DUDLEY AND SANDWELL TRAMS MAKE THE 120 KMS PRINCIPAL MAINLINE RAILWAY WORTHLESS!

DUDLEY AND SANDWELL TRAMS  MAKE THE 120 KMS PRINCIPAL MAINLINE RAILWAY WORTHLESS!

120 KMS WORCESTER, BLACK COUNTRY, DERBY RAILWAY "of national strategic significance" will lose its national importance.  Slow, frequent stopping trams will block the mainline for faster regional trains and, intercity trains will be impossible.  This is NOT what the train travellers over the first one hundred years enjoyed. This is no way to respond to the climate emergency that must be tackled.  And very foolish to waste the 50 Kms for many more years, perhaps even decades. In addition, Dudley is the largest town in the UK, by population, without a railway station.​

Railfuture's full map.pdf

​It will be the world's first train-tram-train mainline railway and no wonder!  Fast trains, eventually from Worcester to Brierley Hill; change for slow, frequent stopping trams to Wednesbury for the 17 tram stops in 10.7 Kms; change at Wednesbury for quick trains to Walsall, Lichfield and Derby.  This makes for a nightmare journey, forcing through passengers to continue to go via congested Brum's 'Grand Central and Diesel Perfumed Station Tagged Along As An Afterthought In The Basement Of The John Lewis Store', station!!

It really does spoil, for ever, the UK's only supposedly 'safeguarded', mainline railway "of national strategic significance", that is essential to bypass Brum's railway stations and to give something to Brum's neighbours in the equally large population of the Black Country.

MISSION STATEMENT

Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill; Derby to Devon via Dudley - by TRAIN not "bus on rails" trams as they are wanting; nor with new extended cycle-walkway, as volunteers are working on!  Trams good; trains best; very slow 120 Kms train-tram-train railway is barely better than nothing (really, a nightmare journey)!

The climate crisis means reducing expenditure to reduce greenhouse gases.  It's all about treading more lightly on the planet - saving/conserving resources and connecting with nature first and foremost.  NOT travel connectivity!!

Tim Weller

The tram train on the Black Country Rail Line

Here are my points for being apprehensive over ultra light rail going on the Black Country Line:

1. It gives you all an excuse for further delay to get down to increasing rail capacity, especially when it is so important to take the pressure off New Street Station.
2. Once ultra light rail is in place, it will be very difficult not to extend it in bite sized chunks, as was the intention with Metro.  The bite sized chunks business never materialised for Metro, so that is a bad omen for very light rail.
3. Once ultra light rail is in place, it will be difficult to then rip it up and replace it with heavy rail.  Better to put back the everyday, well tried and tested, heavy rail trains, with stations.
4. Heavy rail can be put back quicker than an innovative tram train that still needs much development.
5. Nick Mallinson confirmed that what his WMG is developing is unheard of on the mainland of Europe that is generally considered to have an excellent rail service from Spain and Italy to Scandanavia.
6. Ultra light rail would be ideal for urban areas that have no heavy rail tracks already in place.  Best to use existing heavy rail tracks for heavy rail trains.
7. Nick wants one track as a test track and the other one for a shuttle service for the tram train.  From John Parry's experience in taking very many years to put his already tried and tested PPM on the Stourbridge branch line, it is bound to take a similar number of years to get permission for the tram train to be able to be safe for a public service.
8. John Parry had his own circular test track for many years at his business address in Cradley.  Should Nick not be using that?
9. In other words, it will take years for the tram train to be safe and sufficiently reliable for a public paying shuttle service between Castle Hill and Dudley Port.
10. There are two possible better locations for an innovative vehicle to be tried and tested.  One might be the open space that once took the Dudley to Wolverhampton rail line before it was built on, further on.  There is space there for them to test the tram train between Station Drive and on to the rear of the Black Country Museum and directly to the Dudley Canal Trust.  The other might be the old line, branching off the Black Country Line, from Silver End in Brierley Hill, through Brockmoor to Pensnett.