Talking Telford: Landslip nightmares knock Telford's transport infrastructure off-track
I wrote last week about my long-held belief that Telford is well on track to becoming a modern city to be proud of - sadly, the powerful forces of irony were intent on making a mockery of Telford’s transport network.
For if a large British city had faced the kind of travel nightmare that has now descended on Telford, there would be investigations, inquiries and outrage for weeks - or more outrage than usual, anyway.
A landslip perilously close to the main Wolverhampton-Shrewsbury railway line discovered between Wellington and Oakengates stations on Friday set alarm bells ringing and meant all services had to be called off immediately. That was an inconvenience for people trying to get home on Friday, who had to rely on rail replacement buses, but as luck would have it the line was due to be shut over the weekend anyway for engineering works. In my eternal optimism and total ignorance of engineering, I wondered whether the pre-arranged closure could simply cover the time to repair the landslip and things would be back to normal by Monday.
