Extravagance for the authorities; austerity for the rest of us - my definition of corruption!

Extravagance for the authorities; austerity for the rest of us - my definition of corruption!

£750 million for the grand Grand Central Shopping Centre, atrium and concourse with the mainline station put in the basement - tagged along as an afterthought.  Still, on the platforms and in the ‘Stop and Crawl’ car tunnel, poisonous diesel fumes to harm our health.  Still, no additional tunnels for the trains to ease train congestion!

£190 million magnificent New Library of Brum opened as smaller libraries closed or were given restricted opening hours.  Just like the new library in its second year of opening!

£86.6 million for Midland Metro trams to Centenary Square from Snow Hill Station (less than one mile) - to replace buses.  Cast iron business case for this profligacy, of course.

£62 million to promote cycling in Birmingham and to give away 5,000 free bikes to Brummies.  No business case of any kind, I believe.

£25 m for a tram on one line for one mile, and the test track on the other.  This prevents the Black Country ICE (inter city express) Line of 13 miles re-opening.

£10 million per mile for Beeching rural line re-opening in depopulated southern Scotland in September.  In this age of austerity, a strong business case was made.  Yet, nothing for the Black Country ICE (inter city express) Line that remains closed.

£100 million per mile for smooth, sleek electric trams to return to Brum city centre to replace hybrid buses.  In this age of austerity, a robust business case made the funding vital.  Yet, nothing for the Black Country ICE Line that remains closed.

£130 million for 1.5 Km (just under one mile) that includes some new trams for the Eastside extension.  In this age of austerity, an unassailable business case was made for the project to go ahead.  This is 13 times more expensive than reinstating passenger trains and stations on nearly 50 miles of freight only lines, like the unused Black Country ICE (inter city express) Line.

£1,000 million per mile (estimate) for HS2 to come to Curzon Street Station in 2026.  Whatever the cost, the watertight business case made this project essential.  It is absolutely vital for the transport and economic health of the nation.  Isn't it funny, that there is still nothing for the Black Country ICE Line that remains closed to passengers?

Isn’t it funny that every business case that is written strongly confirms whatever the unthinking, grey-suited, fine old politicians of ours, want?

15 July 2015

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.

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!