Vocal Voices

Been listening to a programme on Radio 4 about Network Rail. Seems a special train which was designed and built to install new support poles and cables for the Great Western line from London to Southj Wales is not fit for purpose. It cost about £50 million. It cannot drill through some of the ground. If it does drill it can affect the units in adjacent signalling boxes or it drills through existing underground signalling cables.
Also, the concrete mixing plant is not working correctly so the concrete used to support the posts is not up to specification.
It also mentioned the new carriages which have been ordered for this track. They are longer than the existing ones and as a result they will catch the edge of the platform at Bristol which is curved.
Carriages now being used on the line to Gatwick which are electric will be transferred to the north and will have to be pulled by diesel engines. This will cause more wear on the track on which these trains will run.
And they call this progress!!

That is very shocking. But somehow at the same time, not surprising.

You could not make it up!

As for the trains, our fairly modern and comfortable ones on the Trans-Pennine are being sent down South. And we are getting the old Gatwick shuttles in exchange to power the Northern Powerhouse. The reason they are pulled by diesels is because the electrification of the line is being "delayed".

By comparison, it's wonderful how the pioneers of our railway system managed to achieve so much - without the use of
all the fantastic electronic technology now available. Perhaps they would do better to throw out all their computers
and get down to some real engineering (if they are capable, which I doubt).

Interestingly the pioneers of the railway system didn't think very much of brakes. More about power and movement. It took some very serious accidents and people killed before the government legislated and forced the train companies to put reasonable brakes on the trains.

It seems that the entire early history of the rail system was driven by greed and massive profits at the cost of the commuter. Not something history really goes on about much.

Today it seems to be a complete lack of joined up thinking. I'm not surprised, monopolies are often like that and government sponsored monopolies are the worst of the lot. What they need are some audits and some serious penalties to the directors for this kind of cockup. The problem is that if the directors try and push down solid change with sackings if the people in the middle and bottom don't comply, the unions will shut down the transport system...

Whilst I love to hate the unions, in this case I believe they are not at fault. I just believe that they continue whatever kind of inertia is in place and if the inertia is wrong and killing the system, they fight any changes to make it better...