RE: City Circle 'W' s back in service.

[Vaughan Williams <ender2000@MailAndNews.com>]

Oops, accidentally deleted Daniels question.

I didn't ask how much the pitmen cost but you could work it out yourself 
(maybe $100k a year)

The W's have returned to manual slack adjustment as part of the 
modifications. 
The department person in charge of it admitted to me that the slack 
adjusters 
were the major cause, though not the only one, of the problems. He said 
their 
removal was necessary but not sufficient to make the brakes satisfactory. 
The 
problem is not so much the rate at which the W's brake but the fact that the 
more modern trams brake more quickly. They were concerned if they left the 
original system there, there would be too many W's running up the bum of the 
tram in front and possibly killing the driver as the W's offer little driver 
protection. Apparantly the union had something to say about this.

I think the track brakes AND the speed restriction together constitute 
overkill but he sort of did convince me that something was needed beyond the 
return to manual slack adjustment. He did say emphatically that will be the 
last experimentation with auto slack adjustment while he has anything to do 
with it!

Vaughan

Vaughan Williams
Secretary
Public Transport Users Association
247 Flinders Lane
Melbourne 3000
http://www.ptua.org.au