More ways to spend money & get nowhere

Hi Tim.

Hope you are well.

I would like to bring to your attention, this article which appeared on the web regarding how much money this nutter of a mayor & the transport authority is applying for to the government to fund forthcoming transport projects in the East/ West Midlands.

SUMMARY BY SELF of what train driver, Dave wrote, below:

25% of Snow Hill station was converted from use by commuter trains for use by grandiose "bus on rails" trams in the 1990s.  This, when the tram could have gone down the side of the station, even then, as it now does.  But all too late!  Bringing back the 25% is to cost a colossal £27 m but, when that will be done is anybody's guess.

THE MAN WHO KNOWS, writes:

The item which really caught my eye is the cost of reinstatement of platform 4 at Birmingham Snow hill for returning services back to heavy rail.

According to this article, the cost to do this is £27million, yes, £27million.

All this to relay a few yards of track and to alter the signalling and is not expected to be completed until 2026.

Now the question is, when Snow hill was reopened by the West Midlands transport authority,  with funds paid for by the government as the railway was still run by British railway, who was the individual, or group of individuals who made the decision to allow the Metro from Wolverhampton to convert platform 4 at Snow hill for it to gain access into Snow hill station, when  there was space at the side of the station (the route it uses now to gain access to the city centre) without the need to abolish platform 4?

Would this individual or group of individuals like to offer an explanation to the public why they are now begging for £27million  of public money to reinstate this platform ? 

Or will they remain in hiding until all this gets blown over or forgotten about?

In my opinion, the cost of this scheme should be funded by the Metro alliance, use private money, after all, it was for their benefit it was closed in the first place.

SUMMARY BY SELF of what Dave has written, below:

Trains from Coventry to Leicester were popular for 100 years.  That was stopped to give priority to fast intercity trains.  That 'do it cheap and quick' blunder has been acknowledged and the 'experts' want to reinstate Coventry to Leicester by bypassing Nuneaton for the basement bargain price of only £5 m!

THE TRAIN DRIVER WHO KNOWS, writes:

Another interesting point is the scheme to run services to the East Midlands from Coventry.

These services used to run in Pe-privatised and Privatised days from Coventry to Leicester, Nottingham, and Lincoln.

These services would run via Nuneaton which required a reversal of train direction to gain access to the line to Leicester.

When the West Coast Mainline was upgraded to allow Virgin to run faster & more frequent services, Nuneaton East junction was remodelled and the crossover was removed.

This means that now there’s no access for trains arriving at Nuneaton from Coventry to carry on their journey to Leicester and beyond.

However, this has not deterred the Transport authority who want to run a service to Leicester from Coventry, but now does not want it to call at Nuneaton ( which has connections to the north ).

The only way they can do this is to link the Coventry line with the Leicester line by means of a flyover or tunnel under the West coast main line.

This would not be a cheap solution.

Would be far better to re alter the junction at Nuneaton and return to services running as they did before.

So there you have it, two examples of how people who hold position on these authorities to make decisions costing taxpayers millions of pounds and have no knowledge of transport needs as they claim to have.

MY SUMMARY:  The Pre-Metro, ultra-light rail, gas and flywheel powered Stourbridge Shuttle, is planned to bridge the gap left by the light rail "bus on rails" tram terminating at Brierley Hill town centre.  This slow, shuttle tram shuttles passengers on a successful for a 100 years, mainline railway between Stourbridge Jct on the mainline, to drop passengers off at Harts' Hill to get the light rail "bus on rails" Metro tram to Wednesbury on the same mainline railway!  You then change to the bus to get to Walsall railway station.  In the 21st century, we get two changes when from the 19th century for 100 years none were necessary to get all the way to Walsall and, even to Derby, direct from Stourbridge Jct!

We do have to travel less, to lockdown, for both Covid and Climate but this is getting ridiculous.  No wonder people just jump in the car!

THE MAN WHO KNOWS, writes:

As I send this to you pre metro operations company at Stourbridge are now applying to run a light rail service from Stourbridge to Round oak on the existing portion of the Stourbridge to Walsall freight line.

No doubt this will be approved by this nutter of a mayor and his cronies at the transport authority.

I guess the light vehicles they use will be tested on the new portion of line from Dudley to Harts' Hill, then taken by road transport to Stourbridge.

You couldn’t make all this up? 

Total incompetence by the authorities and the idiots who run them.

As I’ve said before Tim, we have no hope.

Regards 

Dave.

OUR 120 Kms COMIC RAILWAY - for trams, trees and cycles or, a joke?

"Reopen the Railways" July 2020 issue, 'RailPro', - but for what?

"Reopening closed railways", p 45 - 'Sustainability'

It has only taken the professionals to come into their sixth decade of destroying our railway lines, to finally come to their senses and to think about trains or trams or tram-trains or train-trams to go on our remaining railway lines that have survived their imposition of houses, hotels, shops, offices and roads that they have put on most of the closed railways.

In the W Midlands, our experts and politicians had used the 1950s to completely dismantle our tram network.  That success led, in the 60s, to them closing and dismantling the railway network, even in urban areas.  The 70s saw more closures and the end for about 100 Kms of railway lines.  However, the 80s saw the authorities regret their earlier decision.  They decided that getting the trams back, after all, would be a very good idea, especially on the railway lines they had closed.  1981 was the beginning of the Midland Metro tram project that was supposed to see 15 tram lines and 200 Kms of trams trundling back - by the year 2000.

However, that year saw precisely 21 Kms achieved.  And all on a disused railway line, too except, for two out of 21 Kms that took over the main road and more traffic lights for more hold-ups for trams and vehicles.  It meant more railway lines lost either side of Wolverhampton Low Level station and no chance of it ever being brought back into use for its original purpose.

In the 1990s, the leader of Dudley Council told me, in person, that our Dudley tram line, going on an even more important railway line than Metro One, would be up and running by the year 2000.  It was not.  However, twenty years later, this very year, did see the start of preparatory work on the Dudley tramline to finish 6 Kms out of 56 Kms unused, slap bang in the middle of the 120 Kms railway "of national strategic significance" between Worcester, Dudley and Derby.  What stunning progress!  Main works on the piddling little shuttle tram line to the West Coast Mainline begins next year, 2021.  In April, to be precise.  At this rate, by the end of the century, all 120 Kms or 74 miles will be finished with something or other.  They might even be trains, trams, tram-trains or train-trams.  Or, the kitchen sink.

The nationally important, half-finished, 120 Kms Black Country Comic Railway - or, is it for trams, trees and cycles - or a joke?

Yours sincerely

ANOMALY, ABERRATION, ABSURDITY!

PLEASE COVER THIS TRANSPORT ANOMALY, ABERRATION, ABSURDITY:

Capacity on our West Midlands rail network is still being denied and road and rail congestion is deliberately worsened, because:

50 years of 72 Km of double track rail line in Birmingham and the Black Country but NO passenger trains and stations.  The previous 100 years saw passenger trains and stations on ALL these lines.

Now, 21 Km (of the 72 Km) of a fast and local train line are to be destroyed to shuttle passengers for all of 2 Km on this line, from Dudley Castle Hill, to the next inter-city line in the neighbouring borough.  We are STILL not allowed to use our own nationally vital line but can only be shuttled to the nearby one that crosses ours at Dudley Port in the borough of Sandwell!  Our 21 Km Black Country inter-city Line runs from Stourbridge Junction, in the borough of Dudley, through the demolished Dudley Castle Hill station, onto the West Coast Mainline station at Dudley Port and then to Walsall.

We, in Dudley are STILL not allowed to have our own direct connection to London, Bristol and Scotland!  We are being forced to go via either rail and road congested New St Station in Birmingham or to go via Wolverhampton.  What IS the sense in that?

PLEASE COVER THIS SCANDAL!

"Revealed: £4bn plan to get city moving" Post 13 Nov

In nearly fifty years of living and working in Wider Birmingham I have seen umpteen of these magnificent transport plans that promise so much and deliver so little, if anything.

I came to Brum in the 1960s when the Victorian New Street Station had just been demolished and rebuilt to be a virtual underground station filled with poisonous diesel fumes.  In the 1970s, the Victorian Snow Hill Station went the same way - bulldozed.  Realising their error, it was quickly rebuilt but, to only half its former grand size.

In the 1980s and 90s, Midland Metro trams were all the rage but, by 2000, instead of nearly half a dozen new tram lines to replace trains and buses, we had a measly ONE and that was almost entirely built on a rail line that should never have had its trains removed!  Even then, it was never extended to New St Station.  Extraordinary!

In this year of our Lord and Master, Cllr Albert Bore - 2014, we STILL have the six miles double track rail line through Kings Norton, Kings Heath and Moseley without stations or trains.  Nose to tail rush hour congestion alongside an empty double track rail line.  Scandalous!

In addition, we have the 13 miles of the Stourbridge, Dudley, Walsall double track rail line also devoid of trains and stations.  It goes within half a mile of the Merry Hill Shopping Centre, almost next to Dudley Zoo and Castle, very near to the Black Country Living Museum, links with the West Coast Main Line and our precious, one and only tram line at Wednesbury.  Empty of trains; not even any ghost trains.  Fifty years of unparalleled negligence and, after the stupidity of the line being closed in the first place!

The one triumph was the re-opening of the cross rail line from Longbridge to Four Oaks.  Amazing!  How was it done?  Nothing like it has ever been seen since by our pie in the sky transport experts.  But, today things have changed for ever by these same visionary transport officials.  We can now rest happy in our beds knowing that things are looking up - at long last!