Warwick Manufacturing Group is CORRECT; Head of Metro Development is WRONG!

from Peter Adams, Head of Metro Development, 5 Dec 2016 Tim Weller's rebuttal in blue.

 

"The e-mail below by Dr Mallinson of Warwick Manufacturing Group has been brought to my attention.

Dr Mallinson is incorrect to state that “the arrival of metro using the South Staffordshire alignment dictates that heavy rail passenger services are no longer possible.”  I continue to maintain how very right Nick Mallinson is.  The tram train is NOT a “heavy rail passenger service”. To say so is being dishonest.

The current Wednesbury – Brierley Hill light rail proposals would not prevent the Stourbridge - Walsall route reopening for conventional freight and passenger train services in the longer term, as they will be designed to allow passive provision for future conversion to shared running of trams and trains on the corridor. Passive provision for only another kind of tram - the tram train over 20 Kms that still excludes the wasted 36 Kms mainline between Walsall and Burton on Trent.  It is most misleading to call the tram train as a “conventional passenger train service”.

 

The practicality of this can be demonstrated by the fact that shared running of trains and tram services over the same infrastructure already occurs elsewhere in Europe and is shortly to be introduced between Sheffield and Rotherham."

 

This is a photo of the tram train that is being introduced on the short 12 Kms between Sheffield Cathedral and Rotherham Parkgate.  It is not suitable on a fast mainline 120 Kms railway, as Peter thinks.

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 Image of tram train.pdf

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Peter writes about “The current Wednesbury – Brierley Hill light rail proposals would not prevent the Stourbridge - Walsall route reopening for conventional freight and passenger train services in the longer term”.  His closing sentence reveals that by that he means the tram train that is being used on the 12 Kms between Sheffield and Rotherham.  It is NOT a conventional passenger train.  It must stop at every 14 tram stops to maintain the frequency that passengers have grown accustomed to with the trams.  Therefore, using it on our 120 Kms Black Country mainline is like putting London Underground trains on the London to Paris HS1 line.  Thinkable only for a certain kind of peculiar mind set.

 

Railway trains go on railway lines.  Do it, please, for every sensible reason in the book and so help bring our “very old Victorian railway” (Sir Peter Hendy) into the modern age! The Brits, last year, sold 14 electric hydrogen trains to Germany. Use them to complete the Black Country Railway - in style.

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 FOUND OUT!

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Tim Weller

Great Brexit Britain steals a march on Germany!

How is it that patriotic, flag waving, Great Brexit Britain is buying foreign built "bus on rails" trams, at ten times the price of a double decker bus, to wreck any possibility of our British built hydrogen electric trains completing the full 120 Kms Black Country Railway?

Slow, frequent stopping trams preventing forever the train that, last year, we sold to Germany - 14 British hydrogen electric trains are now in use in Lower Saxony.

Turning a 120 Kms mainline railway "of national strategic significance" (Network Rail/DfT) into a piddling little tram line of 6.7 Kms is the ultimate stupidity that Black Country councillors, MPs and transport 'experts' have wanted for the last 37 years.  In 1999, the tram on another commuter railway destroyed one Wolverhampton mainline station, 2 Kms of railway line and, platform 4 at Snow Hill station remains unused since the tram bypassed Snow Hill station two years ago. The sole reason for the £60m/Km extension was to link Snow Hill to Grand Central that it does not do!  Such is their incompetence and folly and, dishonesty in getting the money under false pretences.

Central government, on the 8 March, finally recognised the importance of the 120 Kms strategic, nationally important railway between Worcester, the Black Country and Derby.  Because of devolution, it seems they are powerless to stop the idiocy of the W Mids Combined Authority and the incompetence of Mayor Andy Street and his transport lead, Cllr Roger Lawrence.  Incompetence, idiocy and irresponsibility in spending an official £343 million to turn the unused 56 Kms Black Country section, out of 120 Kms, into a 2 Kms test track in the middle of 6.7 Kms of tram line, a cycle-walkway, a trail of trees and Himalayan Balsam and, 6 Kms of freight only railway line.  They have approved a £30 million Very Light Rail innovation centre to go on the only feasible site for Dudley’s mainline station that was so successful for 100 years and would be again if they used this existing railway, “of national strategic significance”, for regional and commuter trains.

Both well-meaning but hopeless politicians should resign - now.

Tim Weller 12 April 2018