Re: Brisbane airtrain

["Bradley Torr" <truenorth@one.net.au.SPAMTRAP>]

John Coyle <nospam@newsranger.com> wrote in article
<IKRT6.141$pb1.3896@www.newsranger.com>...

> Dear Kev, you have misread my comments about overseas rolling stock. 

People have a funny way of misreading your comments, don't they John?

> But, believe it or not, both India and China build quite good quality
rail equipment. 

I don't want Aussie taxpayers' money going to fund a communist régime in
China, or a country which allows multinationals to use child labour! Keep
it local, or at least in the western world!

> 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!

More like "QR went back into the boardroom and started devising ways to buy
rolling stock from offshore so as to avoid expensive local wages" or "QR
decided to ring around among other local rolling stock producers like
Goninan or Comeng and are waiting to get quotes from them".

> 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!

Hell, if they ever followed your advice, they just woulda been sacked that
much quicker....

> 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. 

Indeed, because they treat their blue-collar workers like absolute crap
with starvation wages and abhorrent conditions that would have confounded
the creative writing powers of Charles Dickens. Do you really want QR to
buy new rolling stock from countries like these? I think Aussie taxpayers
would rather spend $6 million on creating local jobs and keeping local
industry alive, than spend $2 million that will disappear overseas and
simply make multinationals think 'Hmm, let's relocate our industries out of
the western world and put factories up in the Third World, he he he,
snicker snicker snicker'.

You haven't even addressed the fact that there may be trade tarriffs and
duties on imported rolling stock either (I damn well hope there are).

> 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!

Alex Pout did the arithmetic on this one. Refer to his post for a concise
refutation of your dodgy maths. If you keep going, you might be our next
Federal Treasurer!

Regards
BT