Re: City Rail Who would buy it anyway ?

[craigd@lios.apana.org.au (C. Dewick)]

"Mitch" <this.is.not.my@email.address.com> writes:

>Anyone who could manage it would do a great job. Imagine this.. instead of
>getting new rolling stock every year, the old ones are actually [shock
>horror] cleaned and maintained properly. This means that the apholstery is
>replaced, the train is ungrafitiised. Another thing they might think about
>is single fares. There would be a set entry price for the railway [say
>$3.00] and you could go anywhere. It would not change for children, adults
>or pensioners, a set fee. This works in NYC. This would effectively wipe out
>ticket staff reducing costs greatly. Tickets would not be needed, only
>turnstyles for entry [put in CityRail coin, and walk through] and exit [just
>walk out].

The Sydney rail system is *much* larger physically than in NYC, and the
population density overall is *much* smaller than in NYC, so a fixed-fare
token-based system would be very difficult to introduce and generate enough
revenue from, except in the areas around the immediate CBD and the Bondi
line.

>CityRail's land alone would be worth a LOT of money. A lot of prime real
>estate.. and not so prime real estate.

That's why a hell of a lot of it (such as about 40 percent of the space at
Chullora) has been sold over the last 10 years, and State Rail has divested
itself of just about all it's staff housing. This house I live in is
ex-railway, built in the late 1890's, and was bought by me in 1998. It was
lived in previously by the SM at Oatley for about 25 years.

Regards,

Craig.
--
            Craig Ian Dewick            |       Stand clear - jaws closing
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