> Craig Haber <albatross@harnessnet.com.au> wrote in article
> <3546BE75.6016@harnessnet.com.au>...
> > DJ NightShade wrote:
> > > Did any one see the report on rail saftey on ACA Tonight? (28/4)
> >
> > No, so could someone who did please summarise what was shown/said?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > CH.
> > --
> > Craig Haber
> > albatross@harnessnet.com.au
> > Manufacturing Systems Engineer (almost)
> > Web Page Designer, Harness Racing, Railways, and Essendon Football Club
> > fanatic
> > http://www.harnessnet.com.au/
> > The report was a bit too long to summarize in detail, but basically it
> underlined the poor standard of maintenance of track. It showed track
> workers who are being paid to come to work and do nothing, supposedly Rail
> Access don't have the funds to operate the machinery to repair the tracks.
> One part of the report seemed to be centred on Goulburn. The piece of the
> main south shown looked to be around Medway/Marulan area. Several rotten
> sleepers were shown, with only about one in four being sound. The dog
> spikes (or whatever you call them) were lifted out of three consecutive
> sleepers to demonstrate how easy it would be for the track to spread.
> An XPT travelling over this length of track showed the track lifting as the
> train passed over it. Another section of single track (somewhere out west
> toward Dubbo) showed the running rails to be severely vertically
> misaligned, an 81 class was shown bucking over this section at fairly low
> speed.
>
I did not see the program, but on the basis of this it sounds like the usual
media beet up. Three loose dogs in a row is certainly not a major didaster, and
ant track taken with a telephoto lens over a long distance can be made to look
terrible. This sort of program (and I have seen similar ones in Queensland
several times) is usually full of total rubbish, made by and for people who
have not got a clue about acceptable infrastructure maintance standards.
-- Bruce L. Greening bgreeni@ibm.net Townsville Queensland, Australia