Birmingham's pathetic transport W*nkfest!

Birmingham’s crazed “Lefties” have been jacking and jilling off in recent weeks about two rubbishy new public transport systems, an extension to the city’s medieval Metro [sic] system and the opening to passengers of the Camp Hill Line (aka The Albatross Line) which will be a drain on taxpayers for ever and a day. But these dire offerings are not going to raise Britain’s now “Third City” back above Manchester to “Second City” status and, compared to many places on this earth, they are risible.

The “Metro” has been around for years. It is not an underground system but simply a very costly tramline. It is so archaic, and the local populace so feral, that each tram has to be wo/manned by TWO people - a driver and a ticket collector! Inevitably, it is very expensive to use.

The original tramline was from that land of the living dead, Wolverhampton, to Birmingham but it is gradually being extended at eye-watering cost and subject to horrendous delay. Astonishingly, the new lines will also require two staff on each tram!

Meanwhile, in China (where tech is revolutionising car travel and public transport) new trams carrying 300 to 500 passengers are being operated autonomously (though, at present, with a driver to take over in an emergency) without the phenomenal costs involved in laying tracks. Yes, the trams run on rubber tyres along a “digital rail” painted on the roadway. They are fully electric and zero-emission.

A real “Metro” - that in Paris - already has autonomous trains despite the power of the French Trade unions. Indeed driverless trains are being extended both on the current network AND to FOUR brand new lines. Unlike Brum’s small extensions the lines are adding 120 miles of network and not just in and out of  the City Centre. Loops are being created to link the outer suburbs. The new lines boast - yes! - 68 new stations, many of them genuinely “state of the art”.

Of course, the “Left” is viciously anti-car (despite Brum’s history and residual SUV manufacturing - lol) and obsessed with public transport. The advent of electric cars has caused panic amongst these haters since it partly removes the question of emissions (at least until fuel sources are renewable) and noise. Clutching at straws, they rant about the perils from tyre particles causing pollution instead. They also blame car batteries for making vehicles heavier, and thus increasing damage to roads. Perhaps they should take a trip down Meadowsweet Avenue in Kings Norton and see how the heavy, er, buses have gouged the surface, and also ask why the outgoing Labour administration brought the city so low it can’t afford to repair its roads. [Don’t hold your breath with the new Coalition of Chaos who may never be able to agree a budget.]

Autonomous cars are  a game-changer and so a particular threat to the Leftists - which is why Labour, the Greens and Lib Dems are scrambling to close roads to all traffic as soon as possible. Never mind the economic damage - to people like Cllr Izzy Knowles (Lib Dem) public consultations must be ignored, and the gates slammed shut to cars NOW in the hope that they will never again be reopended.

Any Brummie who watched Michael Portillo’s recent journeys in Japan and South Korea will have been close to weeping. Of course, both countries have problems, not least demographically, but he passed through vibrant city after vibrant city. As Birmingham sinks down to sh*thole status, with an enormous worklessness emergency and a hatred of capitalist endeavour, Portillo portrayed exciting, thriving, energetic conurbations.

As far as the railways are concerned, he portrayed a truly different world. Japan pioneered the bullet trains and claims to be nearing a new age of high-speed maglev inter-city trains. [Unlike the toy that used to be at Brum Airport these will sit in purpose-built troughs.] Everything was magnificent and a far cry from the cattle trucks of the likes of Cross Country rail. And, some of the lines in Japan are, wait for it, privately-run!

Whilst we are throwing billions at HS2 the canny Koreans simply bought their system off France. [Portillo went on to Uzbekistan which bought its system off Spain.] Once again the cities were positively pulsing with life.

Birmingham has always been a fur coat and no knickers sort of place, and this was amply demonstrated by money being blown on the “top” of New Street Station to make a new shopping centre whilst leaving the diesel-choked hellhole of an actual train station beneath substantially unaltered. Compare and contrast the stations on the Portillo programme or, nearer to home, Berlin.

Despite the "Left’s" supposed “green” twinge the local masturbators cheered the fact that the trains on The Albatross Line are, er, DIESEL and will go into that self-same choking hell-hole that is New Street. You can try and reach it by the perpetually failing escalators if you can't be bothered to take an electric bus.

And guess what? These small trains also have to have TWO operatives each. This is 2026! Oh, and the current Labour Government's new trade union laws - which are intended to take us back to those halcyon [not] pre-Thatcher times -  will mean that vital steps to automate these rubbishy services are destined to fail.

When we posted on social media that The Albatross Line will never make a penny of profit we were genuinely shocked by the Leftist pile-on that this was actually a good thing! Yes, these anti-capitalists are content to see scarce resources spent on a crappy train route rather than, say, cancer patients or education.

Well over a year ago I prepared a very short note for social media use describing how nationalisation is not the panacea the “Leftists” hope for. I have shown it below but note that already these economic illiterates are pleading that more tickets on The Albatross Line should be doled out free of charge. No doubt when an election is looming some such scheme will be hatched.

Incidentally, the initial media photos of the Albatross Line showed stinking diesel trains of four carriages. Recently some local people have taken to social media to complain that recent trains have often only consisted of two coaches. We wonder why that might be ... LOL!

To my mind, Brum should have been a leader in autonomous car (and bus/tram/train) research and development. Taxpayers money could have been invested to good effect. But that ship has sailed with China and the US so far ahead they are out of sight. Yes, there are teething troubles, but that hasn’t stopped places like Wuhan already having a fleet of 1,000 driverless taxis, or Qingdao deploying the same number of autonomous delivery vehicles. But Birmingham needs to be ready to adopt the technology and open the city up again rather than increasing the size of gated, hate-filled, bourgeois, leftist ghettoes.

Incidentally, China is also way ahead of us on parcel deliveries by drone. What are the city’s leaders doing to embrace that technology? Even Darlington is ahead of the third city on that FFS. [Incidentally, China is already licensing some “flying cars” too.]

At least many people are ignoring Left-wing losers judging by the recent increase in new car registrations to pre-pandemic levels. And, living near The Maypole, the writer can hardly get down the road for Learner drivers as sensible young people eschew Socialist dogma and appreciate that being able to drive increases their employability, earning-power, and also gives that important thing the Left doesn't want them to have - FREEDOM!

And who knows what AI will bring to the Birmingham party ...

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