My suggestion to re-open Stourbridge to Walsall

[Old Hill Bank]

The roads running north south through the Black Country are stuffed full and seriously congested. The reasons for that are not totally acknowledged by the elected representatives of the area. The fact is that much of the traffic originates from North Worcestershire and Staffordshire because the public transport alternatives are so uninviting compared with the car.

Light Rail is fine for the short commute or shopping trip but is most unattractive for anyone who needs to travel any distance. Re-opening Stourbridge-Dudley-Walsall and perhaps Lichfield opens us up to a lot more options.

A Kidderminster-Walsall service with stops at Brierley Hill, The Waterfront, Dudley, Wednesbury and Darleston has the potential to improve the situation. Add in the option to go to Aldridge it's better.

Now if Walsall-Lichfield were to be done the options and the potential benefits expand. You could have people on part of our route getting services that run from Gloucester to Derby giving us connections to the North East and South West. We could even have a station at Alrewas where the National Memorial Arboretum is (what a good idea it was to put that there with no rail link).

As for freight, the Lickey route is going to get busier soon and there is a need for options to get into and through the West Midlands. Put in Bescot Curve and we have an alternative route into Birmingham from Stourbridge.

 

[dvboy]

Proposals to open a metro line from Brierley Hill to Walsall linking Dudley Port and Wednesbury are being considered again as part of a wider rail/metro review at Centro.

 

[Old Hill Bank]

Proposals to open a metro line from Brierley Hill to Walsall linking Dudley Port and Wednesbury are being considered again as part of a wider rail/metro review at Centro.

That is no solution to the issue, it needs more.

 

[edwin_m]

That is no solution to the issue, it needs more.

The Metro option has two huge advantages: it can serve Merry Hill, which is too far below the railway to be accessed by heavy rail, and it can serve the centre of Dudley, which is too far above. By missing these two major detinations a local heavy rail service would miss most of its passengers too.

A tram-train alternative has also been looked at, but the heavy rail component would be a freight bypass for the Lickey and Cross-City line and perhaps a passenger diversionary route, not a regular passenger service.

 

[The Planner]

Centro keep getting lukewarm on it too, if it was really such a big thing for them they would be pushing it like no ones business.

 

[satisnek]

My understanding is that this route has always been disadvantaged simply because it doesn't radiate from Birmingham. Consequently I can't see that a Gloucester-Derby service avoiding Birmingham would work.

As for freight, there is potential which a light rail scheme would destroy. I once heard that it was the freight traffic on this route which was responsible for keeping the line between Kidderminster and Droitwich open during the immediate post-Beeching era, which stands to reason if you look at the level of passenger services back in the 1970s.

 

[moggie]

The beeb ran an article on the ultra light rail proposal the other evening. Another self serving academic waste of time and funds. If they ever were to re-instate a service along the route to include Dudley and Merry Hill just how many carriages do they think they'll need on each service? A stretched version of a PPM running as a single car? Comical. Have they checked how many people use proper trains at Cradley Heath? They ought to if they don't want to start off with as a totally inadequate laughing stock of a project that will be crying out for funds to expand before the paint is dry.

Like a.n.other has stated, a regular interval stopping service up the Lickey in a couple of years or so will have freight looking for paths let alone those who will undoubtedly use a passenger new service. The Old Hill route offers little alternative. Don't scupper the one alternative remaining for some hopeless academic vanity project to please a few vested interests and another pointless research facility that will never find a market to sell it's invention to.

 

[TorqueOfTheDevil]

We could even have a station at Alrewas where the National Memorial Arboretum is (what a good idea it was to put that there with no rail link).

Could you suggest a better site for the Arboretum which would have combined easy access from a railway station, a plot of land large enough, and a location close to the centre of Britain, which was available less than 20 years ago?

 

[edwin_m]

As for freight, there is potential which a light rail scheme would destroy. I once heard that it was the freight traffic on this route which was responsible for keeping the line between Kidderminster and Droitwich open during the immediate post-Beeching era, which stands to reason if you look at the level of passenger services back in the 1970s.

The light rail scheme as developed by Centro and NR 10 or so years back made allowance for a third track for freight trains. The tram would have had a short single line section under the bridge at Dudley Port with the second trackbed reserved for freight. There would have been double track for freight through the tunnel at Dudley where the trams would have gone over the top through the town.

The tram-train alternative would of course allow for freight as well. I don't know what if any provision the ultra light rail option would make.
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Could you suggest a better site for the Arboretum which would have combined easy access from a railway station, a plot of land large enough, and a location close to the centre of Britain, which was available less than 20 years ago?

Just north-east of Tamworth?