being broken in half for use as an extended tramline from the first, in order to take Dudley and Sandwell shoppers to Merry Hill.

Yet, it is supposed to help regenerate Dudley's rundown shopping centre, not Merry Hill!

And, worse is to follow.  It is not just a slow tramline to Merry Hill!

Our nationally important railway even gets used for a 2.2 Kms test track for Very Light Rail, too.

What was once on the national railway network going through the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall to Derby, may yet get ultra-light rail, because the Stourbridge Shuttle is being promoted to link Stourbridge and Brierley Hill on this same strategically important mainline railway.

All because the light rail, "bus on rails" Metro tram falls short of going all the way to Stourbridge Jct!

Remembering to finish the UK's last mainline railway with commuter and regional trains over the full 120 Kms is completely beyond our truly hopeless politicians and transport experts.

Instead, they make a dog's breakfast out of it with, possibly ultra-light rail, Very Light Rail and Light Rail all on one principal, mainline railway that was so successful as a railway.  It brought passengers from London and Oxford, even.  For 100 years!

And, Dudley will remain the largest town in the UK without its own railway station.  It wanted a piddling little shuttle tramline and tram stop instead.  It got tired of being on the national railway network.

What a wonderful joke to keep us all merry!

THIS IS THE LAST STRAW (a straw man) - what do I mean, I wonder?:

 Magrath quote, MM history and costs

Tim Weller

declared Independent candidate for Metro Mayor 6 May 2021 to help expose this scandal/April fool and to maintain the merriment to infinity and beyond!

WHAT IS LEFT IS STILL WORTH DOING!

But was Corbyn's unsought fall from grace fair on him?  Was the punishment proportionate and reasonable, especially when it is our opponents who have brought him down, aided by the very political party he has probably been a member of all his adult life?

Your minutes are very well and accurately composed.  Not too much but sufficient.  And helpfully laid out.  One small correction: it is 56 Kms, in the middle of the half-used 120 Kms, that are wasted, unused but was ready for passenger and freight trains until the present changes to have Metro "bus on rails" trams on 6.7 Kms.  Plus, 2 Kms test track for Very Light Rail and, Innovation Centre on the only feasible, former site for Dudley Castle Hill Railway station.

Dudley will now, permanently, be the largest town in the UK without a railway station - only a tram stop to shuttle passengers between the mainline railway to Worcester to the south and to Derby in the other direction.

I would like Left Unity and all other political parties to insist on commuter, regional and freight trains on the other 48 Kms.  Still worth doing, especially from Wednesbury, in Sandwell to Derby!  It seems odd to me that the left and the green movement show such little interest in what is going on with public transport.  Hence, since the summer of 2017 I have been declaring as an Independent candidate in the Metro Mayor election - but I don't want any votes, only to use it as an opportunity to highlight more of the other obvious and sensible action to improve our prospects in the light of rising greenhouse gases and depleting resources.  Hence, FFPT and railway lines used - and much more, as you also know.

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

Extravagance for London, Scotland and Brum; austerity for Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall

Dear Laura and Cllr Roger

My subject heading, above is, for me, one example of one legitimate meaning of corruption.

If I may be so honest as to say so, there is this one big flaw in your argument:-

Money is no object for rail projects for London (£15 billion for Cross Rail east-west and now Cross Rail north-south in the planning at similar expense), two very expensive HS2 stations for Birmingham and tram extensions for Brum at over £100 million per mile, to end up replacing hybrid buses.  In other words, business cases are quickly written to make the business cases watertight, unassailable and more secure than Fort Knox - as we have seen with the £50 billion HS2 line - and, the very low priority rail line to the middle of nowhere in rural,depopulated southern Scotland at £10 million per mile.

Business cases are dishonest because they are always made to come up with what the right wing political masters want!  Like the cost benefit analysis that made the Kidderminster, Blakedown, Hagley motorway bypass essential to be built in the 1990s to bypass a mainly rural, dual carriageway and queues at traffic lights in Hagley (we stopped this wasteful idiocy).  So much for it being essential!

Like the business case that made Metro One essential because it would get 15 million passenger journeys a year.  It turned out to be five million every year or less and, been loss making every year ever since.  In other words, it was built under false pretences - corruption in my book.  So much for honest and accurate business cases.

In this age of supposed austerity (now in year six), you and Roger should be livid at the following weird and wonderful and very extravagant public expenditure schemes that go to London and Scotland, with crumbs from the rich man's table going to Birmingham and never the Black Country boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall.  This, in 34 years of fruitless endeavour that must have cost millions of pounds in salaries to the team of officers and, in generous expenses to the many PTA, ITA and the Transport Delivery Committee councillors.  This is all the exact opposite of Gordon Brown's prudent economics for the poor taxpayer.  It is what you get with right wing politicians out of control because there is no checks and balances from left wing politicians like me who never get elected - until, extraordinarily, one did on Saturday, 12 September!

For me, this is all corrupt economics and nothing like living with our means, limits and boundaries of steady state green economics.

In addition, passenger numbers on our urban rail network is increasing.  The demand is clearly there for more rail lines in the rail and road congested Black Country.  More capacity is urgent.  It cannot wait until the 2040s before you work on getting diesel (or better, electric) trains on the Black Country Line.

How to build a railway:

This is how it is done at £10 million per mile - ten times cheaper than Metro in Brum city centre:

http://www.bordersrailway.co.uk/project/how-to-build-a-railway.aspx

Example:

MOVING HEAVEN AND EARTH

Earthworks are often the first and most visible sign that the railway is being built. Firstly, surface layers – in this case cycle-path tarmac– are removed. The ground is then excavated down, or built up to the level where the railway line will lie. Embankments or retaining walls are built either side of the track, using earth sourced from other locations which is then stabilised or re-enforced. Some of the pre-existing embankments will also require improvement. Drainage also needs to be created, as well as installing pumps, laying pipes, building storage tanks and building culverts (drains) which allow rainwater to flow underneath, and away from, the railway. 

WORK TO STRUCTURES

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. We may have to demolish and re-build some structures, including the creation of entirely new roads. However, where parts of a bridge can be re-used, we will keep these in situ to minimise construction works and we only ever replace what is failing or unsuitable. 

​

LAYING THE RAILWAY

First we create a railway formation (the foundation on which the railway lies). This is flattened, ready for ballast to be laid on top. Ballast consists of layers of crushed stone which form the track bed and also help to drain the railway. We then level and stabilise this ballast using special machinery, before laying sleepers at precise intervals all the way along the route. Then the tracks are finally laid on top and fixed into place.​

Electrification and electric trams seem to be beyond the UK's level of competence:

Now in the sixth decade of electrifying our rail network we are, still, nowhere near seeing an end to it.  The Swiss did theirs in two decades before 1939.  34 years ago we went haring off into electric trams to replace mainly trains.  Only 22 Km would have been achieved by the end of the year when we were assured that 200 Km would be up and running by they year 2000, fifteen years ago.

This summer, there was an inexplicable delay of three months when all work was stopped on two major English electrification schemes.

Are we competent in building HS2?  Should TfL come to the West Midlands to advise us?  Should we get a further opinion from the European rail industry who do know what they are doing?

Yours sincerely

"The rail crisis" The Times 27 June 2015

COPIED TO: Birmingham City Council, Dudley MBC and Network Rail Chief Executives, for their urgent action

Sir,  How bizarre can Birmingham and the Black Country get when it comes to rail?  Is this not a bigger scandal than FIFA?

For fifty years, Network Rail and the authorities have deliberately kept nearly fifty miles of double track freight lines without passenger trains and stations.  Lines that are literally alongside or near to commuter congested roads.  All of them had successful passenger services for about 100 years, until fifty years ago.

Our transport aficionados have been so mesmerised by Midland Metro trams that in 34 years of enthusiastic endeavour, costing taxpayers millions of pounds, they will have finally achieved their one and only tram line by Christmas when it finally delivers shoppers to our dazzling, mirror-like, brand new Grand Central Shopping Centre and station at a cost of £750 million (the old New Street Station).  Cost for the 0.7 mile tram extension at £75.4 million is £100 million per mile!  A network of 200 Km Light Rail (LR) tram lines were planned to be in use by 2000. In 2015, they achieve 22 Km (mostly on a rail line) while 78 Km of double track freight lines remain devoid of commuter and ICE (inter city express) trains!

France, Switzerland and Germany have stunning ICE trains.  Our 13 miles Black Country Line had express trains for about 100 years until the 1960s.  Nothing since then - not even Midland Metro (LR) trams that, extraordinarily, remains their intention after 34 years.  With growing road and rail congestion, why are our experts still wanting to see trams?  The very latest plan is for Very Light Rail (VLR) trams on this local and nationally vital rail line.  This strategic line is to shuttle passengers for only one mile, on one track down our ICE line, to the inter-city line in our neighbouring borough of Sandwell.  The other track will be the test track for VLR.  Why not connect Dudley directly with all parts of the UK with ICE trains to increase capacity and to reduce train congestion at our shiny new Grand Central Shopping Centre and station and, on our road and rail network?

e-petition for the Black Country Rail Line

REOPEN THE BLACK COUNTRY RAIL LINE

1) After 34 years of trying but failing to get trams, cancel the fruitless endeavour and return existing trains and rebuild the stations.
2) Trams were only for the middle section, anyway!
3) Return, instead, trains to the full length of 13.5 miles of mothballed, double track rail line through three densely populated Black Country boroughs - Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall.
4) It runs alongside or close to commuter congested roads.
5) This forgotten, strategically vital, train line connects at either end with the national rail network.
6) It would relieve some of the chronic road and rail congestion at New Street Station in Birmingham by creating 13 miles of more rail capacity in the adjacent Black Country.
7) It would give rail passengers from all over the UK an opportunity to visit the Black Country (especially, the Museum, Zoo, Canal Trust and Merry Hill Shopping Centre) and give Brum a miss - for once!

The Black Country Rail Line (BCRL) re-opening proposal

The fifty years, mothballed, Black Country Rail Line (BCRL) re-opening proposal:

1. It runs through three of the four Black Country boroughs and connects with the national rail network at either end - at Stourbridge Junction and Walsall (a major rail hub), via Castle Hill in Dudley.
2. It is shown on every map of Birmingham and the Black Country, including the Ordnance Survey, the A-Z and Google Maps.
3. The current proposal to put Metro trams on the middle section only has failed to materialise in 34 years of our councillors and officers trying so very, very hard.  Time, now, to try the simpler and cheaper solution of trains and stations returning, linked to buses to take passengers to and from the trains.
4. The BCRL will improve capacity on our national rail network more quickly, more cheaply and with less impact on human climate change and resource depletion than HS2.
5. It will reduce congestion at the UK's foremost rail congestion bottleneck, New Street Station by allowing inter-city and commuter trains to bypass New Street.
6. It will give choice to car commuters sitting in nose to tail traffic to leave their cars at home and get to work quicker and more responsibly by bus and, train on the BCRL.
7. We have had hundreds of millions of pounds spent building the Black Country Spine Road and the Black Country New Road and the more recent grade separated junction on the West Bromwich Expressway.  Now, its time for trains to reduce road and rail congestion - and air pollution and greenhouse gases.
8. I think, Cllr Will Duckworth supports trains and stations being put back on the line from what he told me at the November GP meeting.  He did not realise that it went on to Walsall.
9. In the last decade, hundreds of people supported my two Downing Street petitions for trains back on our existing 20 miles of double track rail lines that includes the six miles alongside commuter congested Alcester Road and Moseley Road (A435).
10. Spending £200 m on the 13.5 miles BCRL is more responsible and cost effective than more road building and HS2 to improve capacity.
11. At a time of supposed austerity, £600 m is being spent on a cosmetic revamp of New Street Station that does not improve rail congestion or, road congestion to the Drop and Go parking (actually, Stop and Crawl through the exhaust fumes polluted tunnel - in peak times).
12. The two leaders of Walsall and Sandwell councils are sympathetic to having trains returning to the whole length instead of trams on the middle section, only.  I have not yet asked the new Dudley leader, Peter Lowe what he wants.  Birmingham and their leader, Sir Albert Bore, wants more Metro trams, more HS2 and is not interested in the Black Country Rail Line (from his response when I spoke to him on the 5 December at his advice bureau in the Council House).

ALLOW THE BLACK COUNTRY TRAIN TO TAKE THE STRAIN!