Re: Vale Vic Steam (and all special trains?)

[Yuri J Sos<steam4me@dingoblue.net.au>]

On Tue, 27 Mar 2001 14:28:03 GMT, fjones@pipeline.com.au (Frank Jones)
wrote:

>and the fines are apparently quite substantial.

I'm told there are fines in the order of $10k (I've also heard $30k)
arising out of the delays on SRV's Robinvale trip where VLP's trains
were delayed at Bank Box on the down and Castlemaine on the up.

I'm also told that the Evil Empire will no longer allow its employees
that are accredited to operate steam locomotives to accept steam jobs
unless the steam working is on a RDO with an RDO on either side of it
(ie three days off in a row, steam crews can work a steam train on the
middle day).

Also steam personnel who have a ticket to drive/fire on tourist lines
may not operate similar locomotives on the mainline regardless of
their level of experience unless they first qualify as diesel 2nd
persons, shutting the door on that avenue of crewing.

If the above is true, this essentially will mean that the availability
of VLP steam crews will become almost non-existent and it will be left
to independent operators such as WCR and GNR to supply steam crews who
are also fully qualified in mainline diesel operation.

Coupled with the removal of infrastructure and the access battle that
FA and the Vic Gov are just warming up to, mainline heritage steam has
certainly been "jeffed" in Victoria (on a par with the Fed Gov saying
that Telstra can't function efficiently while being government-owned,
but it's ok for Optus to be (foreign) government owned, but don't
start me on that <G!>).

Yuri.