Mix up over capacity, constantly and always!

You can only alleviate capacity constraints on the WCML by building an exact duplicate intercity line to stop at all the stations of the present one.  NOT a high speed line which means that trains are too fast to stop at the stations on the intercity line.  Is that right?  YES!

High speed can never duplicate the intercity line because the stations are far fewer on the HS line.

"HS2 doesn't duplicate and wasn't intended to duplicate. There is no need to duplicate, but there is a need for more capacity especially going further north than Birmingham

"The west coast line is old and in a poor condition, it can't really be widened because it goes right through big towns and cities like Coventry

"When I use Avanti I often go from Birmingham to Euston, i don't  need a train that stops at other stops to do this, so passengers like me will go on HS2 which allows more capacity to be used on the old line. Is that hard to understand ? The old line will be used mainly by stopping trains."  David Gaussen

Therefore, intercity stations like Coventry will get a worse service. A downgrade for the old intercity line and for the old intercity towns bypassed by super-duper HS2. I'm not impressed, David.

Even less impressed with what follows, which everyone in Railfuture have also got behind over these last 45 years!

You have all overseen the destruction of the very correct Beeching closures which I'm sure he never intended or expected to be obliterated. 

200 years ago tramways were turned into railways. RailNOfuture has fully supported our two former mainline railways being used for trams. Oh dear, oh dear! Fast forward to the past.

Trumpland Transport. 

 

Trumpland Transport in the West Midlands since 1981

If it ain't the Nazis laying waste the land with slaughter, it's the Israelis (you and I, again!)

 Thanks so much, John.  Not one good, proper, evangelical, born again, Bible-believing Christian, it seems, agrees with me over USA/UK/Europe/Israel's behaviour towards the Palestinians.  I think, only your good self and a retired Methodist minister have expressed concern to me in writing.

There remains a guilty silence from my one-time neighbour, Leon Evans, the Senior Pastor of Lifecentral in Halesowen (the former Zion Christian Centre).  My son and his family attend the church.  The church and my son (with both our wives) are all firmly on the side of Israel and they believe that the Lord is working his purposes out for the Return of Jesus Christ, after Armageddon, in the unHoly Land.  Armageddon has certainly arrived for battered, flattened, wiped off the face of the earth, Gaza.  All this with the full support of the 'Christian' West as we all piled in to help with our weapons, apart from WMD.  I also want Jesus to return, immediately but, the non-violent Christ of the Gospels.  Seemingly, too much to ask!

Lifecentral is easily the biggest and loudest church in town with even a mighty Christmas jamboree of a fun fair with big equipment hired in Somers Square in the town centre once a year.  John Bunyan would call it Vanity Fair (my name for the merry-go-round of billions of GHG emissions from Metro/HS2 fiascos and mix ups galore!).  Lifecentral is rarely, if ever, seen at meetings and events of our Churches Together in Halesowen because they are a cut above the rest of us and, because we are ecumenical, I suppose.  (GHG = greenhouse gas)

I will copy Lifecentral into this for them to correct me - please!  Linda has just told me that Lifecentral does indeed take part in the yearly ecumenical Week of Prayer for Christian Unity - BUT, by incorporating their normal, every Friday morning prayer session into the Churches Together calendar for this week of praying for Christian unity.  However, their prayer session is always at 6.30 in the morning, on EVERY Friday every year, and Linda is the only one who attends out of all the other churches in town once a year.  Hardly surprising at 6.30 am.  The other churches have their prayers each day, in this Unity week of the year, at a less unearthly hour but never to be seen, I expect, is a single Lifecentral member, let alone one of their pastors/leaders.  Only Linda goes to theirs and it's always all men, apart from one dear Afro-Caribbean sister in one year!!

I would value your thoughts on what I have written, below:

3 short Christmas reflections - nothing changes and revenge every time

Our Judeo-Christian War on the Palestinians must be reinforcing Putin's conviction that in attacking Ukraine (for becoming part of the West) he is truly attacking Nazis.  (Our side slaughtering Palestinians and laying waste their scrap of land reminds me of what our side did under the Nazis.)

One December 2025 Radio 4 'Crossing Continents' is showing evidence that the 20% Israeli Palestinians are becoming the new Jews, ripe for persecution by the 80% Israeli Jews. 

You and I are the problem in this sad world of ours. Only our side must dominate, and be The World Power Of All Time. Sharing and balance and toleration are all totally unacceptable!

More at timweller1.blogspot.com and timweller1@gmail.com

I now think that Russia needs its own Monroe Doctrine and, somehow, needs to be rehabilitated into the community of peace loving (or, more realistically, war hating) United Nations. I am currently watching four 59 mins documentaries called 'Putin, Russia and the West' on BBC iPlayer. Very revealing over Western interference and over enthusiasm that our culture/democracy/religion is the only true one and, therefore, must dominate throughout the world!

I have also found a book by a former BBC Russian correspondent, Martin Sixsmith and his son(?) Daniel Sixsmith, called 'Putin and the Return of History: How the Kremlin Rekindled the Cold War', extremely helpful. This is from Amazon:

"An original history of Russia's thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin's politics and rekindled the Cold War.

"Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has reshaped history. In the decades after the collapse of Soviet communism, the West convinced itself that liberal democracy would henceforth be the dominant, ultimately unique, system of governance - a hubris that shaped how the West would treat Russia for the next two decades. But history wasn't over.

"Putin is a paradox. In the early years of his presidency, he appeared to commit himself to friendship with the West, suggesting that Russia could join the European Union or even NATO. He said he supported free-market democracy and civil rights. But the Putin of those years is unrecognisable today. The Putin of the 2020s is an autocratic nationalist, dedicated to repression at home and anti-Western militarism abroad. So, what happened? Was he lying when he proclaimed his support for freedom, democracy and friendship with the West? Or, was he sincere? Did he change his views at some stage between then and now? And if that is the case, what happened to change him?

"Putin and the Return of History examines these questions in the context of Russia's thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin's politics of aggression: the enduring terror of encirclement by outsiders, the subjugation of the individual to the cause of the state, the collectivist values that allow the sacrifice of human lives in battle, the willingness to lie and deceive, the co-opting of religion and the belief in Great Russia's mission to change the world." 

The other quite superb book you might already know is the 2022 published, authoritative guide to the Middle East: 'The Making of the Modern Middle East' by the brilliant, articulate, fair, level-headed and, speaking in such moderate/reasonable tones - Jeremy Bowen, the BBC's International Editor. Bowen is despised by the Israeli lobby but that, for me, is a badge of honour.

No protest over Iran's murderous behaviour; only over Israel's murderous behaviour! WHY?

"Fascinating to observe the almost total silence from loudly pro-Palestinian celebrities & media figures re the courageous Iranian protestors risking their lives for freedom and democracy. Suggests their hatred of Israel overrides intellectual honesty and principle." Piers Morgan

Hooman Majd

@hmajd

·

Jan 14

Oh come on, Piers. People protested Gaza because their

governments were militarily, financially, and morally

supporting the carnage, and they wanted to pressure

their governments. No western country supports the

Islamic Republic.

Protesting against Iran in the west has zero effect on its

calculations.

to Cllr Tom Russon

Many thanks for writing.  Great to hear from you.  How did you find the "historical (back to 2009) pictures", please?

My response to your points, although you might want to re-read what I have previously penned, too:

1.  You need to go back to the 1990s/00s, I think, for the thick coverage of trees and shrubs planted by the DfT or Highways England or whatever they were called at the time.  It took place on the wide section of central reservation between where the remnant can be seen, now, eastwards up to and beyond, east of Lapal Lane South.  This is the area where I eventually got something done but it was so disappointing - only cherry trees planted that have had gaps for a very long time.  I asked for a full reinstatement of what was originally there but only got, eventually, the lollipop trees.  This, again, gives you the exact area for replanting.

2.  Such a wide central reservation must still have mowing once a year in a strip one metre maximum width from the carriageway.  This answers your objection.  The rest should be left with no mowing to sequester CO2 and to cut GHG emissions from burning oil to run the lawn mowers.  No mowing regimes are seen in many other councils throughout the UK.  It is nothing new!

3.  In my 78 years, I have never before seen such an enormous roundabout, as we have with the Grange roundabout (A456/A459), without even grass.  It is the gateway to Halesowen and Dudley borough from the M5.  It remains a shame, indeed an embarrassment to us all.  Over the decades, some of my visitors have commented on the black, bare, Nature devoid, barren, 30 metre diameter roundabout.  When the snow comes, Hilary Bills told me, that drivers have been known to drive straight over it despite signs and chevrons.

4.  I will pay for the two or three standard, native, medium sized trees from the Woodland Trust, if professionally planted and staked, on the other side of the footpath from the 5G mast and boxes.

The two officers, Reece Shilvock and Wayne, at council offices in Leasowes Park need to have it suggested that engaging politely and professionally is better than angrily throwing me out at my audacity at approaching up the drive!!  I've only ever seen Reece once, he never replies to emails and I do wonder whether he does do any work.  Andrew Allison, clearly does exist from his email which covered only one out of four requests.  He also needs challenging over his ridiculous claim that trees cannot be planted because of cables and pipes under the tarmac.  So why is it that the Grange roundabout may well be the only major roundabout on a gateway route with nothing but black tarmac and not even grass?  And, therefore apparently, the only one with utilities/services under it.  Where is the evidence of those pipes and cables underground?  It is the ugliest in the UK.  All the others are professionally landscaped from what I have seen.  Even in Dudley!

You youngsters can learn a thing or two from ancients like me who has now lived in the same house in heavenly Halesowen for exactly fifty years this month.  At 28 Hunnington Cres, Halesowen B63 3DJ.  It also proves that a now mature tree where I planted it, on my front lawn years ago in front of the house, will not disrupt pipes and cables.  The roots must have grown past them and our new drive did not damage the tree either.

Remember, a literal interpretation of Net Zero means that we should be burning up fossil fuels only if Nature can be reinstated in sufficient quantities and quality to absorb CO2 (one of five  major greenhouse gases).  Hence, human activity must be in balance with life support systems, aka ecology or Nature.

to Keith Whitehead

Thanks, Keith.  LR and VLR are unnecessary diversions from addressing the Climate and Nature crises and the decline in the most popular and best used and universal public transport - buses.

Reporters: -  Mark Andrews has been the best over the years and, for human/social justice stories, Jane Haynes is great.  Both copied into this so that you now have their emails.

That is terrible news, especially for the residents of Park Road.  VLR is an utter waste of time and money but it is simply part of the nationwide drive to spend money on so many wrong things in order to get economic growth/environmental destruction - but when there are right and sensible things which can be done - like Trains Back on the Tracks (the name for my blog).  About 100 Kms remain in the W Mids awaiting trains NOT TRAMS!  See Railfuture's map:

​Nothing has changed since 2003:​

 Railfuture's full map.pdf

​One photo says it all!  The bridge has been in place but empty since December 2003 when the M6 Toll was opened.  The authorities build railways and then forget to put TRAINS on them, as here:​

 M6 Toll banner 01.jpg

​The railway lines were nicked over the 23 years but the route is now becoming a cycle/walkway on the Walsall to Lichfield section of the former principal mainline railway from London to Edinburgh - Trump's influence:​

 M6 Toll 03.jpg

​I have achieved little in getting on for 40 years of pointing out that trains go on railway lines and buses on roads directly.  And, certainly, buses do not need to be replaced with "bus on rails" trams (Tram HQ/16 Summer Lane quote).  VLR is one of 9 public transport modes - ridiculous.  Can I remember them all?  Lets try:

High Speed - greedy and destructive in a tiny country like England

Regular heavy rail - ESSENTIAL

Light Rail - nice but a luxury and accelerates Climate problems galore.

Your VLR in Coventry and our VLR test track on the former London-Dudley-Edinburgh principal mainline at Dudley Castle Hill!  What I expect from unhinged Trumpland NOT England.

Ultra light rail - Stourbridge Shuttle in my borough which is excellent on 1.2 Kms single track.  SENSIBLE.

Regular buses - ESSENTIAL so make them free for all to address Climate, congestion, pollution.

Sprint buses - greedy luxury.  The bus that thinks its a tram.

Guided busways reportedly coming to Hagley Road instead of Metro tram extension!  Waste of money = more GHG emissions which have to be cut.

Hydrogen fuel cell/Battery electric buses - ESSENTIAL    That makes ​9!​  I make three as ESSENTIAL and one SENSIBLE!

9​ modes to mean more changes and delays between the different modes.

Change and become very anti!

Very many thanks.  It's all such fun and games and never a dull moment!  I do like Ed Stourton, Evan Davis, Jeremy Bowen, et al.

My dear wife is one of the evangelicals who is also a Messianic Christian, supporter of American evangelicals and loves Michael Youseff.  She is one of our church leaders and preaches to us all and me when it is her turn every three weeks!  I do NOT send her my stuff anymore and we usually keep off the topic but disagree amicably enough.

I was once an evangelical and street preacher in my youth.  Hence my marriage to another evangelical.  I've changed my views but Linda has remained a born again, Bible-believing Christian.  I'm a back sliding renegade but who still loves the life and teaching of Jesus - and my super wife.  We've recently discovered a wonderful new IRANIAN cafe in Halesowen.  Linda has known Iranian Christians in the past.  We had lunch there yesterday.

What do they say about people like me who leave once strongly held views and then become very anti that former position?

Complicit: Britain's Role in the Destruction of Gaza

"From one of Britain’s most celebrated political journalists, a fearless and forensic indictment of British complicity in the destruction of Gaza.

In a gripping narrative informed by original reporting, Peter Oborne tells how Britain’s Conservative and Labour parties converged to back Israel’s criminal assault—in the process occupying disturbing common ground with the far right.

Rather than challenge this political cartel, British media colluded in its misrepresentations. The shocking result was that, as British authorities helped Israel set Gaza as well as international law aflame, almost everything the public was told about this momentous conflagration was untrue.

When citizens still turned out in their hundreds of thousands to demand a ceasefire, roiling the nation’s politics as they stayed faithful to the ancient British tradition of popular protest in defence of liberty, the political-media machine bared its fangs. The investigative reporting in this book exposes the methods by which peaceful demonstrations were smeared as “hate marches”.

Formerly chief political commentator at the Daily Telegraph and Spectator, Oborne knows the British establishment from within. In this book he names names and provides receipts. His demand is accountability—for atrocities, and their accomplices."

Peter Oborne:

Bush/Blair's 2003 invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq was disastrous.  Blair is too close to Israeli establishment.  2 or 3 times he went to Gaza.  All male and no Palestine or Arab members of Board of Peace. 

Hundreds of violations of ceasefire and hundreds killed and injured since ceasefire began.  Looks like a foreign protectorate like the Mandate given to Britain after First WW.

Mediterranean Riviera in Gaza. 

'Our' side, the Israelis, always win or gain from any benefit of the doubt over Palestinians.

Would there have been all this fuss if it had been Palestinian fans banned from supporting their side in the game against Aston Villa? I doubt it.  One law for Israel, another law for Palestinians.

I would have liked the Chief Constable to have defended the decision to ban the Israeli fans more robustly.  AI should never have been used.  But that mistake was not worth the cost of early retirement for the taxpayers.  He should have kept his job.  The decision to ban was clearly the right one and that mattered most to save his job.

The powerful will not even share

 The pro Israel lobby does not support sharing the unHoly Land with Palestinians. They greedily want the lot - from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. Every act of first terrorism and then war since 1945 has furthered that end as the Palestinians have been subjugated or subsumed by coercion, force and violence.

Does Christianity have the highest moral standards?

"Donald Trump seems ever more confident about deploying the immense military power at his disposal and the moral and legal questions keep coming."  Edward Stourton, BBC Radio 4, 'Sunday' 18 Jan 2026

"The capture of the Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro, the attacks on alleged drug-running boats off the Venezuelan coast, the threats to strike the regime in Iran, the determination to take Greenland even though it is the territory of a fellow NATO member, the musings about invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act so that active-service troops can be deployed on the streets of Minneapolis - all of these things raise profound legal and moral questions. Edward Stourton speaks to the Catholic archbishop Timothy Broglio who leads the United States Archdiocese for the Military Services. "Sales of the Bible have rocketed according to data from Britain's biggest Christian publisher, SPCK. For most of the 2010s they ran at a reasonably steady rate - between two and a half and three million a year - but they began to take off in 2021, and last year they hit over six million three hundred thousand. This comes amid claims of a religious revival being led by younger people."

The large majority of evangelical and other Right-wing MAGA Christians voted for Donald Trump in 2024, it seems from a report I heard on Radio 4.  Earlier that year, in a Stourton interview with Dr Michael Youssef, a prominent American evangelical, we heard Youssef say that he would never have Trump as a Sunday School teacher but would vote for him in November 2024 because of his strict, unyielding stand on abortion.

In other words for this evangelical, the killing of the unborn is a worse crime than killing the born.  Hence, we even had the survivors of Trump's recent attack on a Venezuelan alleged drug-running boat all being killed, too.  Dear Pastor Michael unashamedly puts killing the unborn of greater importance than killing the born when Donald says that is necessary!  Emperor Donald trumps the commands of God, "Do not kill/murder."  Since the conversion of Emperor Constantine every empire has excused the slaughter of humans when the Emperor says so.  Pastor Michael says that's OK because it is in line with Paul's Romans 13 v 6 ("the authorities are ministers of God").  However, it is over-ruled by the life and teaching of Jesus Christ which must always have priority when there is a clash.

For the last 1700 years, Christians have been subsumed, been bought off, by every empire on earth.  The Christians have betrayed their Saviour, Lord and Master.  Except the Quakers, the Mennonites and the Amish.  The JWs, too!

For the American and British evangelical and Messianic Bible believing Christians, allegiance to wonderful Emperor Trump and awe-inspiring, forever President Bibi, comes before their Lord and Saviour.

For the last 1700 years, the Judeo-Christian world of Europe and Russia/Ukraine must have the worst track record of coercion, force, violence and slaughter out of all the world faiths we humans have embraced in our history.

The third branch of the Children of Abraham, the Muslims, cannot come near to the appalling record of 'man's' inhumanity to 'man' when it comes to the People of the Bible from their first entry into the Promised Land of other tribes.  1948 was the second, I believe.

Total annihilation of the Gazans, following the example of what the Israelites did to the people of Jericho and the Amalekites, was only saved by friend Donald.  Even so, the killing continues, but at a slower pace, in Gaza and the West Bank.

The evangelicals and Jews who elected Trump, now have aggression towards Greenland, in addition to the Palestinians (quite apart from the Lebanese and Iranians) on their conscience.

Something is very amiss in today's churches and synagogues.

The NO mudbath bike ride on 8 August!

Thanks so much for pointing out that my email is suggesting walking and cycling the Dudley section which is the mudbath for up and coming young hippos to bask in - not us!

In the first two years, Chris and I did do the whole lot from Fens Pool Avenue and, in a wonderful 40 Kms circuit, too which is quite superb in taking in the flooded, pot-holed, dark, forbidding and frightening Netherton Tunnel!!

Last year, we started at the Woodland Trust Himley Plantation car park and cycled to the first cafe on the route, at Wombourne, and did absolutely no more but talk/drink!  This year, I want to suggest to Chris that we meet at Himley Plantation car park once again on the 8 August but, keep going until we get to the second cafe, in the old Tettenhall station, called Cupcake Lane cafe, Smestow Nature Reserve, Terrace, The Old Station, Meadow View, Wolverhampton WV6 8NX.  After all that puff and panting, finally coffee and cupcakes galore before the cycle ride back to the car park.  CupCake Lane is on Facebook.

The South Staffordshire section, where we meet to walk/cycle away from Dudley's dire, deadly, drowning in mud mudbath, is all tarmac and is mud and puddle free - FANTASTIC!  Share With Care heaven.

on Andy Street's Facebook page

Tim Weller

Dear Andy, for your seven years in charge you were stoutly supporting TfWM in their foolish policy of tramways on TWO mainline railways instead of trains reinstated and on bus routes that needed electric buses directly on roads WITHOUT rails, first!

I voted for you three times, Andy but, in your seven years of giving top priority to trams, not one short Km of railway line, out of about 100 Kms of existing but wasted lines, were ever open! STILL, today, the Kings Norton, Kings Heath, Stirchley, Grand Central commuter train service is not open after very nearly ten years since the announcement that it would no longer be used for trams! This wait is totally unacceptable, Andy. Please come over to my side.

re Saturday 8 August 2026

It would be lovely to have you and your family/friends joining Linda and me on Saturday 8 August 2026 to walk, cycle or horse ride part of the UK's most forgotten but most important urban-rural-urban 'Black Country Cycle-Walkway'.  It runs from Fens Pool Avenue, Brierley Hill to NW Wolverhampton via Wombourne on two former railway lines.

The idea is to try and raise the profile of the full 20 Kms route for commuter, leisure and business users.  And, as a practical road alternative for one time cycle commuters like me who, now, are OAPs but still cycle to joyously ditch the car at every opportunity!

My friend, Chris and I, ride it once a year to also try and get the authorities to make the disgraceful Dudley section fit for wonderful, good, upright citizens like ourselves instead of for the dirt bikers, quad bikers and 4x4s who trash the route and part of the nature reserve in Gornalwood that this active travel route goes through.  Hence, we have the dreadful, mudway paradise for the mudlarks in the part of Dudley next to the Barrow Hill Nature Reserve which the cycle-walkway goes through!

It would be lovely to meet you on Saturday 8 August if you can make it.  Two popular cafes are on the route!

from Jonathon Porritt

The growing realisation that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been killed since Israel invaded Gaza, including tens of thousands of children under the age of 5, many of whom were killed by a single bullet to the head or chest, may have something to do with it.

Many still think that it’s entirely inappropriate to compare Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza with the attempt by the Nazis to exterminate all Jews during the Second World War.

Gaza is Israel’s open extermination camp for the Palestinian people.

Please wake up to what is happening.

Jonathon Porritt      13 January 2026