Re: Revival of the old railcars

[David Langley <del@ancc.com.au>]

Graham Duffin wrote:

> It seems rather amazing that several rail operators in Australia are
> returning (or attempting to return or keep in service) old railcars
> for regular services.
> There is talk of QR 2000 railcars returning on Helidon services, NSW is
> going to refurbish the Newcastle 620 class so they can keep running and
> Victoria has been trying to run Bluebirds.
>

I would have thought that as long as the mechanics could be kept in good
order and the steelwork was not about to collapse then most railway
vehicles given an interior refurbishment to relativelky modern standards
would still give some years of good service even if only in peak times
enabling the available money to be directed to areas where there is no
alternative to buying new.

I have always thought that the Melbourne tramway system did the wrong thing
by storing all those W class trams when they could easily have been spread
around the system and use for the occasional peak roster seeing that we did
not buy enough new trams to entirely replace them. That way the newer trams
could also have been spread around to cover all trips on say evenings and
Sundays.

Of course a tourist benefit would be that it would be possible to travel
all over Melbourne in our revered W class trams which our govt is on record
as agreeing that they are a Melbourne icon for tourists and then does its
level best to remove them.

DEL.