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!!

Extend the Stourbridge Shuttle but NOT on the Black Country Railway!

I do want to see the Stourbridge Shuttle extended via the half used 350 space car park on Stourbridge Road; then along Coventry St and High St, back to the bus station.  Phil Tonks seems to like this idea from his reply to my email.  John Parry said he would not oppose it.  I should hope not!

John Parry's PPM is not suitable for a 120 Kms mainline railway of national importance.  It is the UK's only mothballed, easily reinstated, half finished, everything is there as regards every bridge, tunnel and viaduct bypass railway "of national strategic significance".  Nor is a Metro tram or a tram train (still a tram) suitable for a mainline railway of the likes of ours that runs between Worcester and Derby via Dudley Castle Hill/Castle Gate.  A tram and tram train are both suitable for the 20 Kms between Sheffield Cathedral and Rotherham Parkgate.  Both the tram and the tram train stop at every tram stop on those 20 Kms.  It is ludicrous to spoil our mainline railway that runs parallel to or close to M5/M6 by putting trams and tram trains that must stop, on average, every 650 metres through the urban Black Country.

Trams are called "bus on rails" by the national tram promotion group that has its HQ at Transport HQ at 16 Summer Lane.  Hence, the trams for over £1.5 BILLION now replacing buses and trains in Brum and the Black Country.

Connect Stourbridge Jct and Brierley Hill with a commuter TRAIN not tram of any kind, please.  You all want the tram from Brierley Hill to Wednesbury that you will get, it seems.  Main work starts in the third quarter of this year.  However, connect Wednesbury and Burton on Trent with commuter and regional TRAINS.  After Metro goes on a total of 6.7 Kms, this still leaves a total of 49.3 Kms AND Railfuture's nine railway stations for the settlements that are desperate for their railway line back to relieve motorway and main road congestion.

You will then have a train-tram-train mainline railway "of national strategic significance", at best.  This will be a world first, I understand.  It is not something the UK should be proud of or, noted for around the world.  Such a bizarre use of an important, national, mainline railway will mean something else for the UK to be seen as a laughing stock around the world!

I am available to see Qadar (perhaps Patrick, too?) at anytime and any date over the next three weeks, except morning 20 June to 1200 hrs; from 1100 hrs on Mon 24 June to 1300 hrs and Friday morning 28 June - WMCA AGM in Brum.  And I can't do Monday morning 1 July in the third week.

Best wishes

STOURBRIDGE SHUTTLE EXTENDED to car park and shops!

Anyone interested to extend the John Parry, gas powered, flywheel tram that runs, so successfully and frequently, on the 0.75 mile branch line from Stourbridge Jct (on the half used Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance") to Stourbridge Interchange?

From time to time, over the years, I have asked John to work on extending it to the 350 space, now better used car park on Stourbridge Road (next to the Household Recycling/Reuse Centre).  From there, on to High Street/Market Street via Coventry Street and back to the bus station.  This would enable some pedestrianisation of High Street and/or Market Street and bring a much needed reduction in local air pollution and fewer international greenhouse gas emissions that seem to be 'slowly' turning planet earth into planet venus.

Please ask for Moor Street, Brierley Hill for the National Very Light Rail Centre instead of the only feasible site for the reopened Dudley Castle Hill railway station on the, eventually, finished 120 Kms Black Country Railway between Worcester and Derby via Dudley and Walsall.

PLEASE RESPOND - everyone and anyone!

We can change what seems inevitable

This WOM business seems to have been resurrected by Maria who was on TV last week, I think!

Her address is  mcadmin@midlandsconnect.uk

She is another of the transport bosses who are all stuck fast in the grossly extravagant and irresponsible tram rut of putting this "bus on rails" on a half finished mainline "railway of national strategic significance", instead of doing the bleeding obvious!

Other addresses are here:​

 May 2018 A5 flyer - double sided

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Please flood them with e-mails just saying, perhaps, those five words: 'WESTERN BYPASS RAILWAY BEFORE tramway or motorway'.  Or, whatever you want to say but, say 'Yes' to something better, so as not to appear negative.  Thanks!

Pam's "decision makers" can be moved/changed.  We can change what seems inevitable eg:

1. In the 1990s, we stopped both the 16 Kms KBH and the 87 Kms WOM in their tracks!  That was a huge victory.
2. 2015 decision to put trains not trams, after all, on the 9 Kms Camp Hill railway in Brum.
3. 2016 decision for train operating companies to bid for the new franchise by putting forward a proposed passenger service on the half used 120 Kms Black Country Railway.
4. 2017 decision to put trains on our main line railway from Stourbridge Junction to Canal Street tram stop at Hart's Hill.
5. The decision was made to get the freight and passenger trains back but, the very costly "bus on rails" trams must be done first - you pay twice to get what you really want all along - a proper railway passenger service!
6. The decision to put the Very Light Rail test track on the railway from Dudley Castle Hill to Dudley Port was reversed in 2015 or 2016.  It now goes in the opposite direction.  And, still, on a nationally important railway!!
7. 8 March 2018 letter, Network Fail and the DfT finally conceded that our railway is "of national strategic significance".
8. More recorded here:​
   
    10 quotes: Bring the ghost of Queen Victoria ba...
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MANY THANKS TO YOU ALL.  PEOPLE POWER; PEOPLE PRESSURE; PEOPLE PREVAIL!

Tim

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.