Re: Brisbane airtrain

["Al" <alpout@optusnet.com.au>]

> >> On a related issue, I discussed the problem of the high cost of buying
new
> >> passenger cars with John Atkin, who was then, the Traveltrain Manager, at
> >QR. My
> >> suggestion was to obtain good quality second hand passenger cars, in
> >particular,
> >> diesel rail cars, from Japan, at a much lower cost that buying new
> >equipment. I
> >> also felt that QR could explore options such as India or China for the
> >purchase
> >> of rolling stock. The reason that I even raised the overseas "option" is
> >that
> >> Walkers have offered a "quote" to QR of six million dollars per two car
> >set, for
> >> diesel rail cars. That is way too high a price to be viable for QR to
> >consider!
> >> Mr Atkin was talking about obtaining rail cars to replace trains such as
> >the
> >> "Westlander" and "Inlander".
> >>
> >>
> >So importing clapped out 50 year old Indian rollingstock that even they
> >don't want to replace Westlander and Inlander stock is your solution. I
> >thought you were a lobbyist FOR railways. Half a dozen posts ago , you were
> >complaining about EMU's on the Airport line. But maybe you are right. Lets
> >give the tourists something to talk about - let them hang off the outside
of
> >an old wooden coach and fill the inside with brochure and luggage racks.
> >
> >Kev
> >
> >Dear Kev, you have misread my comments about overseas rolling stock. I
meant scond hand rail cars from Japan, or new equipment from India or China,
not second hand rail cars from those countries! If we did get second hand cars
from India, that would mean "clapped out shit", for sure! But, believe it or
not, both India and China build quite good quality rail equipment. I tried to
overcome the narrow minded attitude at QR, that as Walkers said, six million
dollars for a two car set, QR gave up! John Atkin and Glen Dawe were both
sacked by the new CEO at QR. No before you jump to any funny conclusions, it
was nothing to do with CFPT!
>
> Anyhow, the real point made to QR was, other counties in our region do build
> high quality rolling stock at far less cost than here. Look at it this way,
if
> QR spent $500,000 on a second hand two car diesel set from overseas, and
another
> one million dollars rebuilding the train, or more, for that matter, they
would
> save four million dollars, per two car set!
>

I'm just wondering how you get $500K (cost of importing a set from overseas) +
$1M (cost of refurbishing it, ok "or more", but is more going to mean a 50%
increase in cost there?) + $4M (savings over new Aussie made set) to equal $6M
(cost provided by Walkers).  Where'd that extra half a million go?

Al