Slack threads

Phil Sturgeon, Please will you help me over the major, strategic 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway?  It EXISTS (like our forgotten 120 Kms railway) and is down on the OS Explorer map 219, Wolverhampton and Dudley as "Traffic-free cycle route' but only people in wellies and on mountain bikes can use two long sections of it!  Please email MayorsOffice@wmca.org.uk and send the reply to me - PLEASE, Phil!  Thanks, Tim  We must quickly reduce our deadly greenhouse gas emissions.

Tack Farm, Dowery Dell Trail and W Mids National Park

 Thanks, Chris for your interest in these matters.

The name is Charles Bibbey at 

Tack Farm, Uffmoor Lane, Romsley, Halesowen B62 0NP

St Modwen, I understand, wants to develop the land for housing, when we need it to grow our food to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  One contact I have for St Modwen is Rob Flavell who is copied into this email if he wishes to clarify for us where his company stands on this matter.

I would also be glad of your support for Rob/St Modwen to finish the Dowery Dell Trail - our name for the walkway on or near the Halesowen Railway line to Longbridge High Street.  Roy Burgess gave it that name.  It runs from the new path I re-opened on the public right of way in 2019, that starts in the SE corner of land owned by Romsley and Hunnington Sports and Social Club, opposite the former Blue Bird sweet factory.  We have the landowner's permission to walk the railway line from the site of the Dowery Dell viaduct to the right of way subway beneath the M5 and, from there, it is a cycle-walkway, signed as a public footpath that soon becomes the Princess Diana Way and/or NCR5 but, goes only to the A38 at Rubery/Rednal.  It comes out into Leybrook Road by Colmers Farm Primary School on the A38.

St Modwen knows that it needs to be finished, through their land, on the north side of the R Rea, aka Callow Brook so that it takes the old railway line tunnel beneath the A38 (safeguarded and available) into Austin Park.  However, it is taking a very long time to be finished!

Would you also be so good as to support Prof Kathryn Moore, also copied in so you get her email address, over the West Mids National Park plan that is fully endorsed by the WMCA.  Mick Freer (michael.freer@btinternet.com) is not enamoured with the idea, thinking that the purpose is to facilitate economic growth and more loss of greenbelt.  However, Roy Burgess and I are wanting the Clent Hills Country Park to be extended into its foothills as the Clent Hills Regional Park over our 32 sq Kms Golden Green Triangle, bounded by M5, A456 and A491.

Many thanks and best wishes

Modern and multi-modal - Facebook and Twitter

Tramways must be built because it is "a modern form of public transport" (Cllr Qadar Zada) and is "multi-modal transport", says Mayor Andy Street.

Modern because in the modern age, trams are taking over from buses and trains at the most colossal expense.  Multi-modal means that an additional delay is caused by having to change from bus or train onto the tram.  More waiting and a slower journey.  Therefore, it puts people off from using public transport.

Far better to use the £15 billion to 2040 for extending FFPT from the elderly to everyone and, to give us electric buses directly onto the road without the rails having to be laid first.  Give us bus priority roads.

Space for the "bus on rails" trams at the bus station means more congestion for the buses that go directly on the roads without having all the fuss and expense of digging up the roads for the "bus on rails" tram. Replace diesel buses with electric buses!

YOU SAY:  The Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Metro extension will boost public transport in the Black Country, providing much-needed links to the existing heavy and light rail networks.

I SAY: Use the half a billion to boost existing public transport with such a large percentage drop of people using it.  Boost it by extending Fare-Free Public Transport to everybody.  As a reward for doing the right thing in leaving the car at home and as compensation for the slightly higher risk of getting Covid.

Dave Harries

I know wht you mean 

Tim

 but surely, irrespective of the noise (which I presume is what you are referring to) a freight train is no bad thing, whichever way it goes, when you consider how many lorry journeys are taken off the roads by one freight train?

With commuter trains finally going back on the Kings Norton, Kings Heath, Moseley line, freight on that line may be needed on the 120 Kms railway. Nothing to do with noise, Dave! Perhaps, freight can go on at night with trams during the day? But still a misuse and underuse of an important mainline railway. The test track is another complication for rail freight operators but they have never done anything to stop the trams!

Carl M Cox 17 tram stops over 11 Kms makes for a compulsory tram stop every 650 m. How does that compare with buses that only stop when requested? On Metro One tramway, the average speed is 20 mph when I've been on it. 13 miles in 40 mins = 20 mph. Certainly quicker than the bus but, why did you all lose about 100 Kms of railway lines to homes, shops, offices, roads and trams since the 1970s? Just put the trains back before anymore railway lines are destroyed - as you are doing, in fact!

Thanks for this, Carl. But why not save all those deadly greenhouse gases and have electric buses with pneumatic tyres directly on roads? Phase-out diesel buses. Use the money saved to put freight/commuter trains back on all 120 Kms and there would still be money left to extend Fare-Free Public Transport (FFPT) to your age group, too! I've had it for 13 years I'm so ancient. And FFPT is done in about 100 towns and cities around the world, according to Bob Whitehead who has researched it.

Jackie, Dudley Leisure Centre is the second newest leisure centre in Dudley borough. It is a shocking waste of finite fossil fuels and spews out yet more deadly greenhouse gases to move it all of a 1 Km walk to Flood St tram stop. I am worried about future of you young people! 15.1.21

7 Kms still leaves 49 Kms out of the full 120 Kms

YOU SAY: "the disused South Staffordshire Railway which will make up more than seven kilometres of the tramway." I SAY:, that is most of the tramway going on the UK's last, mothballed, mainline railway "of national strategic significance" (NR, DfT) that is needed to take freight trains off Brum's railways. What a sad waste of a railway to break it up for trams, a VLR test track and a cycle-walkway!

WMD should never be contemplated

 My reasons for opposing WMD:

1. They are far too destructive to be of any practical use in a time of war.
2. It is illegal to kill non-combatants.
3. Their use does not meet just war criteria.
4. They have failed to stop wars since their invention and, could so easily have been used.
5. They are climate-wrecking in their construction and ecocidal in use.
6. Diplomacy and sanctions must be used
7. Conflict resolution must be used.
8. WMD are pointless, immoral and use finite fossil fuels and precious raw materials that we desperately need in the future.

LIGHT RAIL IS DONE TO GET HEAVY RAIL!

The reason VLR test track is heavy rail, I had thought, was because the VLR rolling stock is meant to go on existing heavy rail lines to allow the present rolling stock to be phased out for something lighter and, therefore, with lower impact on depleting finite fossil fuels and lower greenhouse gas emissions.  Is that right, Nick?

Since the announcement of the VLR Innovation Centre on the site of Dudley Castle Hill railway station (at the end of 2013, I think), I have been pointing out that there is the 3 Kms, safeguarded/mothballed, Pensnett branch line from Moor Street, Brierley Hill, north to the A4101 that would be more suitable and allow the railway station at Castle Hill to be rebuilt, as is their stated intention:-

"In a letter dated 18.9.2000, from Tom Magrath, Passenger Services Director, Centro:

'light rail investment provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time.'

To tell me that light rail Metro was needed to be put on the Black Country Line in order to be able to restore heavy rail services at a later date on that line is complete nonsense.  That idiocy is now repeated with the insistence that Very Light Rail must go on that inter-city line but that it will not stop express and local trains returning at a later date (conversation with David Golding, Principal Strategic Planner, Network Rail at ITA meeting on 16.7.2015)  No wonder, I am thinking that there is something very corrupt, very wrong at the heart of the West Midlands Combined Authority, Network Rail, ITA, Centro - and, for decades, too.  They all want express and local trains returning but want Light Rail and/or Very Light Rail, first to help get the everyday trains back!"

from:

 Magrath quote, MM history and costs

Best wishes

team@whatdotheyknow.com

 Dear West Midlands Combined Authority

Is it true that finishing the mainline railway for mainline trains and freight is cheaper, EVEN TODAY, than converting it to part tram line, part test track, part cycle-walkway?

Is it true that using TRAINS on the full 120 Kms between Worcester, the Black Country and Derby to finish what you have started, would be very much cheaper than spending the £449.5 million, even without the cost overruns, to put Metro trams on only 6.7 Kms out of the wasted and unused 56 Kms?

You are spending about three times more to spoil it than to finish what you have started! Is that true?

IN SUMMARY:
Would it still, today 7 December 2020, be much cheaper to abandon the tram works and to finish the whole railway with TRAINS and STATIONS between Stourbridge and Burton on Trent?

Tim Weller

Twitter to Rob Mayor

 I like your "got to think positively", Andrew. About Covid and about Climate/Ecology/Nature crisis, too. But that one means positive action, too - somewhat more challenging but I'm trying and my wife, too in setting the best example we can! Lockdown for Climate, too.

A shocking waste of resources to replace buses and trains

THIS IS THE SCALE OF THE SCANDAL and, another nail in our (homo sapiens) coffin:

£7 m/Km for the rebuilt, 50 Km Borders Railway in Sept 2015 - public money

£21 m/Km for the 43 Kms M6 Toll in Dec 2003 - all private money

£75 m/Km for the Broad St Metro extension in 2021: now worse for bussing in

£133 m/Km for the Brum Eastside Metro extension in 2023- public money

over £200 m/Km for HS2 - all public money

HALF A BILLION (for trams) TO BREAK UP the UK's last mainline railway, half-finished, virtually ready built but only half used, 120 Kms Worcester, Black Country, Derby railway.

A further 50 Kms in the W Mids, alone, are still waiting for their passenger trains to be returned.

Thanks for writing, Owen.  Good points.  I do have a life to live and I have been suggesting that the railway industry should finish electrification throughout all my long life.  However, I'm such a successful failure that, instead, they have completely misunderstood and, run homes, shops, offices and roads down them!

Facebook BrownhillsBob

 Does anyone agree with me that the 120 Kms Black Country mainline Railway aka S Staffs railway, from Worcester to Derby, should be finished with trains and stations instead of the Walsall cycle-walkway, on the line, being extended from Brownhills to Lichfield?

We have been spending the last 50 years turning our closed railway lines into everything but the kitchen sink. The 120 Kms between Worcester and Derby via Walsall is vital for freight trains to take the pressure off Brum lines and Grand Central for when the Camp Hill line reopens to commuter trains. Passenger trains on our wasted line are vital to take the pressure off the normally clogged M5/M6. EVERY crossing is built to cross the two motorways and many main roads and canals. But still no trains! Less than £200 million to finish the full 120 Kms, instead of half a billion to shuttle passengers on the shuttle tram between the two sections totaling 64 Kms. The Great Transport Competition says £120 m between Walsall and Stourbridge for passenger and freight trains.

I don't want a single vote - not even mine - honest! I'm being positive, constructive and helpful to the 'experts' and real politicians as to how they can cut greenhouse gases, congestion and lessen the Climate, Ecological and Nature emergency. Just as David Attenborough thinks would be a very good idea, indeed!

EVERY crossing is built to cross the two motorways and many main roads and canals with freight and passenger trains. But still no trains! What they are doing, instead, is rather like putting London tube trains on the London to Paris Eurostar HS1 line. The epitomy of absurdity. More info from timweller1@gmail.com

It is difficult to run freight trains at night between Stourbridge and Burton on Trent when 2 Kms of the 56 Kms is a Very Light Rail test track and Innovation Centre. This is at Dudley Castle Hill where the former railway station site is being used to prevent passenger and freight trains to make Dudley the largest town in the UK without a railway station!

WhatsApp messages to People before Profit

6 Jan 2021

It is a very sad state of affairs that in my 25 years campaign to highlight the destruction of our urban railway lines in the Black Country and Brum, only one trade union member has agreed with me. Train driver Dave Parsons is a hero. His union, ASLEF is useless. ASLEF is on the side of the corrupt politicians and transport 'experts'. No agreement and support from a single  person in either the RMT or the TUC. Nor, from any  political party except one. LEFT UNITY has been magnificent. WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THE LOT OF YOU? Wake up and get behind me! timweller1@gmail.com

People must not be hoodwinked into accepting Metro tram extensions, underground and overground to replace/duplicate buses and even trains! £15 BILLION wasted when that money must go for Fare-Free Public Transport and electric buses on bus priority roads. Please email these exact words to Mayor at: alex.read@wmca.org.uk

and deborah.cadman@wmca.org.uk

Then forward the reply to timweller1@gmail.com  - me!

THANKS so much.

Should the slogan be: 'All top VIPs deserve a pay freeze', because 100 Kms of W Mids railway lines obliterated as urban congestion and air quality worsened. Other railway lines are being converted to tramlines to complicate and slow public transport journeys.  PROTEST! The £100s of millions should go to give  everyone free travel and not just my age group. WRITE: mayorsoffice@wmca.org.uk

Deborah.cadman@wmca.org.uk

Andy.Street@wmca.org.uk

Thanks Stuart. You have your heart in the right place - fighting injustice and greed and obvious wrongdoing. Keep it up. Like fighting for care workers and nurses getting a much fairer share of the cake, as one railway union boss said he wanted to do in an interview I heard. But did he do so?

Am I right in thinking that the Heartlands porters strike was about changes in shifts/working patterns that must be resolved by talks?

Not military might but conflict resolution and diplomacy and talks ended the Troubles. 

If shareholders do so well, could the employees join in and use some of their savings to buy shares and make a nice profit?

Why not more workers control and co-operatives to show how it's done?

Corbyn and McDonnell had the right idea and I wanted them in government. Thanks for all you are doing on our behalf, Stuart. Tim

People must not be hoodwinked into accepting Metro tram extensions, underground and overground to replace/duplicate buses and even trains! £15 BILLION wasted when that money must go for Fare-Free Public Transport and electric buses on bus priority roads. Please email these exact words to Mayor at: alex.read@wmca.org.uk

and deborah.cadman@wmca.org.uk

Then forward the reply to timweller1@gmail.com  - me!

THANKS so much.

Should the slogan be: 'All top VIPs deserve a pay freeze', because 100 Kms of W Mids railway lines obliterated as urban congestion and air quality worsened. Other railway lines are being converted to tramlines to complicate and slow public transport journeys.  PROTEST! The £100s of millions should go to give  everyone free travel and not just my age group. WRITE: mayorsoffice@wmca.org.uk

Deborah.cadman@wmca.org.uk

Andy.Street@wmca.org.uk

Don't job losses mean we must have Universal Basic Income to ensure we meet every need for food, clothing, shelter and the lucky wealthy meet their responsibilities to deliver a caring, sharing community. What do you think?

I want people fighting the climate emergency by putting the urgent need to slash greenhouse gases BEFORE PROFIT. The money we spend must go to slashing fossil fuel use, urgently. We all have to be worried but then act, quickly NOW!

In this day and age, why can't there be co-operation, consensus, compromise AND talking to avoid these insensible strikes? Give and take on both sides. What went so wrong? Please explain for this puzzled old man. Tim Weller

In all this wonderful activity, don't forget the sheer wickedness of the bosses spending £500 m on destroying the UK's last mainline railway for trams and a test track. This, in Dudley when its desperately needed for TRAINS to help out Brum.  Tim Weller

The former Dudley railway station site is to be used for a tram stop on the UK's last, virtually ready built, mainline railway. WAKE UP TO ACTION from the people rising up in writing to the authorities who are clueless and hopeless. Still time to save the 120 Kms railway! Power to the people but the people have to overcome apathy, acquiescence and paralysis. Tim Weller HS2 for £106 BILLION; Half a billion for trams and test track to destroy the half used 120 Kms Black Country Railway! So-o-o many of the public schoolboy bosses are so clueless, we should be demanding a national railway strike to save the 120 Kms Black Country Railway! And to stop the sickeningly rich plutocrats getting their HS2 with our money.So-o-o many of the public schoolboy bosses are so clueless, we should be demanding a national railway strike to save the 120 Kms Black Country Railway! And to stop the sickeningly rich plutocrats getting their HS2 with our money. ReplyForward

Twitter to UK Tram Ltd

Light rail or "bus on rails" trams (UK Tram) are the second most expensive transport mode after £200 m/Km HS2. Ten times more expensive to construct than rebuilding Borders Railway in 2015. Brum's Eastside ext is £133 m/Km. This is a national scandal and waste, to replace buses.

Are new standards for light rail engineering applicable to the heavy rail sector and even to HS2 and Eurostar, in order to save greenhouse gases and finite fossil fuels without compromising on safety?

The World Cup of Highest Grossing Transport expenditure ever. Even more expensive to construct than most Maglev projects in China, Japan and S Korea. Second only in greedy self-aggrandisement after HS2. I have the shameful evidence for you! "The climate emergency is all nonsense"

UK plc must be a laughing stock to our international friends.

Thanks so much, Donald.  You seem to be very comfortable and reassured by Tim Martin and I don't understand why!!

Is it not very peculiar that some bridges are being replaced with new to take light and heavy rail but not all of them, according to Tim Martin?  Once the trams are using the bridges that are not being upgraded to take freight, how on earth can the whole Metro service be stopped for months to allow the bridges to be strengthened or replaced to take trams and freight trains?

Why is the RFG so relaxed about the 120 Kms being only available for freight at the top and bottom ends, with the middle section being made impossible by the use of trams, a test track and, even an extended cycle-walkway from Brownhills to Lichfield?  The existing cycle-walkway is on the UK's last mothballed mainline from Walsall to Brownhills.

Why is the RFG not wanting to see a growth in railway freight by having the whole of the 120 Kms being used for freight?

Why do they appear to be as complacent and as apathetic and as acquiescing as everyone else at seeing yet more of their infrastructure taken off them for umpteen purposes, other than the very one that the railway lines were designed and built and used for - for over 150 years?  And trams on this important freight and passenger line has been the intention since Metro was dreamt up by the West Midlands County Council in 1981, according to Wikipedia!  (WMCC resurrected as WMCA)

How can freight, diverted from the Camp Hill line, be put on the Metro 6.7 Kms and on a 2 Kms test track in the middle of the 6.7 Kms?  Perhaps, the freight trains will only be able to be run at night.  But why complicate life for a railway industry that was barely able to cope before Covid?

This all seems complete insanity and incompetence, to me!!  "They know not what they do."  UK plc must be a laughing stock to our international friends.

Anyway, best wishes and thanks so much for your interest and for engaging, Don.  You are a pleasure to know!

Tim

Change, nature, waste

 CHANGE - change in the light of changing times.  Not just climate change but change in resources.

NATURE - we are part of nature; live in tune with nature and her life support systems.

WASTE - refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle.  Cut back on waste of energy, resources and railway lines still not destroyed but available but still not reinstated for their original purpose.

METRO IMMORALITY - the flaunting of wealth and over-indulgence to excess; because it is more expensive to construct per Km than HS2 and almost every maglev train project in China, Japan and South Korea.

Mother Nature is our sustainer.

 Mother Nature is our sustainer.  We are part of nature.  We are nature.  We are a microcosm of the macrocosm.  But we have forgotten that.  Or, somehow been brainwashed into thinking that we have nothing to do with nature or, that nature can be exploited.  And, if we go on exploiting the way we are, whatever we do to nature, we do to ourselves.  It is insanity.  My great ambition is how to rewrite the balance

Never-ending hypocrisy is me but there is no never-ending me!

Thanks so much for saying you won't be signing.  I'm always fascinated to hear both sides of the story if you would like to give me your reasons - please!  I am open to persuasion and always want to be wrong because I feel that would be the more comforting stance for me, personally.

I was even opposed to the Channel Tunnel being built from when it was announced in the 1980s!  That, of course, was HS1.  And such a hypocrite that I am, I have even used Eurostar on two separate occasions.  But never-ending economic growth and never-ending infrastructure building (and never-ending everything else, including hypocrisy) is all part of the human condition, I fear.  St Greta is great!

Four possible challenges for NHS/Social Care

1. Resurgence of the virus
2. Disruption of health and social care
3. Backlog on non-Covid cases
4. Flu epidemic 

What the Rail Freight Group says about the conversion to tramline and test track.

Tim, thanks for your message.

 

It is imperative that the planning of the railways provides proper capacity and capability for freight services, where the customer demand is there.  For services to and indeed through the West Midlands there are a number of  challenges, not least the expected capacity issues on the Water Orton corridor, restrictions at Kenilworth and a lack of suitable terminals for the construction sector. 

 

For traffic coming from the south west/ Wales, the route via Stourbridge to Walsall could be a useful link, if the right upgrades were in place along the line of route.  Our position has been that it must be assessed in conjunction with the developing passenger proposals on other routes, which could lead to freight being diverted. 

 

Many thanks,

 

Maggie Simpson OBE

Director General 

Dear Maggie and Tony

Thanks very much for replying.  Lovely to hear from you.

I would be fascinated to understand - over my 25 years of writing, phoning and speaking to individuals and groups about this 120 Kms freight/passenger route that is virtually ready built but unused - why, nothing whatsoever has happened!  Why has RFG, and even Tony Berkley to whom I gave details at a Railfuture conference, shown no wish to do anything about it?  Not even to continue to keep it safeguarded/mothballed for eventual, possible use "in the 2040s at the earliest", that is Network Rail's wish!

 BOTH SIDES OF THE CASE, here

Why have you all been fully in support of the 56 Kms missing gap, between Stourbridge Jct and Burton on Trent, being given over to a 6.7 Kms tram, 2 Kms VLR test track and an extended cycle-walkway from Brownhills to Lichfield?

It does seem a most tragic waste but, obviously, you do know better.  However, please explain why you are so happy to lose this half-used, 120 Kms Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance" to both freight and passenger use.

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

By the way, you could Maggie, still save the 50 Kms that is not getting the tramway and test track.  And, it is very much cheaper, even at this late stage, to abandon the £449.5 m tramway to allow your freight trains.  See my like for like comparison study, here

 Like for like comparison of infrastructure buil...

Please do put me right as to your reasons for opposing freight use on the full 120 Kms, especially when you may be losing freight opportunities on the Camp Hill line - Kings Norton, Kings Health, Moseley to Grand Central Shopping Centre and Basement Station.  The Black Country Railway may help you as the alternative line - the diverted route.

 TPA Gt British Transport Competition p 16

But you will have to act very quickly, now!

Christ before Paul

Thanks Dave for this thought. For Christians, and for everyone, the glorious life and teachings of Jesus must come before Paul's letters to believers 2,000 years ago. We, in the wealthy West need, urgently, to return to the simple, sustainable lifestyle of Christ. Moderation, treading more lightly on the planet, non-violence. Especially, renouncing the ugly flaunting of wealth and over-indulgence to excess we are seeing with HS2, Metro and Sprint extensions. Living in harmony with the powers of the earth to support life.

What troubles me is that the world's most violent and powerful nation - and the very richest - has the highest proportion of born again, Bible believing Christians. All of whom love the theology and teaching of the Apostle Paul more than the demanding ethics of poverty, chastity and non-violence of their Lord and Saviour - and, their Lord and Saviour should not be dear Paul whom they do love.

Twitter to Andrew Tromans

Well done, Andrew. I do the same. You can help with your party getting behind the full, sensible use of our Dudley railway line. Shuttle trams go on 6 Kms but that still leaves 50 Kms for commuter, regional TRAINS. It's all built for TRAINS, too! Save resources, slow climate rot

An official £106 BILLION for HS2 is £106 billion of deadly greenhouse gases, of foolish destruction of nature and, loss of finite resources and land on a planet that, unfortunately, is not expanding in line with our every greedy demands.  It is not very much more foolish than the half a billion going for the part conversion of the UK's last mainline railway to tramway!