>Terry Flynn wrote:
>
>> Time tables are devised to suit locomotives used, time tables can be
>> changed. If total journey time is 10 minutes longer, so what, as long
>> as that is the advertised time, and the service is reliable and
>> connects with other services.
>>
>Timetables cannot simply 'be changed'. There are:
>Commercial factors (departure/arrival times, overall journey times,
>times for connecting services)
>and
>Operational factors (train crossing and pathing, turnaround times etc)
>to be considered (among other things).
City rail have recently changed its time table again. Can't private
enterprise do this, espically for such a low density passenger
service?
>If you increase the journey time, you will lose passengers. Why do you
>think passengers prefer the express trains? Because you get to where
>you're going _faster_. Who (other than railfans (: ) want's to spend
>all day getting to where they're going?
1800 HP for 4 car trains using steam era track geometry is not going
to make a sigificently faster service than road, only keep costs high.
Remember the Silver city commet using 1920's technology had only about
1000 Hp and was one of Australias faster trains.
>> Purley politicians balanceing budgets to get re elected next time,
>> they don't care about long term survival of railways.
>
>That's exactly right - they don't care. Private companies do. That's
>why private rail operators will be successful, while governments will
>offload as much of their rail responsibilities as they can.
Privatisation will not work in Australia because transport costs are
artifically kept low due to government funding. Queensland and NSW
governments care for their railways, otherwise they get voted out of
government. As for privatisation, the last truely privately owned
passenger railway service, as opposed to a tourist opperation was the
SMR. Did not last long. No profit, no passenger service, thats how
private companies care.
>> Were is the new trains and railways associated with the WCR, just
>> recycling what the PTC sold.
>
>What difference does it make? We've been through all this before Terry,
>a 40 year old B class will get to Warrnambool just as fast as a 10 year
>old N class, so what difference does it make? Ditto the carriages,
>which remain safe, comfortable, airconditioned etc etc. V/Line are also
>still using S and Z type carriages, as do WCR.
The difference is it costs more in admistration cost to use the
privatisation structure, and means less revenu is retained by the PTC.
A properly funded PTC could purchase a cheaper to run modern passenger
train.
>> In the long term this type of semi privatisation will cost more for
>> the tax payer, resulting in greater pressure to close the rail system.
>> The current victorian system will limit infracture investment thus
>> limiting the ability of rail to compete with road and air transport.
>
>Rubbish - private rail will remove a massive liability from the
>taxpayer.
How? Purely right wing rubbery figures. If this was true, after all
the privatisation of government services in recent years, our
government charges and taxes would be less. This has not hapened. In
fact I can think of examples were charges have increased above
inflation.
>Terry, take a look around you....where do you propose investment in
>Victorian rail is going to come from? Haven't you noticed - the
>government is BROKE. Not only broke, but BILLIONS of dollars in debt.
>Where's the "government investment" going to come from? NOWHERE. It
>ain't coming! V/Line has new Sprinters. Just great. Yours and my
>taxes are paying for them. Does that make the investment worthwhile? I
>don't think so. Will they last long enough to every pay for
>themselves? Apparently not, they bend kind of easy......
Ballanced budgets does not equal broke, also taxes raise money for
governments, and governments can raise loans to fund revenu earning
railway projects. This was done for over 100 years very sucessfully
and continues to be done, the result is one of the Worlds great rail
transport systems. In the same period of time, many private railways
in Australia have come and gone.
>If WCR (or any other company) invests in rollingstock, the cost will
>come out of their pockets, not the pockets of taxpayers.
If the profit is small as you claim, it cannot afford to buy modern
equipment.
>If private companies have sufficiently long contracts which allow them
>to recoup their investment costs, then they'll invest....but we've been
>through all this before, and you don't seem to have understood that.
Long contracts means lack of competition and no flexibility on how to
best use government property.
If private railways can operate profitably under current conditions,
why don't we see railways being built by the private sector without
government subsidies?
>Cheers,
>Craig.
>--
>Craig Haber
Terry Flynn.