The Scandal, the Scam and the Sin for faith leaders to address

I want our Christian and all faith leaders to speak out against this immorality and, quite honestly, plain stupidity.  Will YOU do so?

THE SCANDAL

In 42 years, only 23 Kms of Metro tramline are open, costing £100s million of taxpayers' money in salaries of office staff, purchase of trams and in construction.  200 Kms was wanted by 2000, 23 years ago!

18 Kms of those 23 Kms were on a former mainline railway that was never connected to even the bus station let alone the railway station in Wolverhampton that was the case for 100 years with the trains!

An even more important mainline railway "of national strategic significance" is being used for trams on only 5.5 Kms out of 56 Kms that is STILL without the commuter, regional and freight trains between Stourbridge Jct and Burton on Trent.  This is the Worcester to Derby Railway on one of only two N-S lines between Brum and the Irish Sea!

There remains 99.5 Kms, in Brum, the Black Country, S Staffs that are mothballed for eventual trains or, are freight only!

THE SCAM

High Scam 2 trains only stop at 3 terminal stations, two airports and some will divert into Brum and Crewe.  A branch into E Mids Parkway is hoped for.  PUT TRAINS ON THE RAILWAY LINES WE STILL HAVE!

Therefore, every intercity train must remain in service for all those towns and cities that High Scam 2 is far too fast to stop at!

Capacity is increased only from providing a high speed line between the N edge of London and two other cities and their airports.  Yet, it results in the destruction of nature, more pressure on water supplies - costing tens of billions of pounds in price and in weight of greenhouse gases.

Another SIN of omission!

For over 15 years, I have enjoyed free public transport throughout the West Midlands and, in all of England as regards buses.  I really don't need it!

Yet, I get held up on the bus as rush hour cars take commuters into Brum city centre when they do not need the cars for their work.

These people should have the Fare-Free Public Transport since they must travel into work and, in so doing, would free up the road space for essential vehicle users, like mobile/shift workers, the work bus and regular buses.  FREE education, health and regional rail/national bus use.

Very expensive land is taken for car parking for commuter cars that could be used for apartments for the badly housed, migrants and our own children.  Save the countryside for food grown to feed us all.

URGENT COURT INJUNCTION IMMEDIATELY - TODAY

Dear Cllr John - and for Richard Parker who is also responsible as the very likely next metro Mayor of the CA.

Congratulations on your elevation to Leader.  You are now responsible for W Midlands transport and I would urge you to do as I am suggesting, below.  Please will you respond?  Please give your opinion.

This matter over transport misspending and incompetence has been disastrous for decades and is completely the wrong way to go.  I would like an urgent phone or face to face meeting, please John.

The biggest ever UK finance/transport scandal is all evidenced here, John:

 The biggest and longest running scandal in UK t...

 THE SCANDAL IN FOUR LINES

 40 short statements never corrected or even cha...

 6 scandals on the 40th anniversary of the W Mid...

Many thanks for sensible, responsible action at long last.

Tim   (Weller)   0791 380 4363    28 Hunnington Cres  HALESOWEN  B63 3DJ

Dear Tony (my barrister brother in law)

I am asking you that you please arrange, at my expense (up to £10,000 maximum), today to ensure by injunction:

That the first item on the agenda at Friday's WMCA Board meeting on 9 June 2023 be this resolution to be debated and voted on:

In the light of the WMCA climate emergency and ecological/economic pressures,

1. This WMCA Board authorises an immediate halt on all expenditure on new immoral Metro light rail (LR), together with very light rail (VLR) and ultra light rail (ULR like Stourbridge Shuttle) extensions.
2. This means expenditure ends on anymore work on Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Extension Phase 2 (LR) and Coventry work on VLR.
3. This Board recommends a halt, immediately, all expenditure and work on extending High Scam 2 beyond Birmingham, ie towards Crewe (Phase 2a) and NE to East Midlands Parkway (HS2 East).
4. This Board authorises all WMCA staff working on Sprint, LR, VLR and ULR extensions be rapidly retrained and redeployed into addressing the climate emergency by putting a rocket under the present lethargic work on retrofitting to ensure every building in the WMCA region is effectively insulated with minimum fire risk and maximum solar power.
5. This Board authorises that the major WMCA transport budget wasted on replacing perfectly good buses and trains with trams, be relegated in importance and diverted into retrofitting and PV solar installation having the major slice of the WMCA financial pie.

Many thanks

The biggest & longest running scandal in the history of the UK ...

Constant building, demolition, rebuilding ... of Centenary Sq, Brum ring road, tram network and W Midlands railway network.

MORE DETAIL

Centenary Square in the first two decades of this century was rebuilt three times!

Brum inner ring road built and then demolished in two places within 20 years.

The tram network obliterated in the 50s;

the urban railway network from the 60s onwards.

In the 80s, the Metro tram network began to be rebuilt on the railway network, of all things, not yet used for roads and buildings. 

In the 2020s, we find TWO mainline railways have been wrecked by Metro. The most recent is the 120 Kms Black Country Mainline Railway "of national strategic significance"!!

This second tramline ALSO destroys the only public open space, nature, housing land and my guerrilla garden - at Merry Hill Shopping Centre!

Tim Weller 0791 380 4363

The WM Metro Trouble on its 40th birthday

4 scandals on the 40th anniversary of Metro!

SUMMARY:

• former mainline railway gets given to trams!

• even a former, principal mainline “of national strategic significance” (8 March 2018 letter from DfT) goes the same way!

• the cost is exorbitant for Metro trams - even on railway lines.

• £4 million for electric “bus on rails” tram; £325,000 for electric bus.

SCANDAL 1 - former mainline railway gets given to trams!

1. West Midlands Metro tram project started in 1981, according to Wikipedia.

2. This was only twenty years after they had closed and dismantled the first tram network!

3. Soon realising that they had closed and destroyed many railway lines, they promptly set about rebuilding the tram network - but, on the closed railway lines not yet built on!

4. The first tram operation started in 1999 on a mainline railway between Snow Hill, Wolverhampton Low Level and Shrewsbury.

5. This meant that 25% of Snow Hill station was taken out of use.

6. Plus Wolverhampton's second, principal mainline station, Low Level.

7. Plus 3 or 4 Kms of double track railway line between Brum and Shrewsbury in the Wolverhampton area.  All gone for ever!

8. Then, came the next idiocy.  The tram was connected to the bus station only.  They forgot all about the railway station!

9. Never fear, next year, the tram arrives at the railway station, too.  Only 40 years late!

10. The Wolverhampton railway station for Snow Hill trains was isolated and remained redundant before becoming a conference and events centre.

It would have been quicker, simpler, more obvious and very much cheaper, even to this failed 11+ dunce, that the train could have taken the strain and, 15 years earlier, too!  Fewer stops for the commuter train but, always a bus to take passengers to the station and onwards at the arrival station.  Called integrated transport.

SCANDAL 2 - even a former, principal mainline “of national strategic significance” (8 March 2018 letter) goes the same way!

1. An even more important mainline railway has been blocked for freight and commuter/regional trains for 40 years.

2. This is the 120 Kms Black Country Mainline between Worcester and Derby.

3. The middle 56 Kms, between Burton on Trent and Stourbridge, is built with all motorway, road and canal crossings completed for trains but, not a single train has ever run for over 50 years.

4. Instead, they are using it for the 10 Kms Wednesbury, Brierley Hill Extension (WBHE) for trams, only.  Not trains!

5. Two short sections, totalling 6.7 Kms of the 56 Kms, will get Metro trams.

6. In the middle of the 6.7 Kms there is a Very Light Rail test track of 2 Kms through the former mainline railway tunnel under Dudley Castle Hill.

7. The section between Brierley Hill and Stourbridge may get the third kind of tram on the mainline - the Stourbridge Shuttle, extended from the world's shortest branch line between Stourbridge Town and Junction stations.

8. This makes for three kinds of "bus on rails" trams when, for 100 years, passenger and freight trains used it between Crewe/Derby and Worcester/Oxford/Bristol.  Talk about incompetence!

SCANDAL 3 - the cost is exorbitant for Metro trams - even on railway lines.

1. The cost is half a billion pounds for the light rail Metro "bus on rails" tram over 10 Kms.  £47 m/Km for the WBHE.

2. The cost is £75 m/Km for the Westside extension.

3. In Sept 2015, the cost of a 50 Kms rebuilt railway from Edinburgh to the Southern Uplands to terminate at Tweedbank was £7 m/Km

4. Compare this to the Metro Eastside extension at £133 m/Km.  How can they spend so much of our money like this?  A big difference between £7 m/Km and £133 m/Km!

SCANDAL 4 - £4 million for electric “bus on rails” tram; £325,000 for electric bus

1. This year, the Corporation tram tracks had to be dug up and relaid after only five years (2016 to 2021).

2. The 1999 tram had to have its tracks relaid near the Wolverhampton end after 16 or 17 years.

3. Three or four small businesses in Bilston Road lost custom and closed during the months it took for the tram line to be relaid.

4. The electric "bus on rails" trams cost £4 m each.  Chassis cracks in trams have closed the complete tram network since November 13th for at least four weeks.

5. The electric bus, minus the supposedly ever so important and essential rails, costs £325,000 each (source: email from Ember buses, Scotland).

We have a winning, knock out argument!

Thanks, Andi for this.

With the 87 Kms WOM in the 90s, I was campaigning up and down the line of the route at public meetings I organised and, in two General Elections for the Green Pary - '92 and '97.  Always being positive by saying the Black Country Railway that runs parallel to the line of the proposed KBH and M5/M6 needed the passenger trains back over its entire length before building the WOM.  At that time, I was saying only as far as Walsall.  Only in this decade did the railway lobby groups tell me that it does, in fact, go all the way to Burton on Trent with double track lines but no passenger trains - 56 Kms unused, wasted, with every engineering structure in place, like the bridge over the M6 Toll!  Look at my photos:​

 M6 Toll banner 01.jpg

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 M6 Toll 03.jpg

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You write, Andi that "we aren't ignoring the issue at all".  By that you mean the WOM.  That is brilliant.  What I am asking is that all greens and Greens to please campaign, from now on, for completing the 120 Kms Western Bypass Railway, aka Black Country Main Line Railway, FIRST AND FOREMOST, before anymore work on the WOM.  Our railway line that goes through Netherton is "of national strategic significance".  It must have regional and commuter trains and not "bus on rails" trams.  "Bus on rails" trams are immorally expensive and prevent the return of regional and even inter-city trains coming to the Black Country.  The authorities are deceiving us when they say we must have trams first in order to get the trains back.  It is a lie.  And, is further evidence of the longest running and biggest scandal in UK finance/transport history.  I have written reams about it over the years.

The threat of the WOM makes it even more urgent that all Greens and greens read my stuff over recent years about trains back on our existing railway lines instead of trams.  It is the most important argument to deploy to delay the WOM further.  How can anyone disagree with the parallel and nearby, unused main line railway being given top priority over the WOM?  We have a winning, knock out argument!

With Dudley GP on board we can stop the trams stopping the trains AND stop or, at least delay, the WOM in the process.  Do you all now get the importance of what I have been writing about for years?

Please don't ignore what I am saying and please help me!!  This campaign to delay the WOM and get the trains back FIRST should never have been a one person campaign, as it certainly feels like to me.

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 FAKE NEWS, MISLEADING STATEMENTS AND LIES

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 Revealing financial comparisons

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 Cost comparisons

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 28 transport tragedies for 37 years - so far!

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Tim

Corrupt transport practices

This is a scandal, a disgrace and has gone on for decades.

• 78 Km of unused or goods only, double track rail lines alongside/near congested roads in the Black Country and Birmingham.
• Further 58 Km from Walsall to Derby via Lichfield is still not available for passenger trains.
• 2 important rail curves still not built - after 50 years.
• £750 m (all rail money?) for Grand Central Shopping Centre with the main line station tagged along as an afterthought and stuck in the basement.
• Now, plan for transport money going for subsidising M6 Toll to further reduce the amount of money for urban Beeching rail reversals in the Black Country and Brum.
• The W Midlands Combined Authority remains corruptly biased towards road schemes; secondly, towards super expensive tram extensions in Birmingham city centre; thirdly, £12 m for a second rapid transit mode to duplicate the first, trams. What little money is left over may then go to Brum rail schemes 
• Beeching rail reversals continue to be sidelined in the Midlands.

YOU ONLY GET WHAT YOU ASK FOR!

THANKS to all those who saw the forgotten railway on Sunday, 21 Feb.  We are forbidden, even after 50 years, to have our trains back.  Don't stand for it!

If you think that every mile should be available for us to travel on by diesel train (in the first instance) and from Stourbridge to Walsall (later to Lichfield and Derby) please say so to:

Patrick McLoughlin, Secretary of State for Transport                     patrick.mcloughlin@dft.gsi.gov.uk

​Claire Perry​,  Rail Minister claire.perry@dft.gsi.gov.uk  

Cllr Bob Sleigh, Chair of the W Mids Combined Authority      rsleigh@solihull.gov.uk

Cllr Darren Cooper, Vice Chair                                        darren_cooper@sandwell.gov.uk

James Aspinall, Managing Director, Centro                   jamesaspinall@centro.org.uk

Laura Shoaf, W Mids Integrated Transport Authority                     laurashoaf@wmita.org.uk

Stuart Everton, Black Country Director of Transport             stuart.everton@wolverhampton.gov.uk

Don't forget to remind them that they do have to write an unbeatable business case first!!

Don't forget to ask them to all go down to London and pay a visit to our Patrick and Claire for them to agree the transfer of funds from the two short sections for electric trams to be used instead for the full 21 Km for diesel trains.  They have enough money in the bank already (£207 m when they only need £72 m).

THANKS V MUCH!  They must be very fed up hearing from me.  One person can easily be ignored, as I am.  Put all 7 in the one e-mail, if you like.  Think up your own cheeky or attention grabbing subject field.

THE PLANNED BREAK UP OF THIS MAIN LINE RAILWAY IS PERMANENT AND A DISGRACE:

The UK’s only unused, major, North-South main line railway is to be sectioned up into:

from south to north, we have planned,​ in order,

  6 Km: daily, 25 waggon goods trains from Port Talbot to Round Oak, via Stourbridge Jct

  4 Km: Light Rail Metro trams (£310 m for 12 Km, inclu 4 Km of road running)

  2 Km: Very Light Rail shuttle trams, through Dudley Tunnel to Cinder Bank road

  4 Km: Light Rail Metro trams (£310 m for 12 Km, inclu 4 Km of road running)

  3 Km: Empty, private space of linear wilderness of shrubs, trees, Himalayan Balsam (an illegal plant)

  2 Km: of passenger trains - Bescot to Walsall

TOTAL: 21 Km   (approx distances)

This is 21 Km of a 74 Km main line railway between Stourbridge Jct and Derby through the increasingly densely populated and road/rail congested Black Country - the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall, with a population of a million.  Diesels and four rebuilt stations is £72 million (based on last year’s rural Beeching reinstatement in Scotland at £6 m per Km).

My reasons​ for wanting the trains back on every kilometre (​at a quarter of the price​ of trams on 8 Km, plus road running on 4 Km)​ instead of trams on 8 Km of the main line railway​:

1. It is the UK's last remaining, easily reinstated north-south main line railway between Stourbridge and Derby.  Therefore, the most important unused rail line.
2. The only one between train congested Grand Central Shopping Centre/basement station and the Hereford to Shrewsbury Line
3. 74 Km between the two towns of Stourbridge and Derby.
4. 21 Km between Stourbridge and Walsall that urgently needs to be reinstated first.
5. This would be only the 3rd Beeching reversal in 50 years in the Black Country and Brum.
6. Only 12 Km needs to have the track relaid and four stations rebuilt to give everyone 21 Km of passenger line, once more.
7. COST: 12 Km x £6 m per Km = £72 million, including the stations (based on Beeching rural rail reversal in Scotland last year).
8. It reduces chronic and worsening road and rail congestion in the Black Country and Brum.
9. Quicker, simpler, cheaper and easier to achieve than 12 Km of road and rail running trams that the councillors and Centro officers have failed to achieve in 35 years of trying.
10. If they were ever to succeed, it would destroy for an eternity and beyond, the possibility of passenger trains from London Paddington and the North being seen again in the Black Country!