Re: Metcard (sorry)

[mccallum@melbpc.org.au (John McCallum)]

In article <1998081404581300.AAA24631@ladder01.news.aol.com>, markbau1@aol.com (MarkBau1) wrote:

><<<<<<<Where Melbourne went wrong was re-inventing the wheel rather than buying
>off-the-shelf equipment from Switzerland or Germany.>>>>>>

>David, I think you hit the nail well and truly on the head with your statement.
>Sadly the poor excuses for Engineers at Collins St have a history of trying to
>reinvent the wheel in order to justify their jobs.

>They thought they could do better than Farr so they reinvented the exhausts on
>our early diesels only to be threatened with a copyright infringement. They
>created the greatest mess inventing their own radio systems and a bit later
>their own crazy safeworking systems. The really hilarious part was when they
>thought they could market the mess called ASW or whatever its called now to
>other railways when the PTC couldn't even get it to work properly themselves.


>Fact is that very few VR/PTC "Engineers" could get a job outside of the
>sheltered workshop in the real world!

>Mark.
I can think of quite a few other areas where VR/Vicrail/VLine went wrong.
It seemed to have started before the 2nd world war when they designed a loco 
that was too heavy for the line it was meant to work on. I will leave you to 
guess which loco, but its number was 220.
This was followed by the Hitachi suburbans, which could not keep their wheels 
circular.
Then the underground loop, which caused awkward workings at Flinders Street, 
Spencer Street and North Melbourne, and also required more tunnels than Sydney 
in order to carry less trains.
There was also the C class diesels, which repeated the Heavy Harry saga all 
over again.

Can anyone else think of any more?

John McCallum